Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter is best known for being guitarist in Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers, although recently - and certainly more notoriously - ­he has been working as a US defence consultant, chairing a Congressional Advisory Board on missile defence.

Whether Fender Telecasters ever enter the mind of Skunk these days is uncertain although it was certainly his instrument of choice in his pre-theatre of war existence. He once worked as a guitar repairman and was known as a major tweaker of his own instruments.

One upshot of this was ‘Skunk-a-sonic’ Teles, handwound and configured for his own particular sonic tastes. Other refinements included removing all the factory frets and re-radiusing the fretboard from its standard 7.25” to a flatter radius, and then refretting with larger wire. Here is the Skunk, rocking out on Reelin’ In The Years with Steely Dan in 1978.

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