Someone to play solos

 I kind of look at guitar playing on two levels. There's the professional studio sausage method where you go in and grind it out, and that's not necessarily bad. It's good music and you're having a good time. To get a chance to do it and be of that caliber is one of the most wonderful things that could ever happen to a guitarist. A lot of guys say it kills them; well, it's what you make of it. In praise of studio guitarists [lifts glass in toast]! The other level is when you really want to play and you're with people who accept and like what you do. My specialty, if you could call it that, is guitar solos, obviously, even though I sit back and do the I-have-a-swimming-pool rhythm guitar sound that LA, laid-back, it's-all-paid-for studio musicians have. I do like to play solos, and the reason Walter and Donald called me was they needed somebody to play solos. 

Jeff Baxter, interviewed for Guitar Player in 1980.  And here,  seated as always, Jeff Baxter talks about style and rhythm: