Libby Titus, the singer-songwriter best known for her song “Love Has No Pride” and creating the New York Rock and Soul Revue with future husband Donald Fagen, died Sunday night at the age of 77.
“My beautiful wife, Libby Titus Fagen, passed on October 13th surrounded by family,” Fagen wrote on Steely Dan‘s site. “Thanks for keeping us in your thoughts, and for respecting our privacy at this time.” A cause of death was not immediately available.
Titus released two solo albums — both titled Libby Titus — in 1968 and 1977. In between the two albums, she worked as a backing vocalist and songwriting, scoring a breakthrough of sorts after penning “Love Has No Pride” with Eric Kaz. Bonnie Raitt was the first to cut the song in 1972 for her album, Give It Up, while Linda Ronstadt scored a minor hit with it the following year (Rita Coolidge and Daryl Braithwaite were among the many other artists who recorded versions). As a songwriter, she would go onto work with Burt Bacharach, Carly Simon, and Dr. John.
Titus cut her own version of “Love Has No Pride” for her second self-titled album, and performed the album’s opening song, a version of “Fool That I Am,” on Saturday Night Live. She made the LP with an all-star list of collaborators — Carly Simon, Paul Simon, Robbie Robertson, James Taylor, Garth Hudson, and Phil Ramone among them — speaking to the deep affection and admiration she engendered in the music world. That sentiment was reflected further in the various songs written in her honor, like Carly Simon’s “Libby” (on which Titus also sang) and Dr. John’s “Pretty Libby.”
In the late Eighties, Titus became a concert promoter and impresario, enlisting her myriad friends and collaborators for special concerts in low-key restaurants and clubs around New York City. It was through these concerts that she eventually met Fagen. (Or, technically, re-met: Titus had briefly attended Bard College but left school to get married; she returned once for a party, after Fagen had enrolled, and the two briefly crossed paths.)
Recalling the unofficial concert series in a 2000 interview with Rolling Stone, Titus said, “I had been producing these little shows hosted by Tom Schiller, a terrific writer and filmmaker and comedian, at this little Italian restaurant on 39th Street that had room for 30 people. 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.”
While Fagen took some convincing — “Donald didn’t want to perform, but I said, ‘You have to or no one’s going to come,’” Titus quipped — the pair soon started hosting regular shows together, and the series eventually morphed into the New York Rock and Soul Revue. With Fagen as bandleader, the all-star group featured musicians like Michael McDonald, Boz Scaggs, and Phoebe Snow, toured regularly, and cut a live album in 1991. The group also rekindled Fagen’s love of performing, which led to him and Walter Becker reviving Steely Dan a few years later.
In 1993, Fagen and Titus married, while Fagen also released a new solo album, Kamakiriad, which contained one song, “Florida Room,” which he and Titus co-wrote. In 2016, Fagen was arrested in New York City following a reported physical altercation with Titus. A few weeks later, Fagen agreed to a deal that would see prosecutors drop the charges if he stayed out of legal trouble for a year. Fagen and Titus appeared to reconcile as well, releasing a statement that read, “Despite misleading reports in the press, we’re happily married.”
While Fagen and Titus never had children of their own, Titus had a son, Ezra, with her first husband Barry Titus (Ezra died by suicide in 2009), as well as a daughter, Amy Helm, from her long relationship with the Band’s drummer Levon Helm during the Seventies. In a 2019 interview, Amy spoke about her mom in an interview with the Niagara Gazette, saying, “She was a great songwriter… She is one of those natural songwriters that didn’t really pursue it. Maybe one of these days I’ll get her to write me something I could sing.”
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