Skunk

 Rick Beato has been on a roll lately, recently interviewing the elusive David Gilmour of Pink Floyd and then, a few days ago, Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, lead guitarist for Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers, and session player for many other famous artists.  Rick is the best music interviewer going.  He focuses on the music, not on anything else, asks good questions and gives interviewees the space to talk.  Even when I don't understand all the musical details I still enjoy it.  Skunk comes across as a true gentleman and it was wonderful to listen to his stories about the Dan, the Doobies, as well as Segovia, Hendrix, Slash, and others.  Hendrix and Jeff Beck are on his Mt Rushmore of guitarists.

Skunk features on the first three Steely Dan albums, before Fagen and Becker decided to stop performing as a live act, and he then moved seamlessly into the Doobies and was the guy responsible for later bringing Michael McDonald, who'd been a backup singer on Dan albums, into the Doobies.

Rick gets Skunk to talk about two of his most famous solos for the Dan, My Old School and Rikki Don't Lose That Number.  Another favorite solo (not mentioned in the video) is in The Boston Rag, starting about 3 minutes in. We also learn that his favorite instrument is the pedal steel guitar.  There wasn't much call for that in Steely Dan, but it does show up in a couple of their tunes, most notably Fire In The Hole, where Skunk adds a tasty solo at the end (the song also features outstanding piano parts).

  Beginning in the 1980s, Skunk developed a parallel second career as an expert on defense technologies.  Here's how Wikipedia explains it:

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 compression algorithms and large-capacity storage devices.

His next-door neighbor was a retired engineer who had worked on the Sidewinder missile program. 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.

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.

Baxter's work with that panel led to consulting contracts with the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. He consults for the US Department of Defense and the US intelligence community, as well as defense-oriented manufacturers such as Science Applications International Corporation, Northrop Grumman Corp., General Dynamics, and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. He has said his unconventional approach to thinking about terrorism, tied to his interest in technology, is a major reason the government sought his assistance.

"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," 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. He served as a national spokesman for Americans for Missile Defense, a coalition of organizations devoted to the issue.

In April 2005, he joined the NASA Exploration Systems Advisory Committee.

Baxter was a member of an independent study group that produced the Civil Applications Committee Blue Ribbon Study recommending an increased domestic role for US spy satellites in September 2005.  This study was first reported by The Wall Street Journal on August 15, 2007. He is listed as "Senior Thinker and Raconteur" at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, and is a Senior Fellow and Member of the Board of Regents at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies.

While Beato does not cover the military side of Skunk's career, American security remains important to him. In the interview, when discussing his friendship with Jimi Hendrix, Baxter mentions Jimi's service in the 101st Airborne and refers to him as a "patriot". 

This is an interview where Skunk shares his thoughts about Ringo Starr (very complimentary) as well as a bit on his military career.