Katy Lied

''Katy Lied'' is the fourth studio album by American rock band Steely Dan, released in March 1975, by ABC Records; reissues have since been released by MCA Records due to ABC's acquisition by the former in 1979. It was the first album the group made after they stopped touring, as well as their first to feature backing vocals by Michael McDonald.

In the United States, the album peaked at number 13 on the ''Billboard'' Top LPs & Tape chart, and it has been certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The single "Black Friday" charted at number 37 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100.

Recording

The album was the first one recorded by Steely Dan after guitarist Jeff "Skunk" Baxter and drummer Jim Hodder left the group as a result of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen's decision to stop touring and focus solely on recording with various studio musicians. Guitarist Denny Dias, a founding member of Steely Dan, contributed to the album as a session musician, as did vocalist Michael McDonald and drummer Jeff Porcaro, who were both members of Steely Dan's final touring band. Then only 20 years old, Porcaro played drums on every track on the album except "Any World (That I'm Welcome To)", which features session drummer Hal Blaine. Larry Carlton, who became a regular collaborator of the group, made his first appearance on a Steely Dan album playing guitar on "Daddy Don't Live in That New York City No More".

Band leaders Becker and Fagen said they were dissatisfied with the album's sound quality because of an equipment malfunction with the then-new dbx noise reduction system. The damage was mostly repaired after consulting with the engineers at dbx, but Becker and Fagen still refused to listen to the completed album.

The album was remastered in UHQR (ultra high quality record) in 2024 by Acoustic Sounds and reissued on vinyl and digitally on February 7, 2025.

Lyrics

"Black Friday", which features Michael Omartian on piano and David Paich on Hohner electric piano and was released as the first single from the album, relates the story of a crooked speculator who makes his fortune and absconds to Muswellbrook, New South Wales, Australia, as, according to Fagen, "It was the place most far away from LA we could think of". The town also "fit the metre of the song and rhyme with 'book'", though Fagen did not realise that locals pronounce it "Musselbrook" (omitting the "w").

Title and packaging

The album's title comes from the lyrics of "Doctor Wu" ("Katy lies / You can see it in her eyes"), and the album cover is a picture of a katydid, a "singing" ( stridulating) insect related to crickets and grasshoppers, as a pun on the title. Walter Becker told ''Rolling Stone'', during the band's 2009 tour: "It's about that uneasy relationship between the patient and doctor. People put faith in doctors, yet they abuse their power and become dangerous." The back cover photograph of Donald Fagen (in reindeer sweater) and Denny Dias (in overalls and sombrero and holding a tank of helium) was taken by Becker during the session (sometime in 1972-73) for their Schlitz beer jingle.

Critical reception

Reviewing the album in 1975 for ''The Village Voice'', Robert Christgau said that, while ''Katy Lied'' might be Steely Dan's "biggest" album to that point, he found it "slightly disappointing" on a musical level, citing the loss of lead guitarist Baxter and what he perceived as "cool, cerebral, one-dimensional" jazz guitar influences. Nonetheless, Christgau admitted that he played the album frequently, and he voted it the third-best album of the year on his ballot for the 1975 Pazz & Jop critics poll, on which it placed sixth. John Mendelsohn was more critical in ''Rolling Stone'', writing that "however immaculately tasteful and intelligent" Steely Dan's music may be in theory, it did not register with him emotionally and remained "exemplarily well-crafted and uncommonly intelligent schlock". Mendelsohn found the lyrics interesting, but inscrutable, the musicianship tasteful and well-performed, but not stimulating, and Fagen's singing unique-sounding, but seemingly passionless. In a review in ''Rolling Stone'' from 1977, Cameron Crowe called the album "anonymous, absolutely impeccable swing-pop" with "no cheap displays of human emotion".

Retrospectively, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic described the album as "a smoother version of ''Pretzel Logic''" and "another excellent record" by Steely Dan. Travis Elborough wrote in his 2008 book ''The Long-Player Goodbye: The Album from LP to iPod and Back Again'' that ''Katy Lied'', while not on par with '' Pretzel Logic'' (1974) or '' Aja'' (1977), was still "up there as jazz rock staples go". In ''The Rolling Stone Album Guide'' (2004), Rob Sheffield said the album completed a trilogy of Steely Dan albums (the other parts being '' Countdown to Ecstasy'' (1973) and ''Pretzel Logic'') that is "a rock version of ''Chinatown'', a film noir tour of L.A.'s decadent losers, showbiz kids, and razor boys". Jazz historian Ted Gioia cited the album as an example of Steely Dan "proving that pop-rock could equally benefit from a healthy dose of jazz" during their initial tenure, which coincided with a period when rock musicians frequently experimented with jazz idioms and techniques.

Of lead single "Black Friday", ''Cash Box'' said that it contains elements that made earlier Steely Dan singles successful, such as "Hot Fender Rhodes piano tracks, lead guitar work, rhythm that won't stop cooking and identifiable vocals and mix that lets you know Gary Katz has been hard at work on the knobs."

Track listing

Personnel

;Steely Dan
* Donald Fagen – piano, keyboards, vocals
* Walter Becker – bass guitar, guitar (solo on 1, 2), personnel photos

;Additional musicians

* Denny Dias – guitar (solo on 7)
* Rick Derringer – guitar (solo on 8)
* Dean Parks – guitar (solo on 3)
* Elliott Randall – guitar (solo on 10)
* Hugh McCracken – guitar
* Larry Carlton – guitar (4)
* Michael Omartian, David Paich – piano, keyboards
* Chuck Rainey, Wilton Felder – bass guitar
* Jeff Porcaro – drums (all except 9), dorophone
* Hal Blaine – drums (9)
* Victor Feldman – percussion, vibraphone
* Phil Woods – alto saxophone (5)
* Jimmie Haskell – horn arrangement (10)
* Bill Perkins – saxophone (10)
* Michael McDonald – backing vocals
* Sherlie Matthews, Carolyn Willis, Myrna Matthews – backing vocals (6)

;Production
* Gary Katz – producer
* Roger Nichols – engineer, personnel photos
* Stuart "Dinky" Dawson – sound consultant
* Bob DeAvila – real time analysis
* Rick Collins – mastering
* Dorothy White – cover photo

;Reissue
* Vartan – art direction
* Michael Diehl – design
* Daniel Levitin – consultant

Charts

Album

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Singles

References

External links

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Complete lyrics

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Steely Dan albums
1975 albums
ABC Records albums
Albums arranged by Jimmie Haskell
Albums produced by Gary Katz