Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter had a good 70s. Part rockstar, part lab technician, moustachioed and toting a self-modded Fender, his extraordinary playing helped two formidable yet contrasting bands, Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers, to their best work in that halcyon decade.
But Baxter’s obituary, when it is eventually written, will reference more than the effortless solo on Rikki Don’t Lose That Number. At 73, his session résumé is Lukather-long, spanning from Ringo Starr to Donna Summer, while his 360-degree curiosity has sparked sidelines both apt and unlikely: you’re as liable to find him co-designing a guitar synthesiser as advising the US Congress on missile defence.
This year, Baxter’s status in the rock ’n’ roll firmament is underscored by what is, remarkably, his first solo album, with Speed Of Heat finding him both revisiting his own classics and corralling old friends to the cause.
What prompted you to go into the studio and make Speed Of Heat?
“I really wanted to find out a little more about what I was as a guitar player. I mean, I certainly had my own definitions. Y’know, I’m a session sausage. I’m a live performer. I’ve done so much supporting other people. So it started out as an instrumental album. I wanted to. But then, running into friends like Mike McDonald, Clint Black, Jonny Lang, I didn’t take much convincing to add some vocals. I sang on a scratch track of and sent it to Steven Tyler. But he said, ‘Well, why don’t you sing it?’ ‘I’m not a singer.’ ‘Yeah, you are.’ ‘Well, okay…’”
