Steely Dan guitarist turned session legend Jeff “Skunk” Baxter has weighed in on the cheap electric guitar debate, revealing he recorded a disco classic with a budget electric guitar that he bought for less than $50.
Baxter has been speaking all things gear with Guitar World, and in the same conversation where he said he shunned a vintage Tele for a budget Squier, he’s singled out the one electric guitar that represents his best deal.
“In terms of value for money, that would be a Burns Baby Bison guitar that I bought for 35 bucks,” he says.
Popular bargain builds in the mid to late '60s, Burns guitars often boasted strange body woods like sycamore. Baxter went ahead with the trade, and he has previously stated that a six-pack of beer was also included in the deal. Once it was in his hands, it went on to feature during his session work on a change-making track for one disco’s biggest names.
“I ended up using it on the Donna Summer album [Bad Girls on Hot Stuff],” he says. “And I also started playing it in the studio as well as playing it live. It was a hell of a deal.”
As Baxter has previously discussed, he was moving house at the time, and after committing to the gig, realized he didn’t have a guitar to hand. Cue a mad dash to Guitar Center.
“Paul Herman was the manager down the one in Hollywood,” he recalls. “I said, ‘Paul, I need a guitar now.’
“He laughed and pointed to a box in the middle of the store with, ‘Buy me. 25 bucks.’ It had a bunch of weird guitars, and it had a Burns Baby Bison with five regular tuning pegs, and somebody put a Gibson tuning peg on.”
The guitar caught his eye and proved a hit for the guitarist on a personal level, and a hitmaker in the studio. It shows that cheap guitars don't always sound cheap.
However, the guitar that is now always by Baxter’s side is a little more high-tech than its $35 stablemate. Recently, the guitarist also explained how a fortuitous snowstorm saw him drafted in as James Brown’s foil at the very last minute.
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