On the turntable this Sunday...Aja

Aja (/ˈeɪʒə/, pronounced like Asia) is the sixth album by the jazz rock band Steely Dan. Originally released in 1977 on ABC Records, it became the group's best-selling album. Peaking at No. 3 on the U.S. charts and No. 5 in the United Kingdom, it was the band's first platinum album, eventually selling over 5 million copies. In July 1978, the album won the Grammy Award for Best Engineered Non-Classical Recording. In 2003, the album was ranked number 145 on Rolling Stone's "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list.

Donald Fagen has said the title of the album comes from the name of a Korean woman who married the brother of a high-school friend of his. The cover photo by Hideki Fujii features Japanese model/actress Sayoko Yamaguchi.

The album features several leading session musicians. The eight-minute-long title track features jazz-based changes and a solo by saxophonist Wayne Shorter.

Aja is the subject of one of the Classic Albums, a series of documentaries about the making of famous albums. The documentary includes a song-by-song study of the album (the only omission being "I Got the News," which is played during the closing credits), interviews with Steely Dan co-founders Walter Becker and Donald Fagen (among others) plus new, live-in-studio versions of songs from the album. Becker and Fagen also play back several of the rejected guitar solos for "Peg," which were recorded before Jay Graydon produced the satisfactory take.

When DTS attempted to make a 5.1 version, it was discovered that the multi-track masters for both "Black Cow" and the title track were missing. For this same reason, a multi-channel SACD version was cancelled by Universal Music. Donald Fagen has offered a $600 reward for the missing masters or any information that leads to their recovery.


On April 6, 2011, the album was deemed by the Library of Congress to be "culturally, historically, or aesthetically important" and added to the United States National Recording Registry for the year 2010. 

Read more at Wikipedia

What do Peaches,Paul McCartney and Atlanta all have in common?

I remember all my friends' and their cooler older brothers and sisters having Peaches Records & Tapes t-shirts and of course they kept  all their albums in this "peach" crate.  I can still remember being confused at the artwork on the Steely Dan cover of Aja leaning up against a crate in one of their bedroom floors as we were snooping around.  Ironically in my adult years its one of my favorite albums.

Peaches Records & Tapes was a music store that was on Peachtree Road right down from Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta,Ga.  It was the place to buy records back in the the 70s and into the 80s.  They had stores all over the country and began opening in 1976 and at their peak there were approx 35 branches...of peaches...sorry I couldn't help it.

Part of the Peaches tradition was to have large concrete squares along the sidewalks surrounding their stores. Musicians would be asked to sign and put their hand prints into the quick drying concrete squares and then they'd be displayed like Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.
Besides having walls of albums and cassette tapes and probably 8-tracks (I cant remember and I'm not that old), they sold crates for storing albums that looked like old peach crates with the Peaches logo labeled on the end of the crate.

In my mind I can still see Peaches logo t-shirts everywhere and everyone wanted one.
Peaches went out of business in 1985 and other stores like Turtles and Record Bar may have lasted into the early 90s,but eventually got bought up by the group that owned Blockbusters.  It is speculated that Peaches downfall was that they gambled that consumers would not buy a thing called a Compact Disc.  If they could have just held on until present day...it only took 35 years for vinyl popularity to come back around.



One of the best stories surrounding Peaches and their famous concrete wall of stars involved Paul McCartney and Wings when they were in concert at The Omni in Atlanta in 1976.  As you can imagine it would have been crazy to try and bring Paul to the store so the staff at Peaches got creative.  Read the story from this great blog called Meet The Beatles For Real.

Paul McCartney and Wings and Peaches concrete wall

Another story about The Allman Brothers and Peaches Records & Tapes in Atlanta.  Allman Brothers attempt to play at Peaches store

Lastly the Godfather of Soul gets a Peaches t-shirt.

