
Michael McDonald, above, Donald Fagen and Boz Scaggs are serving up greatest hits and more on their concert tour. --Courtesy photo
If there’s a word that sums up the Dukes of September Rhythm Revue, it’s nostalgia. But don’t be fooled into thinking superstar frontmen Donald Fagen, Michael McDonald and Boz Scaggs are serving up a greatest-hits playlist on this concert tour. Their wistful affections are more personal.
The music from this trio of Grammy Award winners — who unite to tour as the Dukes — is as likely to be something they last performed before they were famous as it is something they made famous.
In McDonald’s case, that might go back to a hit he heard on the radio back when he was just 14.
THE DUKES OF SEPTEMBER RHYTHM REVUEWhere: Blaisdell Concert Hall When: 8 p.m. Wednesday Cost: $85, $95, $149; sold out Info: 800-745-3000 or ticketmaster.com Also: 7 p.m. Thursday at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center; $55, $85, $95, $149; 242-7469 or MauiArts.org. |
“We always looked at this as a chance to indulge ourselves and hope the audience is enjoying themselves as much as we are,” McDonald said during a telephone call from his home on Maui. “We wind up doing a lot of old songs that we heard as kids and started out on.”
The choices are obscure, eclectic and fun to play — Isley Brothers, Ray Charles, Buck Owens, the Beach Boys, Muddy Waters, Marvin Gaye, The Lovin’ Spoonful, Sly and the Family Stone.
“We have done songs that we dug or liked and we never had a chance to play,” McDonald said. “It tends to take you back to all the bars you played as a kid and all the nightclubs and teen dances. You kind of just tend to relive your youth in kind of a subconscious way. There is something about that material that takes you back to when it was really a lot of fun.”
The three have been touring as the Dukes since June, when they started a 40-city journey that stops in Honolulu on Wednesday and on Maui on Thursday.
Of course, there will be selections from their own careers: Fagen’s years with Steely Dan (“Reelin’ in the Years,” “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number”), McDonald’s time with the Doobie Brothers (“It Keeps You Running,” “Minute by Minute”) and Scagg’s discography of hits (“Lowdown,” “JoJo”).
Audiences have been appreciative, McDonald said.
Some are baby boomers who first listened to those hits when they were teenagers, said McDonald, whose laid-back baritone sounds the same as it did back then. But some are a lot younger, fans who may have first listened to the same hits from the back seats of their parents’ cars.
“It does kind of make you feel old at times,” said McDonald, who’s 60. “That’s just a fact of life for us.”
The men have been friends since the 1970s.
McDonald met Fagen in 1972 when he got his break as an in-studio musician with Steely Dan. He met Scaggs in 1978, and they once toured together in Japan with Joe Walsh.
“I still look at Donald as my boss, in a way,” McDonald said. “When I am on stage with him, I am 20 years old again and trying to make sure I didn’t drink too many shots before the show. It’s great fun.”
Fagen serves as emcee for the Dukes, and he usually dictates what songs will be played because “he can read the audience,” McDonald said.
“He kind of plays the role of a manic musician, but his sense of humor is obvious,” McDonald said. “Donald is a great guy and a very funny guy. He is very sardonic. He sees the irony in most everything.”

Michael McDonald, Donald Fagen, above, and Boz Scaggs are serving up greatest hits and more on their concert tour. --Courtesy photo
The Dukes is a reincarnated version of a similar musical project that delighted audiences from 1989 to 1993. Dubbed The New York Rock and Soul Revue, it featured Fagen, McDonald, Scaggs and a long list of headliners, as well as the other half of Steely Dan, Walter Becker.
The supergroup re-formed in 2010.
“We went through the name process for quite a while,” McDonald said. “We never came up with anything that was worth a damn, so we became the Dukes of September. None of us is really sure what it means, but it sounds good.”
It’s also unfamiliar. Even with advertising, the Dukes have performed in towns where some members of the audience are surprised when the musicians walk on stage.
“It has been kind of an interesting monicker for us because no one knows who the hell we are,” McDonald said. “I don’t know if that is a good or a bad thing, but it’s kind of been a well-kept secret that we’ve been traveling.”
McDonald definitely likes this gig, mostly because he’s on stage again with his friends.
“It brings back a lot of fond memories,” McDonald said. “It’s amazing to me to think that all these years later I am still taking the stage with these guys. We never dreamed that all these years later, we would still be working.”
–Mike Gordon / mgordon@staradvertiser.com

Michael McDonald, Donald Fagen and Boz Scaggs, above, are serving up greatest hits and more on their concert tour. --Courtesy photo