(Credits: Far Out / Steely Dan / Shockwaves Records)
Tue 30 December 2025 21:30, UK
Much like The Velvet Underground or Roxy Music, few bands rival Steely Dan as arriving so fully realised from their studio debut.
Landing on the soft rock charts in 1972, Can’t Buy a Thrill immediately established the Steely Dan duo’s formula beloved by their devoted fanbase. Smartarse lyrics from core members Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, jazzy progressive songcraft fed through a piquant pop filter, and pioneering sonic polish eventually leading toward their studio-only operations a few years later, all seemed to waver precariously on the edges of the Eagles, yet pulled from the yacht brink via their idiosyncratic edge.
Helping Can’t Buy a Thrill to respectable album sales was its second single. Following ‘Do It Again’, ‘Reelin’ In the Years’ sunny but stinging jazz-rock send off to an old romantic flame would stand as Steely Dan’s first classic cut, never seeming to be more than five minutes away on any given classic rock radio spin to this day.
While shining with Fagen and Becker’s easy sophistication, Steely Dan’s hit is afforded extra gleaming endurance by the guitar chops of session man Elliot Randall, laying down a solo so celebrated that even Jimmy Page reportedly named the cut as his favourite solo.
For such an electric take, next to nothing in the way of rehearsal or preparation was held during ‘Reelin’ In the Years’ sessions. “I never plan a solo in advance,” he told Guitar Player in 2007. “If I did, it wouldn’t be improvisation, which to me is one of the most exciting things about being a soloist. What you hear on the Steely Dan record is the first recorded take of my response to the track.”
There had actually been one attempt beforehand. Plugging in his 1963 Fender Stratocaster into an Ampeg SVT amp – mainly used for the bass – in Santa Monica’s The Village Recorder, Randall attempted to imitate a saxophone via his Strat and cut his intro, outro, and solo licks all in one take. However, the final version heard on Can’t Buy a Thrill was the second recording due to an assistant engineer’s studio error, much to the chagrin of producer Gary Katz.
“I did an earlier run-through that many people in the studio felt was even better, but the tape machine hadn’t been armed and put into record mode,” Randall recalled. “From then on, Katz never let a run-through go by without ensuring that it was being recorded.”
Fagen and Becker were so impressed that they offered a permanent spot in the Steely Dan team, but Randall humbly declined. He’d go on to lay down guitar parts for the likes of Asia, John Lennon, and Peter Frampton, as well as routine work in TV and radio jingles, but Randall would always be defined by his inventive licks on ‘Reelin’ In the Years’.
Years later, he’d join Steely Dan on stage for their 2009 Hammersmith Apollo show and SSE Arena gig ten years later – and two years after Becker’s death – to unleash that magic solo to longtime fans in the flesh.
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