Steely Dan - Doing It in California: The 1974 Broadcasts (2015)

Partly because of Donald Fagen's reluctance to sing onstage, partly due to he and Walter Becker's perfectionism, and partly because the pairs' compositions and arrangements were so complex - requiring all manner of studio hardware to reproduce - Steely Dan played very few live concerts during their early career, indeed by the middle of 1974 they had given up touring entirely. The one album they did promote on the road however was their third masterpiece, the enigmatically titles 'Pretzel Logic', released in the USA on February 20th 1974. The tour started on March 9th, and this CD features the complete second show played by the group, at the University Of California the following night. The gigs would continue until July 1974 - after which Steely Dan would not play live again until they reunited in 1992. This excellent live broadcast recording is, therefore, quite a rarity; not only does it showcase the very best of the songs from Steely Dan's first three albums, it also features This All Too Mobile Home, a number that was never recorded in the studio. Furthermore, the remarkable version of Your Gold Teeth II included here is wholly different to the song of that name later released on the album 'Katy Lied' Bonus cuts here are taken from Dan's gig at the Ellis Auditorium in Memphis on the April 30th '74, plus a version of Do It Again recorded for the long running TV series 'Midnight Special' on which Steely Dan had been special guests a year earlier, in April 1973.