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Robin Lynam

Walter Becker
Circus Money
(Sonic360)
Fourteen years  is a long time between albums and, as Walter Becker himself puts it, 'a unique career strategy', but that's how long it has been since his last solo outing, 11 Tracks of Whack.
There have been two Steely Dan studio records in the interim, of course, and for his solo debut Donald Fagen  produced, but his regular partner is absent from this project, which makes it a little different, although most of the current Steely Dan touring band - also the players on Fagen's Morph the Cat  - were brought in for the sessions.
So was guitarist Dean Parks,  who supplied the 'talk-box' processed guitar part on the duo's reggae-influenced minor hit single Haitian Divorce  from 1976's The Royal Scam.
Becker (far right with Fagen) has gone back to 1970s and 80s Jamaican music for much of his inspiration here, and has found a new creative partner in producer Larry Klein  who co-wrote all but one of the tracks.
Klein - who produced Herbie Hancock's award-winning Joni Mitchell  tribute River - is also a bassist, but left his instrument in its case for these sessions. Becker, who has concentrated on guitar in recent years, has taken charge of the bass parts himself for this album, as he did on the early Steely Dan recordings, building the tracks around the interaction between his own playing and drummer Keith Carlock's,  overdubbing some of the guitar parts later.
Lyrically, he wears his early Bob Dylan influence on his sleeve and revisits some of the losers-in-LA themes he and Fagen explored on Gaucho.  His vocals - seldom featured on Dan material - lack the air of melancholy detachment in which Fagen specialises, and it's difficult to imagine him singing anybody else's songs, but the style works for these words.
Female backing vocalists offer a useful counterpart to his own technically rough and ready singing, and also recall an element of the Aja/Gaucho  sound.
Standout tracks include the well-observed sketches Three Picture Deal,   Selfish Gene  and the bitter Bob is Not Your Uncle Anymore,  but the quality of the words and music is consistent throughout. This will sell mostly to Steely Dan fans and few will be disappointed, although those who don't much care for reggae do have that hurdle to get over.



Walter Becker