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Donald Jay Fagen (, FAY-gən; born January 10, 1948) is an American retired singer-songwriter and musician who was the co-founder, lead singer, co-songwriter, and keyboardist of the rock band Steely Dan, formed in the early 1970s with musical partner Walter Becker. In addition to his contributions to Steely Dan, Fagen has released four solo albums, beginning with The Nightfly in 1982, which was nominated for seven Grammys.

In 2001, Fagen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Steely Dan. Following Becker's death in 2017, Fagen continued to tour using the band name until 2024.

Early life

Fagen was born in Passaic, New Jersey, on January 10, 1948 to Jewish parents, descendants of immigrants from Russia, Latvia and Austria who had arrived in the USA in the early years of the 20th century. His father was Joseph "Jerry" Fagen, an accountant, and his mother, Elinor (née Rosenberg), a homemaker who had been a swing singer in upstate New York's Catskill Mountains from childhood through her teens. His family moved to Fair Lawn, New Jersey, a small suburb near Passaic. When he was ten years old, he moved with his parents and younger sister to Kendall Park, a newly constructed suburban section of South Brunswick, New Jersey. The transition upset him, and he detested living in the suburbs. He later recalled that it "was like a prison. I think I lost faith in [my parents'] judgment... It was probably the first time I realized I had my own view of life." His life in Kendall Park, including his teenage love of late-night radio, would inspire his 1982 album The Nightfly.

Fagen became interested in rock and rhythm and blues in the late 1950s. The first record he bought was "Reelin' and Rockin' " by Chuck Berry. At age 11, his cousin, Barbara Cohen, recommended jazz music to him, and he went to the Newport Jazz Festival, becoming what he called a "jazz snob": "I lost interest in rock 'n' roll and started developing an anti-social personality." In the early 1960s, beginning at age 12, he often went to the Village Vanguard jazz club in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, where he was particularly impressed by Earl Hines, Willie "the Lion" Smith, and Bill Evans. He regularly took the bus to Manhattan to see performances by jazz musicians Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, and Miles Davis. He learned to play the piano, and he also played baritone horn in the high school marching band. He developed a lifelong fondness for table tennis. In his late teens he was drawn to soul music, funk, Motown, and Sly and the Family Stone. He has also expressed admiration for the Boswell Sisters, Henry Mancini, and Ray Charles.

After graduating from South Brunswick High School in 1965, he enrolled at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, to study English literature, where he met Walter Becker in a coffee house in 1967. Becker and Fagen attracted a revolving assortment of musicians, including future actor Chevy Chase, to form the bands Leather Canary, the Don Fagen Jazz Trio, and the Bad Rock Band. Fagen described his college bands as sounding like "the Kingsmen performing Frank Zappa material". None of the groups lasted long, but the partnership between Fagen and Becker did.

The duo's early career included working with Jay and the Americans, for which they used pseudonyms. In the early 1970s they worked as pop songwriters for ABC/Dunhill Records, which released all of Steely Dan's 1970s albums.