Steely Dan - Snowbound (1994)

After producing six of the very best albums of the 70's with Steely Dan, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen took a break from songwriting for most of 1978 before starting work on their next project 'Gaucho'. The project did not go smoothly, with technical problems, when an assistant engineer accidentally erased most of one of their favourite songs 'The Second Arrangement', and legal issues with their record label meant that the band could not release an album for over a year, with 'Gaucho' eventually appearing in 1980. These problems, plus some personal setbacks for Becker, went some way towards Becker and Fagen's decision to suspend their partnership for over a decade, officially disbanding Steely Dan in 1981. Fagen didn't waste any time, though, and released his first solo album 'The Nightfly' in 1982, giving him a platinum record in both the U.S. and the U.K., and yielding the Top Twenty hit 'I.G.Y. (What A Beautiful World)'. However, following this success, and writing the score for 'Bright Lights, Big City' in 1988, he recorded little in the following years. Becker, in the meantime, had moved to Maui, where he stopped using drugs, and became an avocado rancher and self-styled critic of the contemporary scene. Both men occasionally did production work for other artists, with Becker gaining some acclaim for his work with UK indie/pop band China Crisis, who were strongly influenced by Steely Dan. In 1986 Becker and Fagen performed on 'Zazu', an album by former model Rosie Vela, which led to a rekindling of their friendship, and they wrote some new material together between 1986 and 1987, but the results remained unfinished. 
In 1993/1994 the stars must have aligned, as both Becker and Fagen released solo albums at the same time, Fagen's second, and Becker's debut. Not only that, but Fagen co-produced and played keyboards on Becker's, and Becker produced and played guitar and bass on Fagen's, as well as co-writing one of the songs, 'Snowbound'. If only they'd got together a little earlier and considered reforming Steely Dan, they could have pooled their songs to produce an album that fans had been waiting over a dozen years to hear. As they didn't think of it, it's up to me to do it for them, taking what I think are the most Dan-like tracks from each of their solo albums, along with a couple of excellent out-takes from Becker, one from the Japanese edition of his album, and the other which was released by his estate following his passing in 2017. It will never be as good an album as if they had collaborated fully on the writing and arrangement of the songs, but it hangs together pretty well, and shows that neither artist had lost any of their songwriting skills following their decade-long semi-retirement in the 80's. I've named it after the one of the two co-writes on the album, and based the cover on that as well.  

Track listing

01 Snowbound (Becker/Fagan)
02 Book Of Liars (Becker)
03 Junkie Girl (Becker)
04 On The Dunes (Fagan)
05 Love In The 4th (Becker)
06 Teahouse On The Tracks (Fagan)
07 Fall Of '92 (Becker/Fagan)
08 Springtime (Fagan)

There was a slight update to this post, as neplicot suggested a couple of songs that I could have included, one of which I had completely missed. The Becker/Fagan co-write 'Fall Of '92', which was left off Becker's '11 Tracks Of Whack' album, is a great song, and would fit perfectly on here. I'm therefore replacing Becker's 'Medical Science', as while it's also a great track, I never really felt it fitted in with the others, whereas 'Fall Of '92' just slots right in.