Paul Shaffer

All Music Guide:

Behind his lovable nebbish persona, keyboardist and musical chameleon Paul Shaffer rose to fame as late-night star David Letterman's sidekick and bandleader/musical director. Shaffer's late-night band, known from 1982 to 1993 as the World's Most Dangerous Band on NBC, later assumed the moniker of the CBS Orchestra and featured guitarists Sid McGinnis and Felicia Collins, ex-Parliament-Funkadelic keyboardist Bernie Worrell, bassist Will Lee, and drummer Anton Fig. In addition to accompanying the wide array of musical guests on Letterman's show, Shaffer has released occasional albums under his own name and contributed his expertise to various other projects.

Paul Allan Shaffer was born on November 28, 1949 and raised in Thunder Bay, Ontario. He studied classical piano as a child and in his teenage years joined a rock band after discovering the Beatles and Neil Young. Shaffer originally planned to earn a law degree and join his father's firm, but while majoring in psychology as an undergraduate at the University of Toronto, he found himself unable to bear giving up music. After graduation, Shaffer landed a job as musical director of a Toronto production of Godspell in 1972, where he befriended Martin Short and Gilda Radner. When Shaffer traveled to New York to record Godspell's movie album, he got a gig playing piano in the Broadway production of The Magic Show. He quickly branched out into radio work, including National Lampoon's Radio Hour, and played on other artists' recording sessions, commercial jingles, and demos.

Shaffer had previously befriended many of the comedians at the new comedy program Saturday Night Live, as well as producer Lorne Michaels, and he joined the program in 1975, writing special musical material. During his first tenure with the show, he also supported Gilda Radner on her Broadway show Gilda Live and collaborated with Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi on their Blues Brothers project, playing on their 1978 Briefcase Full of Blues album. In 1979, he briefly left SNL to star in a Norman Lear/Don Kirshner-produced sitcom, A Year at the Top, which was canceled after only six weeks. Shaffer continued his occasional acting gambits after returning to SNL, impersonating Kirshner in skits and taking a sniveling turn as record promo man Artie Fufkin in Rob Reiner's This Is Spinal Tap.

Shaffer's big break, of course, came in 1982, when he was tapped to become the musical director of Late Night with David Letterman and the leader of the World's Most Dangerous Band. The program ran on NBC through the fall of 1993, and Shaffer became an instantly recognizable celebrity. In 1991, Shaffer recorded his first album, a guest-laden affair (Dion, Ben E. King, Bobby Womack, Wilson Pickett, etc.) titled Coast to Coast, which paid tribute to the rock and soul classics Shaffer fell in love with in his younger days. In 1993, Letterman and Shaffer moved to CBS, and legal difficulties forced Shaffer to rename his band the CBS Orchestra. That year, the band recorded an album entitled The World's Most Dangerous Party, with the band billed as the Party Boys of Rock 'n' Roll. Shaffer seems poised to continue on in his current role indefinitely.

Wikipedia:

Paul Allen Wood Shaffer, CM (Surname English pronunciation: /ˈʃeɪfər/, born November 28, 1949) is a Canadian-American musician, actor, voice actor, author, comedian, and composer who has been David Letterman's sidekick since 1982.

Early years

Shaffer was born and raised in Fort William (now Thunder Bay), Ontario, Canada, the son of Shirley and Bernard Shaffer, a lawyer. Shaffer was raised in a Jewish family. As a child, Shaffer had lessons on the piano, and moved on to playing the organ by his teenage years, in a band (Fabulous Fugitives) with his schoolmates in Thunder Bay. Later he performed with the "Flash Landing Band" @ different venues around Edmonton and the Interior of B.C. Educated at the University of Toronto, he began playing with jazz guitarist Tisziji Muñoz, performing in bands around the bars there, where he found an interest in musicals, and completed his studies, with a B.A. degree in Sociology in 1971.

Musical career

Shaffer began his music career in 1972 as the musical director for the Toronto production of Godspell, starring Victor Garber, Gilda Radner, Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas and Andrea Martin. He went on to play piano for a Broadway show called The Magic Show in 1974, then became a member of the house band on NBC's popular Saturday Night Live (SNL) television program from 1975 to 1980 (except for a brief departure in 1977). Though Shaffer was at the piano and appeared to be directing the band's actions, Howard Shore was credited as SNL's musical director, eventually turning the actual conducting of the band to sax player Howard Johnson. Shaffer also regularly appeared in the show's sketches, notably as the pianist for Bill Murray's Nick the Lounge Singer character, and as Don Kirshner.

Shaffer occasionally teamed up with the Not Ready for Prime-Time Players off the show as well, including work on Gilda Radner's highly successful Broadway show and as the musical director for John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd whenever they recorded or performed as The Blues Brothers. Shaffer was to appear in the duo's 1980 film, but, as he revealed in October 2009 on CBS Sunday Morning, Belushi dropped him from the project. In a nasty memo to fellow SNL colleagues, Belushi said that he was unhappy that Shaffer was spending so much time on a studio record for Radner. Belushi said that he had tried to talk Shaffer out of working on the album in the first place in order to avoid sharing Shaffer's talents with another SNL-related project. Shaffer later reported that he was in (unrequited) love with Gilda Radner. He would go on to appear in 1998's Blues Brothers 2000.

