Make tonight a wonderful thing with The Dans of Steel...
Bay Area based band The Dans of Steel celebrates the music of Steely Dan, the prolific American rock band founded in 1972 by mastermind’s Donald Fagen and Walter Becker.
Started in 2017, it's a deserving tribute from five deeply soulful musicians who came together in admiration of the detailed craftings and artistic splendor of Steely Dan.
The Dans of Steel — Waddell Bell, Ronnie Smith, Dave Shul, Malcolm Marshall and Raliegh Neal — explore, “funkafy” and lovingly recreate songs from throughout the Steely Dan canon that brings together jazz, rock, and r&b sensibilities.
As seasoned musicians, they look to the actual session players that enrich each album Steely Dan has produced.
The Dans, all of them fathers (and at times Men of Steel in their everyday lives), enjoy heated conversations and long listening sessions together. Having a reverence for Steely Dan’s body of work, they often go deep into the large list of supporting musicians who lend their talents to creating the music's aesthetic, including the individual guitarists, bassist, drummers, pianists and vocalists.
The band aims to go beyond just Donald Fagen and Walter Becker by reaching in the bag of the often-unsung session musicians, whose skills created the groves, riffs, vibes and arrangements that still thrill us today. Members of bands like The Crusaders, The Doobie Brothers, Toto, Weather Report and so many others.
The music and compositions of the support musicians can be related back to the Steely Dan discography and in turn we begin to see how truly prolific this music was and still is.
The Dans of Steel is:
Waddell Bell - bass, vocals
Ronnie Smith - drums, vocals
Malcolm Marshall - dJ/vocals
Dave Shul - guitar
Raliegh Neal - keyboards, vocals