Interesting Stories
Surprise Birthday Fundraiser
Skunk’s son, Jeffrey “Fender” Wray told his dad that he really wanted the family to be together for his birthday in December. Little did Skunk know that Fender, who served with 7thSFG(A) at Fort Bragg, 7th Special Forces and fought in the invasion of Panama and In the first Gulf War., had made arrangements for his birthday to be a surprise fundraising event to support the Marine Corps Foundation with a special scholarship.
The surprise birthday party was at The Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia. Fender had the Marine Corps Foundation sponsor the event and they helped secure the venue and paid for the accommodations and travel for all of the invited guests. In order to generate revenue corporate tables were sold for a pre event banquet that included attendance to the show. The Marine Corps Foundation also started a scholarship in Skunk’s father’s name, Loy Joseph Baxter and the recipient of the scholarship was in attendance.
The guest list of musicians included:
Don Wilson of the Ventures
Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad
Barry Goudreau of the Band Boston
James Burton from Ricky Nelson and Elvis Presley
Matt and Gunnar Nelson - Ricky Nelson’s sons
Slim Jim Phantom from Stray Cats
Jennie Vee of The Eagles of Death Metal
Kenny Arronoff
Robert Mousey Thompson of James Brown Band
Leroy S Romans of The Wailers
James Montgomery Harmonica
Tim Archibald
Phil Stokes Pure Prairie League
Kenny Lee Lewis of Steve Miller Band
Danny Beissel of Featherborn
C J Vanston
It was a great evening and event Special Mention to Edward “Sonny” Masso, without whose help none of this would be possible he is a dear friend of the family and championed the ticket sales
We also auctioned off an autographed guitar. Bill Johnson was Fender’s right hand in planning the event and helping secure the talent. So he gets a nod as well.
The event succeeded in raising $150,000 for the scholarship.
Donna Summer - Bad Girls
A popular session guitarist, Skunk received a phone call for an emergency session with Donna Summer, when another guitarist wasn’t available. Summer was already in the studio. Skunk didn’t have time to go home for a guitar and so he stopped at Guitar Center, bought a $25 used electric guitar and a new set of strings and rushed off to the studio. Hearing the arrangement, he suggested that they step it up a bit and the result was the always recognized riffs at the beginning of the song.
Jeff Skunk Baxter Guitar Clinics
As a guitarists, Baxter has been in high demand to conduct specialized guitar clinics for retailers, manufacturers and at guitar shows. Most people think that guitar clinics are about learning new riffs or techniques. However, with Baxter you are also likely to get a physics lessons. Talking about how each note and chord is a frequency and as that frequency is squared, cubed and up, it becomes a color or even and xray, Baxter uses his technical knowledge to educate the audience. At this Classic Guitar show in Texas, Baxter showed people how simply changing the way a simple chord progression was played it became the basic for blues, jazz or rock. Inviting a member of the audience on stage (in this case, a member of the Ventures), he demonstrated the concept to all the attendees.