Steely Dan - The Royal Scam Sessions

In this months mixtape, I included Steely Dan’s Green Earrings, a favorite of mine from one of my favorite albums they made. I know a lot of people love Aja and consider it a favorite, and while I do count myself among those who love it, The Royal Scam speaks louder and clearer to me. It’s got some of their most straight-forward yet still cryptic lyrics (see Haitian Divorce or Sign In Stranger) and the band still wants to get funky (Green Earrings, The Fez), all the while sounding like a cohesive unit despite a rotating cast of hired guns. It was a little smoother than Katy Lied yet not quite as serious as Aja, making it a perfect starting point for the uninitiated, barring the purchase of one of their greatest hits comps (if you’re gonna go that route, get A Decade Of Steely Dan. It’s a great selection of classics to whet your appetite without throwing you straight into the fire.).

Much to my bliss, there are some interesting Dan rarities to be found online, but I wasn’t sure how much studio content might be out there. The Dan are notorious for erasing outtakes and unused performances if they don’t deem them worthy of potential release. So, I was truly pleased to find outtakes and demos from for the under appreciated Gaucho as well as these instrumental basic tracks from the Royal Scam sessions. I’ve seen these labeled as rehearsal tapes of one sort or another, but apart from Don’t Take Me Alive which does have vocals, they sound far too professionally recorded to be merely rehearsals, especially since they so strongly resemble the finished tracks.

If you’re not a fan of The Dan or familiar with their works, this isn’t where you want to start. That said, fans and the unfamiliar will still find these recordings enjoyable as they are fun, funky and sound like a million dollars. Put this on while you’re doing housework or making dinner and you’ll be boogieing the whole way, especially through Green Earrings! Bernard “Pretty” Purdie is on drums on that one, and he’s worth whatever they paid him and then some!

I can’t give you any Steely Dan stories that haven’t been told elsewhere so I’m going to refer you to The Steely Dan Internet Resource, a very detailed site that will lead you to countless stories about the Dan and their cohorts. The Dan may be classified as overly mellow, yuppie music by some, but they are way too funky and creative to be boxed in with such a negative description. On top of that, they’re far crazier than many could ever imagine, so do yourself a favor and pay the The Steely Dan Internet Resource a visit, I’m sure you’ll be entertained and enlightened.


Steely Dan – The Royal Scam Sessions

01 Kid Charlemagne
02 Sign In Stranger
03 Everything You Did
04 Green Earrings
05 Don’t Take Me Alive