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The Royal Scam
Studio album by Steely Dan
Released	May, 1976
Recorded	November 1975-March 1976
Genre	Rock
Length	41:11
Label	ABC Records
Producer	Gary Katz
Professional reviews
All Music Guide link Robert Christgau (B) link Rolling Stone link
Steely Dan chronology
Katy Lied (1975) The Royal Scam (1976) Aja (1977)

The Royal Scam is an album by jazz rock group Steely Dan, originally released in 1976. The album went gold and peaked at #15 on the charts. The Royal Scam features more prominent guitar than other Steely Dan albums. Guitarists on the recording include Walter Becker, Denny Dias, Larry Carlton, Elliott Randall and Dean Parks.

With irony-laden verses about drug dealers, safe sex, and hardships faced by immigrants, The Royal Scam is arguably Steely Dan at their most cynical. The mood of the album stands in contrast with the band's mellower and hugely successful follow-up, Aja.

The album cover, which shows a well-dressed, possibly homeless man sleeping underneath (or perhaps dreaming of) mutating skyscrapers, is a satirical take on the American Dream. The drawing and painting of the skyscrapers morphed with heads of snake, bear, wolf, aligator, etc. was considered dark, eerie, gothic, and way ahead of time. The cover was designed by Zox, and at least a portion was originally created for a Van Morrison album from 1974-75 that was never released [1]. In the liner notes for the 1999 remaster of the album, Fagen and Becker claim it to be "the most hideous album cover of the seventies, bar none (excepting perhaps Can't Buy A Thrill)."

In common with other Steely Dan albums, The Royal Scam is littered with cryptic allusions to people and events both real and fictional. In a BBC interview in 2000[2], Becker revealed that Kid Charlemagne is loosely based on Augustus Owsley Stanley, the notorious drug "chef" who created hallucinogenic compounds for, among others, Jim Morrison of The Doors[3], the Grateful Dead, and The Beatles.

All songs by Becker and Fagen, except where noted

1. "Kid Charlemagne" – 4:38
2. "The Caves of Altamira" – 3:33^[1]
3. "Don't Take Me Alive" – 4:16
4. "Sign in Stranger" – 4:23
5. "The Fez" (Becker, Fagen, Paul Griffin) – 4:01
6. "Green Earrings" – 4:05
7. "Haitian Divorce" – 5:51
8. "Everything You Did" – 3:55
9. "The Royal Scam" – 6:30

• Donald Fagen - keyboards, vocals, background vocals
• Walter Becker - bass, guitar, vocals
• Chuck Rainey - bass
• Timothy B. Schmit - bass, vocals, background vocals
• Paul Griffin[4] - keyboards, vocals
• Don Grolnick - keyboards
• Denny Dias - guitar
• Larry Carlton - guitar
• Hugh McCracken - guitar
• Dean Parks - guitar
• Elliott Randall - guitar
• Bob Findley - horn
• Chuck Findley - horn
• Dick Hyde - horn
• Slyde Hyde - horn
• Jim Horn - saxophone
• Richard Hyde - trombone
• Plas Johnson - saxophone
• John Klemmer - saxophone
• Rick Marotta - drums
• Bernard "Pretty" Purdie - drums
• Gary Coleman - percussion
• Victor Feldman - percussion, keyboards
• Venetta Fields - vocals, background vocals
• Clydie King - vocals, background vocals
• Shirley Matthews - vocals, background vocals
• Michael McDonald - vocals, background vocals

• Producer: Gary Katz
• Engineer: Roger Nichols
• Mixdown engineer: Barney Perkins
• Sound Consultant: Dinky Dawson
• Horn arrangements: Walter Becker, Donald Fagen, Chuck Findley
• Art direction: Ed Caraeff
• Cover art: Zox
• Typography: Tom Nikosey

Album

Pop Singles

1. ^ The lyrics, written in first person on the theme of art, follow in typically abstruse fashion the story of a young boy who would avoid society by entering a cave and admiring cave paintings on its walls
2. ^ the highest UK chart position for a Steely Dan single

• Complete lyrics