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Guitar great also is an intelligence expert
Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan guitar great Jeff "Skunk" Baxter becomes a player in the U.S. intelligence community.Date published: 9/8/2003
Two rock stars are in the autumn of their music careers. Both are 54. One is Ozzy Osbourne, until recently best known for biting the heads off bats and urinating on the Alamo. Now, he spends much of his time mumbling obscenities and passing out on his reality-TV show, "The Osbournes." Even though he still leads the Ozzfest tour each year, Osbourne has become essentially a caricature of himself. The other is Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, legendary lead guitarist of the Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan. He does not have a reality-TV show. But Baxter does have other things going on. He's an adviser to Congress on antiballistic missile systems. He's a consultant to the Missile Defense Agency and to various organizations in the intelligence community. He works with the National Mapping and Imagery Agency (NIMA) on spy-satellite technology in Washington, specializing in technologies for future warfare. NIMA employs a number of residents of the Fredericksburg area, some in high positions. Baxter also works in the Los Angeles Police Department Anti-terrorism Unit as a reserve officer. Oh, and in his spare time, he's recording his first solo CD and remains a sought-after studio musician on other artists' albums. OK. Osbourne and Baxter. So which one is the household name, which one is more famous than ever, which one is the idol of millions? Not Baxter, of course. That's the way of the world. But that's just fine with Baxter, who's thrilled with the way his life is playing out. "Skunk is such an admirable person on so many levels," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif. "He's a patriot and a musical genius. At the same time, he has this 'I wanna help' attitude that is truly admirable. You can't say that about a lot of rock stars.'' Much as a music-label rep discovers a band, Rohrabacher discovered Baxter as a player in the intelligence community when he read a paper the musician wrote on missile defense. For years, Baxter had spent his band road time while touring poring over magazines about technical advances in weaponry, technical manuals and books about national defense. He believed he could apply all kinds of new technical information to music-business uses.
Date published: 9/8/2003
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