Walter Becker – $20 million
Greatest Hits: Bad Sneakers, Do It Again
Walter Becker was Steely Dan’s co-songwriter and founder. He also played jazz/rock band guitar and bass. He met his co-founder, Donald Fagen when both were Bard College students. They decided to start Steely Dan and moved to LA. After a successful commercial run, Becker also moved to Hawaii after the breakup and became a record producer and part of the band China Crisis, an English band. Fagen reformed Steely Dan in 1993.
Walter Becker
Tom Waits – $25 million
Greatest Hits: Closing Time, Somewhere
Tom Waits is a California-born singer-songwriter and actor. He’s known for his distinctive, gravely sound, and punk lyrics. In the 1970s, he specialized in jazz, but he also had influences from blues and vaudeville. His inspirations include Beat Generation and Bob Dylan. He began singing in San Diego and moved to LA to sign an Asylum deal. His first albums included Closing Time, Saturday Night’s Heart, and Small Change, which marked his first commercially successful album. Waits wrote the Heart score for Francis Ford Coppola’s One.
Tom Waits