Former Steely Dan guitarist Denny Dias has looked back on the making of his iconic Do It Again electric sitar solo – and revealed it was recorded using a “piece of crap” rental guitar.
Dias recently took the interviewee hot sit in Rick Beato's studio, and – not for the first time – was asked about how he tracked one of the band’s most iconic solos.
“I get more questions about the electric sitar than anything else,” he says of Do It Again. Yet, despite the solo’s now-legendary status, Dias failed to hit it off with the instrument he used for it.
“I’ve only seen it that once and just for about two, three hours,” he expands. “It was a rental. It was a piece of crap. It was basically a Danelectro guitar with a special bridge that made it buzz and sound like a sitar. We rented it because Donald [Fagen, vocals/keyboards] thought he wanted to have a droning sitar like the Beatles.”
George Harrison’s love for Ravi Shankar encouraged the Fab Four to explore more experimental routes and the Beatles' use of the sitar has been an inspiration for countless bands since. That was no different for Steely Dan.
However, when Dias attempted to wrangle the instrument – which was first masterminded as a collaboration between session guitarist Vinnie Bell and Nathan Daniel of Danelectro, and anointed the Coral Vincent Bell Electric Sitar – he was less than impressed.
“It just wouldn't drone,” he remembers. “You need a real sitar and somebody that knows how to play one. When I picked the thing up and they started running the track, I just started improvising. And then somebody said, ‘Well, why don't we just do the solo with the sitar?’
“We went through it a few times and that was it,” he adds, nonchalantly. Impressively, the solo was recorded in just a handful of takes – a far cry from today’s methodologies of Pro Tools and dropping in for every other bar.
“It’s not the first take,” he admits. “But maybe the third take.”
Asked if the rest of the band reacted positively to his improvisations, Dias continues, “The expression in the studio was, ‘I’ll buy it.’” Beato is also quick to praise Dias’ phrasing and “certain types of lines I don’t hear anyone play”.
“Well, when other guys are practicing blues licks, I'm playing scales and arpeggios,” he says in response. “Listening to it I hear the higher harmonies, the 6th, 9th, and 13th, you know? I was just thinking of extending the chords and playing more than the three notes that are in the chord.”
Rory Gallagher famously recorded Philby a 1968 Coral 3S19 Electric Sitar, a 19-stringed instrument made by Danelectro sub-brand Coral in collaboration with Bell. A mere 50 of the instruments are approximated to have been made.
Fortunately, Danelectro recently revived its Big Sitar build, which continues the legacy of the OG Coral model. We can't imagine Dias will be picking one up, though.
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