In Session
A Vulture series in which studio musicians select their best performances.
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(Sorry Pepe, but youre not a featured player onPretzel Logic.
Youre basically standing by and waiting for a call, he explains.
You park your ego at the door and get the job done.
And Baxter always gets the job done.
Its a great feeling.
I knew Steely Dan was going to do this song and I was just finishing building a Stratocaster.
No dressings on it.
It weighed about, I dont know, ten pounds.
It was a very heavy instrument.
You know those things they put in front of the cars to keep them from rolling?
The little cement things?
And there was no real direction, which wasalsounusual.
I just went for it and everybody seemed to like it.
We were all massive Duke Ellington fans.
For example, Walter substituted the trumpet part with a wah-wah guitar.
So I thought, Ill work with that trombone part.
The trombone has a slide so you’ve got the option to slide between notes.
I had the idea to try it on pedal steel.
Why the hell not?
I wanted the challenge and I was really satisfied.
It was an exploratory record.
It was stretching out everywhere.
And while we were doing it, I thought,Im a studio rat.
They all said, Yeah, thats a great idea.
There was something to me about this experience that was very constructive.
A producer doesnt care what band youre in or how cool your shoes are.
You show up at nine in the morning and you play it right or youre fired.
Those were the rules we would live by in the studio.
I thought getting the guys in the Doobie Brothers into this concept would be a good thing.
And they rose to the occasion beautifully.
We had an excellent rhythm section.
Having had that experience paved the way for the massive success of theMinute by Minutealbum.
He said, I have this artist named Donna Summer.
I said, Okay, what kind of music is it?
And he said, Disco.
Id done a million disco sessions.
Some were interesting and some were less than interesting.
So I told him, I dont know about this.
He said, Listen, you could play whatever you want.
Im not going to write anything out.
How could I say no to a pitch like that?
I didnt have a single guitar.
So I stopped off at Guitar Center in Hollywood.
you’re gonna wanna sell it to me for parts.
He knew what was going on.
So I walked in the store and said, I need a guitar.
I pulled out this Burns Bison Jr.
It had five regular tuning pegs and somebody replaced one of them with a Gibson tuning peg.
It was kind of a mutt.
I picked it up, plugged it in, and I went, This isgreat.
I still have that guitar, by the way.
The first thing they said was, We have two songs for you right now.
They played me Hot Stuff and I thought it sounded great.
I went back the next day with a prototype of the Roland Guitar Synthesizer.
Those guys were all electronics freaks.
They said, We have to use this on something.
So I responded, What do you want to do?
And then they played me Bad Girls.
I knew I had to do a guitar synthesizer solo on Bad Girls.
Donna was an absolutely wonderful human being and very engaged throughout the whole experience.
They didnt tell me what to play.
I was sort of stirring the pot.
Working for Dolly was an absolute joy.
She was actively involved in everything which she oftendoesnt get enough credit for and it made a big difference.
On being paid not to play
Gary Katz was, famously, the producer for Steely Dan.
It opened up a lot of opportunities for him to produce other acts.
So I went in a couple of days later and everything was all set up.
So Gary said, Sit down and have a listen.
I listened to the record top to bottom.
I turned to him and said, It doesnt need anything.
And Gary turned to me and said, Thats why I pay you triple scale.
Theres something to be said for what you dont play.
