Jeffrey Allen "Skunk" Baxter (born December 13, 1948) is an American guitarist, known for his stints in the rock bands Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers during the 1970s and Spirit in the 1980s. More recently, he has worked as a defense consultant and advised U.S. members of Congress on missile defense.[2] He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of The Doobie Brothers in 2020.[3]
Early life and education
Jeffrey Baxter was born in Washington, D.C., and spent some of his formative years in Mexico.[2][4] He graduated from the Taft School in 1967 in Watertown, Connecticut, and was a self-described preppie.[5][6] He enrolled at the School of Public Communication (now College of Communication) at Boston University[7] in September 1967, where he studied journalism[8] while continuing to perform with local bands. His freshman roommate was blues musician James Montgomery.[9]
Baxter joined his first band at age 11.[8] At the Taft School, he played drums in a band called King Thunder and the Lightning Bolts.[10] While still a high school student, he worked at Jimmy's Music Shop in Manhattan in 1966. At Jimmy's, Baxter met guitarist Jimi Hendrix, who was just beginning his career as a frontman.[11] Later, Baxter claimed to have sat in with the Hendrix-led band Jimmy James and the Blue Flames, when the regular bassist could not make the show.[11] Moving to Boston to attend college, Baxter worked as a guitar technician and amplifier repairman at Jack's Drum Shop on Boylston Street.
Baxter joined the band for Ultimate Spinach III, their third and final album.[12] After leaving the band, he played with the Holy Modal Rounders and backed singer Buzzy Linhart.[5][13][14] He was using the moniker "Skunk" by this time; so far, Baxter has kept the origin of the nickname a secret.[15]
With Steely Dan
After the breakup of Ultimate Spinach, Baxter relocated to Los Angeles, finding work as a session guitarist.
While finishing work on Pretzel Logic, Baxter became aware of Becker and Fagen's intentions to retire Steely Dan from touring and work almost exclusively with session players. With that in mind, Baxter left the band in 1974 to join The Doobie Brothers, who at the time were touring in support of their fourth album What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits.
As a session man, he had contributed pedal steel guitar on Vices as well as "South City Midnight Lady" on its predecessor, The Captain and Me. Baxter's first album as a full member of the group was 1975's Stampede. He contributed an acoustic interlude ("Precis") and significant turns on slide and pedal steel guitar.
While preparing to tour in support of Stampede, Doobie Brothers founder Tom Johnston was hospitalized with a stomach ailment. To fill in for Johnston on vocals, Baxter suggested bringing in singer-keyboardist Michael McDonald, with whom Baxter had worked in Steely Dan. With Johnston still convalescing, McDonald soon was invited to join the band full-time. McDonald's vocal and songwriting contributions, as well as Baxter's jazzier guitar style, marked a new direction for the band. They went on to continued success with the 1976 album Takin' It to the Streets, 1977's Livin' on the Fault Line, and particularly 1978's Minute by Minute, which spent five weeks as the #1 album in the U.S. and spawned several hit singles; Baxter's work on the album includes an extended solo at the end of the closing track "How Do the Fools Survive?".
In early 1979, Baxter left the band, as did drummer and band co-founder John Hartman.
Baxter appeared on the TV sitcom What's Happening!! in the two-part episode "Doobie or Not Doobie" (1978) as a member of the Doobie Brothers.
Baxter worked on the animated TV series King of the Hill in 1997, composing songs for three episodes: "Peggy the Boggle Champ", "Hank's Unmentionable Problem", and "Square Peg". Also in 1997, he worked on two other TV series as a composer: The Blues Brothers Animated Series and The Curse of Inferno. He composed for Shelley Duvall's Bedtime Stories TV series episode "Bootsie Barker Bites/Ruby the Copycat" in 1993, the Pee-wee's Playhouse episode "Tons of Fun" in 1987, and the Beverly Hills, 90210 episode "The Green Room" in 1990. He is credited on the movie soundtrack for the feature film Roxanne (1987) as writer and producer for the songs "Party Tonight" and "Can This Be Love". Other credits include music for Class of 1984 (1982): "You Better Not Step Out of Line" and as a performer on "Suburbanite".[citation needed] He appeared in the film Blues Brothers 2000 and can be heard on the cast album.
Baxter fell into his second profession almost by accident. In the mid-1980s, his interest in music recording technology led him to wonder about hardware and software originally developed for military use, specifically data compressionalgorithms and large-capacity storage devices.[8]
His next-door neighbor was a retired engineer who had worked on the Sidewinder missile program.[8] This neighbor bought Baxter a subscription to Aviation Week magazine, provoking his interest in additional military-oriented publications and missile defense systems in particular. He became self-taught in this area, and at one point wrote a five-page paper that proposed converting the ship-based anti-aircraft Aegis missile into a rudimentary missile defense system.[8]
He gave the paper to California Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, and his career as a defense consultant began.
Baxter received a series of security clearances so he could work with classified information. In 1995, Pennsylvania Republican Congressman Curt Weldon, then the chairman of the House Military Research and Development Subcommittee, nominated Baxter to chair the Civilian Advisory Board for Ballistic Missile Defense.
"We thought turntables were for playing records until rappers began to use them as instruments, and we thought airplanes were for carrying passengers until terrorists realized they could be used as missiles,"[22] Baxter has said. "My big thing is to look at existing technologies and try to see other ways they can be used, which happens in music all the time and happens to be what terrorists are incredibly good at."
Baxter has also appeared in public debates and as a guest on CNN and Fox News advocating missile defense.[8] He served as a national spokesman for Americans for Missile Defense, a coalition of organizations devoted to the issue.
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