Bucky Baxter at the Ryman, performing with Brendon Benson and Friends, 12/18/2013
Bucky Baxter, who died Monday in Sanibel Island, Fla., at age 65, was a sideman celebrated for his empathetic steel-guitar playing with forceful musicians like Steve Earle and Bob Dylan. During a seven-year stint with Dylan, Baxter kept a sane, professional distance — like many great sidemen, he was loath to breach the line between what he owed his boss onstage and what the leader was like as a person, when the show was over. What Baxter played with Dylan, Earle and many others was confident and, at times, slightly bent. On pedal steel, Baxter was a master who knew how to make a succinct, pointed statement with a few strokes.
He was born William Temple Alan Baxter in Melbourne, Fla., in 1955. He got his nickname from his curly hair, which reminded his friends of Buckwheat, a character in the Our Gang comedy short films of the 1930s and ’40s. Baxter spent his high school years in Vienna, Va., and began playing in bands that toured around Virginia. He took lessons from pedal-steel legend Ernest “Buddy” Charleton, who worked in Ernest Tubb’s famed Texas Troubadours.
After making his bones playing with country singers Dave & Sugar, Steve Wariner and Jean Shepard, Baxter became a founding member of Earle’s band, The Dukes. When Earle opened for Dylan at a 1989 show, Baxter connected with the great singer-songwriter. In 1992 Dylan called Baxter to go on the road, and you can hear Baxter’s licks on 1997’s acclaimed Time Out of Mind.
“He’s an interesting cat, I’ll say that,” Baxter told Scott Marshall and Laurie McCuistion about Dylan in 2000 for the magazine On the Tracks. (Read an excerpt here.) During the interview, Baxter avoided saying anything about Dylan’s personality or intentions. It was, Baxter emphasized, strictly business. Baxter understood the nature of his job, as he told Marshall and McCuistion.
“Sure, I got sick of playing ‘All Along the Watchtower,’ ” he said. “But, on the other hand, there are songs like ‘Tangled Up in Blue’ that we played seven nights a week and I never got sick of it.”
Baxter released one solo record, 1999’s Most Likely, No Problem, which is atmospheric and relaxed. You can hear his acerbic touch on pedal steel on Americana singer Jim Lauderdale’s 2001 recording “Honky Tonk Haze.” Among others, he also worked with Ryan Adams, playing on 2001’s Gold and 2002’s Demolition, as well as R.E.M. on 1988's Green.
Baxter’s son Rayland confirmed the steel player's death, as reported by Rolling Stone. The younger Baxter is a Nashville singer and songwriter whose 2018 full-length Wide Awake sports work by his father and by another superb Nashville pedal-steel artist, Lloyd Green. As Rayland told me in 2018, Bucky Baxter gave him some sage advice about making the record.
“My dad recommended Lloyd,” Rayland said. “Bucky was like, ‘I’m a little out of practice. Why don’t you call Lloyd Green?’ ”
