S ince the '70s when Jeff "Skunk" Baxter laid legendary guitar tracks on Steely Dan and Doobie Brothers records, he has been a prominent figure in the ultra-competitive Los Angeles studio scene. In fact, he's played on so many sessions over the past 20 years, it would be probably be easier to list the sessions he didn't play on. According to Baxter, one of the keys to getting the job done and done right is having the right tool. Baxter incorporated this mentality into the two Epiphone guitars that bear his name... The Epiphone Jeff "Skunk" Baxter acoustic and also the upcoming Jeff "Skunk" Baxter electric model. "You need something that does the job and it's a good tool and doesn't break the bank," Baxter said as he explained the real-world features of the Jeff "Skunk" Baxter acoustic/electric guitar. "One feature was the laminated top to make it thinner so it would project sound a little better," Baxter said. "It gives it a very bright sound and bright sounding guitars are good when you record. The box is really deep so that it has a good deal of bottom end. It's very balanced in front of a microphone. I also wanted to make it play very easily. I wanted it to feel like an electric so it wasn't that much of a transition. I obviously wanted the electronics to sound good enough so that so you could use it without having that sort of strange plastic twang that a lot of acoustic/electrics have. It has the "Shadow" pickup. And I wanted to make it affordable. A working person can't afford to pay $3500 for a guitar." An endorsement doesn't mean much if the endorsee doesn't actually play the instrument himself. And while Baxter can afford to play any guitar he wants, he still reaches for his Epiphone. "I have had quite a few opportunities to use this guitar in a studio situation," Baxter said. "I've used it on the TV show King of the Hill and the new Blues Brothers animated TV series that I'm working on. I used it on a movie soundtrack for Michael Camen. I used it on that GTE commercial where we did the Beatles song 'Help.' It works quite well." According to Baxter, the electric model that bears his name is still in the research and development stage. Skunk has had the opportunity to test a couple of the prototypes in real-world situations, and says that the electric model abides by the same philosophy that the acoustic model does. "Again, the idea is to make an electric guitar that's affordable that's also quality and that has enough variety of sounds to be a useful tool for a studio player," Baxter said. "The guitar is not light, it's fairly substantial in terms of its body size and body weight. I like guitars like that. The [Steinberger-designed] gearless tuners are very accurate. They not only work well when you tune up the instrument in the beginning, but when you're playing and you need to make fine tuning adjustment, you often have to be able to do that at the bridge. But the problem with that is, most people are right handed. It's much easier to tune at the neck. Plus it has a 40:1 ratio so it has that fine adjustment feel to it so you can do it while you play." Baxter and Epiphone are currently working hard to come up with the ultimate pickup configuration to give the musician a vast array of useable tones. Having a lot of usable tones is crucial to Baxter, who now has to keep his sound fresh as he writes and records entire movie and TV scores. "A lot of what I've been doing recently is scoring for TV and movies," Baxter said. "It's something I sort of fell into and been doing a fair amount of. It's a lot of fun because you get to write the music as well as play it." When not scoring for film and TV, Baxter applies his knowledge and expertise to the benefit of our country. "I do work as a defense analyst and a consultant to US Congressmen on Military defense and national security issues, mostly in the area of missile defense," Baxter said. "In regards to the technology of music and defense, a lot of the hardware is basically the same. It's just the software applications. Doing so much R&D for different musical instrument companies led me down that path." Despite his hectic schedule, Baxter hopes to get a few live gigs in soon. "The problem is when you're doing episodic television or you're on a movie schedule, it doesn't leave you a whole lot of time [to play live gigs]," Baxter said. "I'll be finding some time for myself later on in the year." For most guitarists, being "too" busy would be a nice problem to have. So how do the people that get all the work get all the work? "One [skill necessary to a good session player] is to be able to play a lot of different styles," Baxter said. "For a lot of people, that's not something that they do. They usually concentrate on one particular way to play the guitar. You also need to be in a place where you can get that kind of work. That's basically Los Angeles and New York. There's not a lot places you can do that. The other is to be willing to put a lot of time and effort into woodshedding to develop your skills. The other is to be somewhat loose, so you have the ability to work with many different people in different situations under high and low pressures, so you can deal with it without letting it affect you. Also being able to put your ego aside when it comes to music and really concentrate on what the producer or the person that hires you wants." And of course it helps to have the right equipment. "Epiphone makes instruments that I think are specifically designed for the working guy," Baxter said. "I don't know if there are enough of those around. Epiphone makes a guitar that people can afford that has very high quality to it. Epiphone is an interesting company. They've built a whole work philosophy around the idea of quality affordable instruments. That's why I like working with them."