An old Steely Dan and new Fagen cover

Here are two coves that you might like to hear, especially if you're a fan of Steely Dan/Donald Fagen.

First out is a cover of Steely Dan's Rikki Don't Lose That Number that the U.S. duo Dawn did on a TV show back in the mid 70's. As far as we know never released on record.
Now some might argue that Dawn was a trio that had its first hit as simply Dawn before the male in the trio; Tony Orlando, was separated as far as the name goes and the trio was renamed as Tony Orlando & Dawn. For the slightly confusing story we direct you to this page on the group.

Dawn was a group that had great success in the genre of music that back then was called M.O.R./middle of the road or easy listening in the USA. These days it's apparently adult contemporary. Seriously.
Anyhoo... Rikki... proves how easy it is for Steely Dan numbers to work as laidback, easy listening, "elevator friendly" fodder.
The two ladies' names were (and are) Thelma Hopkins and Joyce Vincent Wilson.


It the comments to the video on YouTube the signature DELSTAR1 points out a Steely Dan/Dawn connection: Dawn's first hit Candida from 1970 was co-written by Toni Wine who later did background vocals on Steely Dan's album Gaucho! Click here for a blog post on the versatile and "unknown" Toni Wine.

Suss von Ahn

And from the 70's to 2009 and a brand new recording of Donald Fagen's Walk Between The Raindrops. It's by Swedish vocalist Suss von Ahn. We wrote a short blog entry about her back in October 2006. Her then new album Train To Stockholm featured a song titled Mystery Boulevard that had a distinctive Steely Dan feel to it. No surprise as she lists Steely Dan among her musical influences.

On her new record It's Only A Paper Moon she takes it one step further and covers Walk Between The Raindrops. Hear it on her MySpace-page. (Or Radio Dupree!)