“The Royal Scam” by Steely Dan

"The Royal Scam" gave its name to Steely Dan's fifth album, released by ABC in May 1976, the record where the band traded the jazz-rock gloss of the albums around it for funk. Walter Becker and Donald Fagen wrote it together, Gary Katz produced, as he had every Steely Dan album up to then, and Fagen sings both the lead and the backing vocals.

The cast list runs long: Bernard "Pretty" Purdie on drums, Chuck Rainey and Becker on bass, Larry Carlton on guitar alongside Becker and taking the solo, Fagen and Paul Griffin on keyboards, Gary Coleman on percussion, and a horn section of Chuck Findley, Bob Findley, Dick Hyde, Jim Horn, Plas Johnson and John Klemmer. Roger Nichols and Elliot Scheiner engineered it, and Nichols mixed it with Barney Perkins.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz.