![\"Elliott](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Eliott-Randall-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credit: Elliott Randall Spotify)<\/p>\n
Steely Dan<\/a> were the last band anyone would accuse of flying by the seat of their pants. This was, whether you\u2019d say famously or infamously, a pair of musicians who ran an insanely tight ship, obsessively driven to perfect sounds and arrangements to their desired results. According to legend, it took 55 takes just to record the 50-second fadeout of the 1980 song, \u2018Babylon Sisters\u2019.<\/p>\n Even at the outset of their career in the early \u201870s, Steely Dan co-founders, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, were already known to be more than a tad persnickety, which is why it\u2019s a little surprising to discover that one of the most famous parts on a signature hit of the band was outsourced to a guest musician. <\/p>\n We\u2019re talking about the highly revered guitar solo on \u2018Reelin\u2019 in the Years\u2019, from Steely Dan\u2019s 1972 debut LP, Can\u2019t Buy a Thrill. It\u2019s been praised by the likes of Jimmy Page and rated among the 30 greatest guitar solos of all time by Guitar World magazine. Yet even many longtime Steely Dan fans aren\u2019t aware of the man who actually played it: a session guitarist by the name of Elliott Randall.<\/p>\n Randall wasn\u2019t a hired gun off the street, mind you. He had an established friendship and working relationship with Fagen and Becker, having played with them in the backing band for Jay and the Americans, as well as some early Dan demos. Still, the task before him was a demanding one. The duo were at their wits\u2019 end trying to tie together \u2018Reelin\u2019, likely aware that it had the potential to be a standout track on the record. They went to Randall with the hope that he could effectively complete the song. What he ended up doing was raising it to a much higher level, adding a crackling sound and spontaneity that defined the track more than it complemented it.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were having trouble finding the right \u2018flavor\u2019 solo for \u2018Reelin\u2019, and asked me to give it a go,\u201d Randall recalled to Guitar World in 2013. \u201cMost of the song was already complete, so I had the good fortune of having a very clear picture of what the solo was laying on top of. They played it for me without much dialogue about what I should play.\u201d<\/p>\n