Doobie Brothers singer/songwriter/keyboardist Michael McDonald knows Steely Dan's music well. McDonald supplied background vocals for the band for several years in the 1970s. This was while the Doobies and Steely Dan were becoming soft-rock icons.
The bands approached music a bit differently. The Doobie Brothers had more of an R&B sound, while Fagan and Walter Becker had a heavy jazz influence. The sounds were fairly similar, though.
And decades after both bands started making music, they have fallen under the ever-growing term of Yacht Rock. The moniker was started half-jokingly by JD Ryznar to describe 1970s and 1980s bands who has an overproduced style and were easy on the ears. Bands such as the Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan, the Eagles, and Toto.
Michael McDonald says what really happened with Steely Dan's Donald Fagan and a Yacht Rock film
McDonald recently told Classic Rock that he didn't mind his music being referred to as Yacht Rock because it grouped him in with other bands he respected. One of those was Steely Dan.
Fagan, on the other hand, seemingly disliked the term as he told the director of the film, Music Box: Yacht Rock: A DOCKumentary, Garret Price, to "(expletive) off" when the director asked about using Steely Dan's music for the project. McDonald said Fagan was joking, however, and freely gave Price the OK to use Steely Dan's music.
McDonald told Classic Rock, "You have to know Donald’s sense of humor. When (Price) called him, Donald said, ‘You can have the license, but do something for me. Hang up, pretend like we haven’t talked, and let’s have another conversation.’ So that’s what happened. He called back, and Donald told him: ‘Go (expletive) yourself’ and hung up. That’s my understanding. It was a total set-up."
That would suggest that Fagan has an interesting sense of humor, but the situation McDonald describes seems nonsensical. Maybe Fagan was simply trying to be funny, but he comes across as odd in McDonald's description.
Steely Dan was a 2001 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and has sold over 40 million records worldwide. They remain influential to bands making avant-garde music. The last record, Everything Must Go, was released in 2003.
The Doobie Brothers have sold about the same number of records as Steely Dan, but also continue to make new music. The band's new album, Walk This Road, was released on June 6, 2025.