Libby Titus, a singer who recorded two albums in the late 1960s and ’70s before retiring from the music scene, later becoming the wife of Steely Dan‘s Donald Fagen, died Sunday at age 77. No cause of death was given.
Fagen announced her death on Steely Dan’s website. “My beautiful wife, Libby Titus Fagen, passed on October 13th surrounded by family,” he wrote. “Thanks for keeping us in your thoughts, and for respecting our privacy at this time.”
Titus was the mother of singer-songwriter Amy Helm, whose father was Levon Helm, Titus’ partner in the late ’60s and ’70s.
Titus’ most famous and oft-recorded song was “Love Has No Pride,” co-written with Eric Kaz. It was lesser known for the version she released in 1977 than from the song’s plentiful covers, including recordings done in quick succession by Bonnie Raitt in 1972, Linda Ronstadt in 1973, and Tracy Nelson and Rita Coolidge in 1974. The tune has also been covered by Rod Stewart, Billy Bragg, Rita Wilson, Jane Monheit and many others.
Titus’ short career as a recording artist encompassed two albums, both of them self-titled. The first, on the independent Hot Biscuit Disc Company label in 1968, included covers of songs like “The Fool on the Hill” and “You Didn’t Have to Be So Nice” and did not draw much attention. The second album came out on Columbia nearly a decade later, in 1977, and was a much more high-profile affair, with four songs co-written by Titus and an all-star list of producers that included Paul Simon, Robbie Robertson, Carly Simon and Phil Ramone.
She appeared as the musical guest on “Saturday Night Live” on Oct. 15, 1977, during the show’s third season.
As a songwriter, Titus co-wrote songs with Burt Bacharach for his “Woman” album in the late ’70s and contributed to Carly Simon albums.
Titus helped form the Rock & Soul Revue with Fagen and performed with the ensemble in its early days, before Steely Dan reunited, although she did not appear on the sole album released by the collective.
The Woodstock, NY native’s first marriage was to Barry Titus, followed by her relationship with Helm and then her wedding to Fagen in 1993.
She was credited for small roles in the movies “Awakenings” and “Heartburn.”
A 2000 profile of Steely Dan in Rolling Stone as the duo reunited for a reunion album had Titus recounting some of her role in that, as well as her history with her husband. The singer said she first met Fagen in 1987 when they both went backstage to hang with Dr. John. Fagen had recalled seeing her — but not yet meeting her — at Bard, where she said he remembered her from a distance. “I was wearing a fur coat and had a short, short skirt and was all done up, and he said he thought I looked like bohemian royalty,” she said. In ’87, after the encounter via Dr. John, “we went to dinner and got into this conversation that never ended. He took me out to dinners, and we kept talking until the spring of ’89.” She told the magazine she had been producing small shows for “SNL” veteran Tom Schiller at a restaurant in Manhattan. “One night it would be, say, Dr. John plus Carly Simon, and it was by invitation only. Another night I had Duke Ellington’s bass player, Aaron Bell, and that night Donald came, and he really loved it. In May of 1989 he did a show for me with Dr. John at Elaine’s, of all places, and it was the first time he had performed in years.
“After that we decided to do our own show,” she continued. “We got various artists to do Jerry Ragovoy songs. Donald didn’t want to perform, but I said, ‘You have to, or no one’s going to come.’ We did our shows once a month or once every two months then – it became the New York Rock and Soul Revue – until the beginning of ’92. And it brought Walter to New York. He had come back to produce Donald’s album ‘Kamakiriad,’ and then he was playing guitar onstage with Donald” — finally leading to the Steely Dan reunion tours of the mid-’90s.
Titus and Fagen made headlines in New York in 2016 when police responded to a call and he was accused of pushing her into a window in their apartment during an argument. She was quoting as telling a New York Post reporter over the phone that she was “tired and divorcing my husband,” but any such impulse was apparently short-lived, and police dismissed the case before the month was up. The couple said in a short statement subsequently given to the Post, “Despite misleading reports in the press, we’re happily married. Now in our 23rd year of marriage, we’re looking forward to many, many more.”
Amy Helm has spoken in interviews of her mother’s impact as well as her father Levon’s. “She also influenced me a lot,” she told Relix in 2021. “She made sure to round out my musical education by turning me on to Laura Nyro and Brenda Russell and Joni Mitchell, the singer-songwriters whose poetry was so fierce and whose singing was so different from the soul music I had been listening to. I fell in love with Aretha Franklin and never looked back, but she made sure to open up my ears to other singers, too.”
Carly Simon wrote the 1976 song “Libby” about her, with lyrics including:
But Libby, we’ll fly anyway, hey
And leave behind our blues
Half-sung melodies
Trade them all in for a Paris breeze,
Libby we’ll fly
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