Who determines the steel intros,fills and breaks in sessions

[Larry Miller]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ghp88V3Qm8w

[Tim Harr]

What Pete said. All producers are different. They hire the musicians for what they can bring to the table. I was rarely told what to play , just pointed in the right direction.

Josie was cut in two hours with a session band and Dean Parks played the track. he was too busy to come back for the solo so they got Larry Carlton and Walter becker to do it.

The song "Peg" did have a half a dozen players come in and play a solo. Ultimately, it was "Wrecking Crew" LA session guitarist, Jay Graydon that was chosen for the final mix.
"Peg" is a classic case of summoning a specialist to get the job done; and, in this instance, summoning more than one. Jay Graydon was brought in by Becker and Fagen to solo over the quirky 13-bar blues - after numerous abortive attempts by regular Steely Dan "satellite musicians" and session stalwarts. He was a veteran of the Don Ellis band, Gino Vanelli and countless record dates, and had acquired a glowing reputation as an ace studio guitarist and solo specialist around L.A. Graydon was allegedly the seventh player to have a go at the section - they'd already been through guitarists Elliott Randall, Dennis Budimir, Robben Ford, Rick Derringer, Walter Becker himself, and saxophonist Tom Scott. According to Becker, Graydon did it without much ado. The solo was assembled in three major sections (the sectional approach was typical of Steely Dan's studio procedure by that point). It took four hours to actually record the solo, but three of those hours were spent, under the close direction of Becker and Fagen, searching for the opening phrase (see notation below). This was the tried-and-true Graydon hallmark of slid and bent doublestops heard at 1:47 - 1:53. The singular, chromatic open-string pull-off licks at 2:00 - 2:03 are also signature elements of his unorthodox style which happen to fit the song beautifully. Of course, hardly anything was done by chance in Steely Dan music, and even the exploitation of a player's favorite cliches was subject to serious scrutiny.


Check this video out.. the beginning is Jay playing this solo... It also explains what Jay is also famous for..

https://youtu.be/Ghp88V3Qm8w