Jeff “Skunk” Baxter seems to be one of those people who is always in the right place at the right time.
He was attending Boston University as a journalism major in the late 1960s and playing gigs as a guitarist when he was hired as a session musician for a recording in New York. At the session, he met Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, and eventually joined them in the band that would become Steely Dan.
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“I thought they had some pretty amazing songs, and they told me they hadn’t heard any guitar players yet who could really play their stuff,” said Baxter, 62, from his home in Los Angeles.
Baxter was with Steely Dan on the band’s first three albums, which featured the iconic hits “Rikki Don’t Lose that Number,” “Do It Again” and “Reelin’ In the Years.” At one point on a tour, Steely Dan opened for The Doobie Brothers — which led to Baxter joining that band in 1974.
He stayed with the Doobies through the 1970s, playing on hits such as “Take Me In Your Arms (Rock Me a Little While)” and “What a Fool Believes.” The latter won the Grammy for Record of the Year in 1980.
“Timing is everything,” said Baxter. “I think about the song ‘What a Fool Believes,’ and I think if that had come out the year before, or one year after, nothing would have happened.”
Baxter — and his knack for good timing and great guitar work — will be a focus of the Boston Legends show at the Merrill Auditorium on Wednesday.
Besides Baxter (who is not from Boston but started his musical career there), the show will feature Elliot Easton and Greg Hawkes of The Cars; Barry Goudreau, a former member of Boston who played on the band’s first two albums; guitarist Jon Butcher; Charlie Farren and David Hull of The Joe Perry Project; blues guitarists Johnny A. and James Montgomery; The Uptown Horns; Ernie and The Automatics; and others.
Opening the show will be The Stompers, a Boston-based group who were huge regionally in the early 1980s with local radio hits including “Never Tell an Angel” and “Shutdown.”
The Boston Legends tour has included members of The J. Geils Band, including Geils himself, but he will not be part of the Portland show.
As a young musician in Boston in the 1960s, Baxter said he was thrilled to be part of such a vibrant scene filled with talented musicians. He became friendly with members of J. Geils and The Cars, specifically. It was Easton who asked Baxter to be part of the Boston Legends tour.
“He’s been a good friend for years, and when he asked me, I said, ‘You know what? That sounds like fun, and maybe I can clear my head of all this other crap going on in Washington.’ “
Baxter was referring to his “other job” — and this is going to sound like it’s made up — as a missile defense and counter-terrorism consultant working for various government agencies and defense companies. He’s also a senior fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C.
Again, timing.
“I wrote a paper on how to convert a naval weapons system, modify it, and I gave it to a congressman, and he gave it to someone else, and the next thing I know, I’m working,” said Baxter, who has been doing this type of consulting for more than 15 years. He was not in the military, and did not study missile defense in college.
“I can’t really talk much about it,” Baxter said of his other job.
But he still finds time to play guitar, and is currently working on his first solo album. A couple of his friends who happen to be able to sing — fellow Doobie Brother Michael McDonald and country star Clint Black — volunteered to do vocals on the album.
Also of note with the Boston Legends tour is that it’s not all about the past. The Cars are coming out in May with their first studio album in 24 years — “Move Like This” — and some of the songs are already drawing rave reviews.
A review of the tune “Sad Song” in Rolling Stone magazine in March ended with reviewer David Fricke saying that “The Cars have pulled out of the garage in renewed vintage form.”
Staff Writer Ray Routhier can be contacted at 791-6454 or at:
rrouthier@pressherald.com
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