To this day, my music preferences are very much influenced by what I grew up listening to with my parents. Many of those bands came and went over the years and then came back, but without a doubt, the one constant above all others would be The Eagles. Honorable mention goes to Billy Joel. I'm honestly not sure I can remember a time where they weren't a part of my life.

Saw him the year after Walter Becker died. Steely Dan was touring with the Doobie Brothers. For a bunch of 70-something year olds, they all still know how to rock

Reelin' in the Years by Steely Dan.

Many of my earliest memories are from the road trips my family would take me on during the summers of my childhood. Many of the artists we would listen to in the car, like Billy Joel and The Eagles, stuck with me through my entire adolescence, while others, like Fleetwood Mac and, yes, Steely Dan, were lost with time.

When I was 18 years old, my mom found her old record collection from when she was about that age in the late 70s, and while "Can't Buy a Thrill" was not among that collection, "Aja" was. So when we set up an old stereo system we had in the garage, and bought a turntable, Deacon Blues immediately took me back to those childhood vacations.

A few months later, I started working my first job. My very first week there, we were listening to the radio at work, and the radio host mentioned that Steely Dan would be coming to our city that coming summer, along with The Doobie Brothers, another band that stuck with me from my childhood, and was featured heavily in my mom's old records. It seems like everyone remembers what they bought with their first paycheck, and I figured that concert would be a memorable one. So when payday came around, I bought a ticket.

The Doobie Brothers were awesome. Then Steely Dan took the stage. I didn't get around to looking them up on Pandora and doing a deep dive into their music before the show, so I mostly went into it blind. They played a few songs from Aja that I recognized from recently rediscovering that album, and a few other songs I remembered from long ago. Then they came back out for the encore, and started it with My Old School, another one I quickly recognized from long ago. They wrapped up My Old School, and without missing a beat, launched right into that iconic guitar riff of Reelin' in the Years. All but forgotten memories from a decade past were resurrected in a matter of about two seconds. It was such a cool moment, and I'm definitely not going to be so quick to forget Steely Dan and especially that particular song again.