Steely Dan released Gaucho on November 21, 1980, through MCA Records. Their seventh studio album took Donald Fagen and Walter Becker’s attention to rhythm into unfamiliar territory. During work on “Hey Nineteen,” the pair turned to engineer Roger Nichols for a custom drum sampler that would let them adjust a performance beyond what they could achieve in an ordinary session.
The studio had become the center of Steely Dan’s work well before Gaucho. Fagen and Becker stopped touring in 1974 and increasingly wrote with particular session musicians in mind. By the time they followed 1977’s Aja, the group’s identity rested on the two songwriters and the players they assembled around each recording. Producer Gary Katz remained part of that process, helping turn their arrangements into finished records.
The problem on “Hey Nineteen” was specific: two different bands had tried the song, and neither attempt gave them what they wanted. Fagen told Sound on Sound in 2006 that they began using sequencing “out of desperation really.” They wanted realistic drum sounds with control over the placement of the kick and snare. Nichols said he could build the solution for $150,000. According to Fagen, the money came from the recording budget, and Nichols returned six weeks later with the machine they called Wendel.
That control came with its own delays. Fagen remembered Nichols entering lengthy strings of computer instructions before they could hear a single snare hit. Wendel could replace and reposition recorded sounds, but working with it was laborious. The finished rhythm concealed a great deal of work behind the console.
The musicians’ accounts show how much of the album still depended on finding the right performance in the room. Guitarist Steve Khan recalled on his website that he spent weeks playing the same songs with different drummers while the attention stayed on securing usable drum tracks. “Babylon Sisters” supplied a striking exception to the prolonged searching. In Khan’s recollection, Bernard Purdie played two takes, put on his coat, walked into the control room and announced that he was finished. Then he left. Khan described the resulting track as almost live.
The sessions also lost a song the team wanted to keep. An assistant engineer accidentally erased much of “The Second Arrangement,” a track favored by Becker, Fagen, Katz and Nichols. Attempts to record it again failed to produce a version they wanted to release, and the song was abandoned. The seven-track album ultimately closed with “Third World Man.”
The completed Gaucho reached No. 9 on Billboard’s American album chart, while “Hey Nineteen” reached No. 10 on the Hot 100. Its engineering received the Grammy for Best Engineered Recording, Non-Classical at the 1982 ceremony.
By then, the partnership had already paused. Fagen and Becker split in 1981; Fagen released his solo debut, The Nightfly, in 1982. They returned to touring together in 1993, but a new Steely Dan studio album took longer. Two Against Nature arrived in 2000, ending the gap between Steely Dan studio albums.
