Eminent Hipsters Audiobook (Free)

A witty, uncovering, sharply written work of memoir and criticism from the cofounder of Steely Dan

Musician and songwriter Donald Fagen presents several vivid set items in his entertaining debut while an writer, from portraits from the cultural figures and currents that shaped him as a youth to an account of his university days and of lifestyle on the highway.

Fagen starts by introducing the “eminent hipsters” that spoke to him seeing that he was growing up in a bland New Jersey suburb in the first 1960s, among them on the subject of Eminent Hipsters Jean Shepherd, whose manic nightly broadcasts out of WOR-Radio “enthralled a era of alienated young people”; Henry Mancini, whose swank, noirish soundtracks still left their tag on him; and Mort Fega, the laid-back, experienced all-night jazz man at WEVD who was simply like “the cool uncle you constantly wished you’d.” He writes of how, arriving of age during the paranoid Cold War era, one of his primary doorways of get away became reading technology fiction, and of his invigorating trips into New York City to listen to jazz. “Class of ’69” recounts Fagen’s colourful, mind-expanding years at Bard University, the progressive college north of New York City, where he initial met his future musical partner Walter Becker. “Using the Dukes of Sept” presents a cranky, hilarious account from the ups and downs of a recent cross-country tour Fagen made out of Boz Scaggs and Michael McDonald, executing an application of outdated R&B and spirit tunes as well as some of their own hits.

Acclaimed for the sophisticated arrangements and jazz harmonies of his songs, Fagen shows himself a complicated writer with an extremely distinctive voice in this engaging book.