ZZ Top making their concrete prints

James Brown & Peaches store director Lee Berman-1976

Mike Smith, The Showbiz Kids

On the turntable this Father's Day Sunday...Aja

Aja (pronounced /ˈeɪʒə/ like "Asia") is the sixth album by the jazz-rock band Steely Dan. Originally released in 1977, it became the group's best-selling album. Peaking at #3 on the U.S. charts and #5 in the United Kingdom, it was the band's first platinum album, eventually selling over 5 million copies.^{[citation needed]} In July 1978, the album won the Grammy Award for Best Engineered Non-Classical Recording. In 2003, the album was ranked number 145 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

The album is ambitious and sophisticated, and features several leading session musicians. The eight-minute-long title track features complex jazz-based changes and a solo by renowned saxophonist Wayne Shorter, as well as dextrous drumming by Steve Gadd - most notably at the end of the track.

Aja is also the subject of one of the Classic Albums series of documentaries about the making of famous albums. The documentary includes a song-by-song study of the album (the only omission being "I Got the News," which is played during the closing credits), interviews with Steely Dan co-founders Walter Becker and Donald Fagen (among others) plus new, live-in-studio versions of songs from the album, and the opportunity to hear some of the rejected guitar solos for "Peg," before Jay Graydon produced the satisfactory take.

When DTS attempted to make a 5.1 version, it was discovered that the multitrack masters for both "Black Cow" and the title track were missing. For this same reason, a multichannel SACD version was cancelled by Universal Music. Donald Fagen has offered a $600 reward for the missing masters or any information that leads to their recovery.^[2]

On April 6, 2011, the album was deemed by the Library of Congress to be "culturally, historically, or aesthetically important" and added to the United States National Recording Registry for the year 2010.^{[3]
(Originally posted in Wikipedia)}

All songs written by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen.

Side one

1. "Black Cow" – 5:10
2. "Aja" – 7:57
3. "Deacon Blues" – 7:37

Side two

4. "Peg" – 3:57
5. "Home at Last" – 5:34
6. "I Got the News" – 5:06
7. "Josie" – 4:33

[edit]Personnel

• Donald Fagen - synthesizer, keyboards, vocals, background vocals, whistle
• Walter Becker - bass, guitar, electric guitar, vocals
• Chuck Rainey - bass
• Timothy B. Schmit - vocals
• Paul Griffin - keyboards, electric piano, vocals, background vocals
• Don Grolnick - keyboards, clavinet
• Michael Omartian - piano, keyboards
• Joe Sample - keyboards, electric piano, clavinet
• Larry Carlton - guitar, electric guitar
• Denny Dias - guitar
• Jay Graydon - guitar, electric guitar
• Steve Khan - guitar
• Dean Parks - guitar
• Lee Ritenour - guitar
• Pete Christlieb - flute, tenor saxophone
• Chuck Findley - horn, brass
• Jim Horn - flute, saxophone
• Richard "Slyde" Hyde - trombone
• Plas Johnson - flute, saxophone
• Jackie Kelso - flute, horn, saxophone
• Lou McCreary - brass
• Bill Perkins - flute, horn, saxophone
• Tom Scott - conductor, flute, tenor saxophone, lyricon
• Wayne Shorter - flute, tenor saxophone
• Bernard Purdie - drums ("Home at Last", "Deacon Blues")
• Steve Gadd - drums ("Aja")
• Ed Greene - drums ("I Got the News")
• Lee Price - Fire Shards
• Paul Humphrey - drums ("Black Cow")
• Jim Keltner - percussion, drums ("Josie")
• Rick Marotta - drums ("Peg")
• Gary Coleman - percussion
• Victor Feldman - percussion, piano, keyboards, electric piano, vibraphone
• Venetta Fields - vocals, background vocals
• Clydie King - vocals, background vocals
• Rebecca Louis - vocals, background vocals
• Sherlie Matthews - vocals, background vocals
• Michael McDonald - vocals, background vocals