Jeff “Skunk” Baxter chooses his favorite Steely Dan song
(Source: Far Out / Carl Lender)
The story of Steely Dan understandably revolves around its two founders and leaders, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. Known as the misanthropic bands of rock music, they pioneered a unique blend of sophisticated, jazzy rock and wry social commentary, continuing a tradition started by artists such as The Fugs and Frank Zappa. Despite their originality and brilliance, Becker and Fagen relied on a diverse group of collaborators, including Jeff “Skunk” Baxter.
Although Becker and Fagen had a clear vision for their music, their seamless success was greatly aided by the talented musicians they collaborated with. They worked with many renowned artists, such as Steve Gadd on Aja and briefly Mark Knopfler, whose spirit they almost destroyed with their relentless perfectionism. Among these collaborators, Jeff “Skunk” Baxter stands out as one of the most important in their history.
When Becker and Fagen moved to Los Angeles, they assembled a band of experienced musicians who could match their skills and ideas, and Baxter was one of those trusted maestros. Not only did he play a key role in their blending of a variety of styles, as they successfully demonstrated on their 1972 debut album. Thrills cannot be boughtbut he also formed a brilliant partnership with the other in-house six-string maestro, Denny Dias.
Baxter’s talent is evident in the first three Steely Dan albums, with the 1973 album Countdown to Ecstasy and the following year Pretzel logic building on the ice-cold foundations of their debut. His most famous moment with them is their most successful hit to date, 1974’s “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” which is characterized by his blistering solo.
Despite his importance to their development, Baxter’s time with Steely Dan was brief. In 1974, he left the band to join the Doobie Brothers when he heard that Becker and Fagen were retiring from the band and planning to work only with session musicians. Later, in the mid-1980s, he made a radical turnaround when his long-standing interest in music hardware and software and a chance encounter with a neighbor, a retired rocket engineer, eventually led him to become a missile defense expert. Not surprisingly, this chapter produced its own set of amazing anecdotes.
As an accomplished voice for U.S. defense systems for decades, Baxter’s work was undoubtedly crucial to the Steely Dan operation in its early years. While the way he managed the transition between two distinctly different careers is a great mystery in itself, the question of his favorite songs with the band is also complex, but undoubtedly easier to answer.
If you are Mojo In 2024, Baxter was asked to name his favorite Steely Dan songs and explain why. Like a man who has spent half his life in politics, his first point was that asking him to pick his favorite child was like pressuring him to pick his favorite child. However, he relented and chose “Razor Boy” Countdown to Ecstasy as a symbol of the essence of the band, as is their cover of Duke Ellington’s “East St. Louis Toodle-Oo”.
He explained, “Picking a favorite song is like trying to pick your own children’s favorite song! I think Razor Boy was a song that defined the essence of Steely Dan fundamentally, stylistically and musically. I have a particular fondness for ‘East St. Louis Toodle-Oo.’ It was a Duke Ellington song and we were all fans of the Duke.”
As for the cover, the idea was to pick an instrument from the original orchestra and play it on a completely different instrument. Baxter chose the trombone as the pedal steel and in true Steely Dan style, it was a big challenge to bring it to life, but he had fun doing it.
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