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The Latest Breaking News from Jeff Skunk Baxter

“I wanted a bicycle for Christmas, and they gave me a guitar. It pissed me off”: Jeff “Skunk” Baxter has played with everyone from Steely Dan to Dolly Parton – but he didn’t even want to be a guitar player

Baxter would go on to become a bona fide guitar great, but his life might have turned out differently had he got his wish...

Guitar World

“Dolly said ‘Can you just make it, like, reds and greens and sparkles?’. I played as many notes as I could while the other hand was working the transposer. She was going, ‘Yeah, yeah, that’s it. Whee!’”: Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter on his life as a session player

And how to make steel guitar not sound like steel guitar...

MusicRadar

"I don't like the jock atmosphere of the travelling rock'n'roll band. It's corny, it's boring and it's silly." The story of the rock'n'roll band who aren't really a band and don't like rock'n'roll but have sold 50 million records to people who do

Steely Dan: An enigma in search of perfection

Louder

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“I guess like John Lennon and Brian Jones, we’re not up front, but we keep it all sticking together”: Chris Dreja turned down Led Zeppelin, but he will be remembered as the Yardbirds’ unsung bass hero in a band of guitar superstars

Co-founder of the Yardbirds, Chris Dreja – who supported Clapton, Beck and Page on rhythm or bass guitar, then went on to become a photographer – has died, aged 79

Guitar World

“John Entwistle and I were at the Rainbow talking about all the guitars we had. We looked at each other and said, ‘You know… we’re idiots’”: Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter says he’s going to hell for owning too many guitars – and some of the best ones are dirt cheap

The ever-active session legend on his love for cheap guitars, Roland gear, and modding his pickups

Guitar World

“I ended up using it on the Donna Summer album. It was a hell of a deal”: Jeff “Skunk” Baxter on the cheap $35 guitar that ended up becoming a trusted stage and studio stalwart

The session legend proves once again that price is not always a representative of a guitar’s quality

Guitar World

“I got tired of carrying different guitars with me. It’s delightful”: Skunk Baxter is a session legend – and his cutting-edge guitar rig probably isn’t what you expect

Baxter has settled on a Roland/Fender Stratocaster, which he uses alongside some other off-the-shelf Roland gear

Guitar World

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“I compared the two and the $140 Squier Telecaster, to me, sounded better”: Why Skunk Baxter chose to buy a beginner guitar over a “bazillion” dollar vintage Telecaster

Baxter pitted the two guitars against each other during a trip to Guitar Center – and there was a clear winner

Guitar World

“The good news is it was recorded – you can go online and see it. The bad news is that’s because someone stole all the master tapes”: Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter on his supergroup with Joe Walsh, sessions with Joni Mitchell and the voices of Albert King

The session great discusses being hand-picked by Gene Simmons, fitting in with James Brown, creating classic solos for Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers, and Frankenstein acts on most of his guitars

Guitar World

“The guitar player got caught in a snowstorm and couldn’t get down for the gig. They were looking for somebody and I said, ‘I know all that stuff’”: Jeff “Skunk” Baxter went to a James Brown gig – and had to step in as his sideman at the last minute

Brown may be known as the the “Hardest-Working Man in Show Business”, but it seems like Skunk is also worthy of that moniker...

Guitar World

“I probably hauled in 20 guitars. I listened to the record top to bottom, turned to him and said, ‘It doesn’t need anything’”: Jeff “Skunk” Baxter on the one studio session where he lugged a ton of guitar gear – and didn't use any of it

While being a session player can sometimes be a thankless job, Baxter recalls a particularly memorable session with Steely Dan producer Gary Katz

Guitar World

“We’ve never met, but I’m most impressed with Jack. He’s fearless and certainly innovative”: Jeff “Skunk” Baxter to perform at NAMM 2025 and present TEC Innovation Award to Jack White

The legendary Steely Dan and Doobie Brothers guitarist will host NAMM’s 40thannual TEC Awards and appear at seminars on song structure, music marketing, and sound therapy

MusicRadar

“Jimi Hendrix came in with an old Duo-Sonic. I had just put together a Strat I’d strung up left-handed, and I went, ‘I’ll trade you.’ I was docked three weeks’ pay”: Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter recalls the questionable guitar deal he made when he met Jimi Hendrix

A young Baxter was working in a local guitar store when Hendrix came searching for a new guitar

Guitar World

“I gave him 35 bucks for the guitar, bought a six-pack of Bud, went down to the studios and they played me the song. Recorded it in one take”: Skunk Baxter on how he recorded his classic Hot Stuff solo on a cheap guitar he bought right before the session

Baxter reveals he very nearly didn't do the Donna Summer session – and how the producer's willingness to experiment clinched the deal

Guitar World

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MusicRadar

“There was a Deluxe Reverb already there, turned everything up to 10, plugged the guitar in and said, ‘Roll tape!’ And that was it”: How Skunk Baxter grabbed a six-pack, a $35 guitar and tracked Donna Summer’s Hot Stuff in one take

First-call session ace Jeff “Skunk” Baxter says the opportunity to track one of disco’s greatest anthems nearly passed him by, but when it arrived it went like a flash

MusicRadar

5 songs you need to hear by Steely Dan: "Like a lot of kids in the ’50s, we were looking for some kind of alternative culture, an escape from where we found ourselves"

Across nine studio albums, jazz-loving perfectionists Walter Becker and Donald Fagen created a stunning body of work. Here are five of their finest moments

Tribune News Service

Jeff 'Skunk' Baxter is a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee and a ballistic missile and anti-terrorism expert

SAN DIEGO — Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, a man of international intrigue and a secret agent?

Los Angeles Times

What a Doob believes: How the Doobie Brothers survived '50-ish' years to finally get their due

LOS ANGELES — When it finally happened last summer, the Doobie Brothers' long-anticipated reunion with Michael McDonald took just more than a week to run into trouble.

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