(Credits: Carl Lender)
As a guitarist with such an undeniable sense of flair, Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter was a massive part of the first three Steely Dan records, helping to define the legendary jazz-rock group’s sound from the beginning. While the group were surrounded by virtuoso musicians from whom they demanded nothing less than perfection, Baxter’s guitar playing was electrifying to the point that their songs would have sounded somewhat incomplete without his offerings.
While Donald Fagen and Walter Becker called the shots within the band and wrote all of the material performed by the group, they always ensured that they were steering a tight ship and keeping the rest of their band in check. It might seem as though being in the band could have been an arduous task, but it was clear that Baxter was the sort of accomplished player that they knew they could depend on.
The group came out swinging with a trio of genre-defining records, with Can’t Buy a Thrill, Countdown to Ecstasy, and Pretzel Logic being as strong as you could possibly want from a group that were only just starting out. Most bands don’t elevate their sound to this level until they’ve established themselves a little more, but with Steely Dan, things were evidently in place from the beginning.
You kind of get the impression that Fagen and Becker wouldn’t have settled for anything less than emerging as a fully-formed concept, and therefore they needed musicians such as Baxter to help them along, just as much as the personnel on these records would have benefitted from the regimented process of being part of Steely Dan. This strict ethos is ultimately what made them such a formidable group, and if they hadn’t managed to perfect everything from the beginning or been quite so driven, then perhaps later masterpieces such as The Royal Scam and Aja wouldn’t have been able to exist.
Baxter, while only present from 1972 to 1974, undoubtedly relished his time with the group and reflects on it as being an overall positive experience, despite how much Fagen and Becker had the tendency to be hard taskmasters. The three albums he was a part of are unquestionably exquisite, and the musicianship they showcase has to be appreciated even if you’re not a connoisseur of the yacht rock sound they pioneered.
However, when asked by Mojo to name his favourite Steely Dan songs, there were a couple that he thought truly defined the group from his time with the group. While he made specific reference to their cover of Duke Ellington’s ‘East St Louis Toodle-Oo’ on Pretzel Logic being a personal favourite due to how they re-arranged the orchestral sections in the most inventive ways, it was a track from Countdown to Ecstasy that he ultimately chose to settle on.
“Trying to pick a favourite song is like trying to pick a favourite from your own children,” Baxter joked to the magazine, before stating: “I think ‘Razor Boy’ was a defining song as to what Steely Dan was all about, fundamentally, stylistically and musically.”
While not one of their most famous songs, it certainly captures Steely Dan at their most playful and melodic, while mixing jazz stylings with unusual instrumental arrangements. Only a group like Steely Dan could make pedal steel guitars and vibraphone seem cool in 1973, and that’s exactly why a track like ‘Razor Boy’ sticks out as a definitive moment for the group.
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