Donald Fagen To Personally Oversee Steely Dan’s ‘Countdown To Ecstasy’ For May 26 Re-Release

The Pride of Passaic, Donald Fagen, is set to remaster Steely Dan’s groundbreaking 1973 second album Countdown To Ecstasy for a May 26 re-release on Geffen/UMe. This includes the album—with original versions of such Steely stand-outs as “Bodhisattva,” “My Old School” and “Show Biz Kids”—returning to vinyl. It’s all part of an extensive reissue program of the records made within the ABC and MCA catalog. (It follows The Dan’s 1972 Can’t Buy A Thrill debut last November.) The plan is to re-release those first seven impeccable albums, none of which have been available on vinyl for decades.

David Palmer, from Watchung in Somerset County, sang lead on their first album, was demoted to background vocals for the second album when Fagen gained vocal confidence. He then left the band completely to co-write “Jazzman” with Carole King that reached #2 in 1974. His own band, Wha-Koo, released three albums from ’77 to ’79. He wrote “Silhouette” for the 1985 movie Teen Wolf before going into digital photography of fine-art landscapes.

Next up will be 1974’s Pretzel Logic, their first Top 10, with the monster hit “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” followed by 1975’s Katy Lied with “Black Friday” and 1976’s The Royal Scam with “Kid Charlemagne” and “The Fez.” Aja, in 1977, went platinum, had three hit singles.  Gaucho, in 1980, featured guitarist Mark Knopfler and contained “Hey Nineteen,” Fagen’s pervy ode to trying to seduce a teenager.