Since 1982, Shaffer has served as musical director for David Letterman's late night talk shows: as leader of "The World's Most Dangerous Band" for Late Night with David Letterman (1982–1993) on NBC, for which he also composed the theme song, and as leader of the CBS Orchestra for the Late Show with David Letterman (1993–present) on CBS. Letterman consistently maintains that the show's switch to CBS was because NBC "fired Paul for stealing pens" or some other facetious reason. Shaffer has also guest-hosted the show a few times when Letterman was unavailable, including during Letterman's January 2000 medical leave for quintuple heart bypass surgery, and during the birth of Letterman's son Harry in November 2003.

Shaffer has served as musical director and producer for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony since its inception in 1986 and filled the same role for the 1996 Olympic Games closing ceremonies from Atlanta, Georgia. Shaffer also served as musical director for Fats Domino and Friends, a Cinemax special that included Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis and Ron Wood.

Shaffer has released two solo albums, 1989's Grammy-nominated Coast to Coast, and 1993's The World's Most Dangerous Party, produced by rock icon Todd Rundgren. Shaffer has also recorded with a wide range of artists, including Donald Fagen, Ronnie Wood, Grand Funk Railroad, Diana Ross, B.B. King, Asleep at the Wheel, Cyndi Lauper, Carl Perkins, Yoko Ono, Blues Traveler, Cher, Chicago, Robert Burns, George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Nina Hagen, Robert Plant, Peter Criss, Scandal, Late Show regular Warren Zevon, jazz trumpeter Lew Soloff, jazz saxophonist Lou Marini and bluegrass legend Earl Scruggs. With Paul Jabara, he wrote and produced the song "It's Raining Men," which was a #2 hit in the UK for The Weather Girls in 1984 and a UK #1 remake for Geri Halliwell in 2001. Shaffer and The World's Most Dangerous Band perform the Chuck Berry song "Roll over Beethoven" for the 1992 film Beethoven.

Other activities

Shaffer has appeared in a number of motion pictures over the years, including a small role (Artie Fufkin) in Rob Reiner's This is Spinal Tap, Blues Brothers 2000, a scene with Miles Davis in the Bill Murray film Scrooged and as a passenger in John Travolta's taxicab in Look Who's Talking Too. In addition, Shaffer lent his voice to Disney's animated feature and television series Hercules, as the character Hermes.

In 1977, Shaffer left SNL for a few months to co-star with Greg Evigan in A Year at the Top, a short-lived CBS sitcom in which Shaffer and Evigan play two musicians from Idaho who relocate to Hollywood where they are regularly tempted by a famous promoter (who is actually the devil's son), played by Gabriel Dell, to sell their souls in exchange for a year of stardom. Though the series only lasted a few episodes, a soundtrack album was released.

Following the series' cancellation, Shaffer returned to SNL. In the fall of 1979, Shaffer became the first person to say "fuck" on SNL. That year, SNL parodied the Troggs Tapes with a medieval musical sketch featuring Shaffer, Bill Murray, Harry Shearer, and a "special guest appearance" by John Belushi (who had left the show the previous spring). In the middle of a long tirade which featured repeated use of the word "flogging," Shaffer inadvertently uttered the forbidden word. It not only escaped the censors in the live broadcast and the West Coast taped airing, but also reappeared in the summer rerun, and even in the syndicated versions of the show for several years. Shaffer, at Letterman's urging, related the story on the very first episode of Late Night.

In 1977, Shaffer played on the Mark & Clark Band's hit record Worn Down Piano. In 1995, he appeared in Blues Traveler's video for the song "Hook".

Shaffer recorded the famous synthesizer solo in the 1982 hit "Goodbye to You" by the band Scandal. He used his trusty Oberheim OB-Xa to emulate a 1960s organ sound.

Around 1998 he was a square on Hollywood Squares.

In 2001, Shaffer hosted the VH1 game show Cover Wars with DJ/model Sky Nellor. The show featured cover bands competing for the ultimate series win. Each week, Shaffer would sign off with, "Just because you're in a cover band, it doesn't mean you're not a star." The show lasted 13 episodes and featured celebrity judges including Kevin Bacon, Nile Rodgers, Cyndi Lauper and Ace Frehley.

Shaffer served as musical director for 2001's The Concert For New York City, and accompanied Adam Sandler's Opera Man sketch and the Backstreet Boys' "Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)".

In 2002, a street which surrounds the Thunder Bay Community Auditorium in his hometown was renamed "Paul Shaffer Drive." Shaffer has also received two honorary doctorates, including one from Lakehead University.

Since 2002, he has been the national spokesperson for Epilepsy Canada. On September 29, 2005, Shaffer made a major contribution to Lakehead University to dedicate the fifth floor ATAC boardroom to his father Bernard Shaffer, inaugural member of the Board of Governors. In June 2006, he received a star on Canada's Walk of Fame.

In 2005, along with Steve Van Zandt, he organized a benefit for Mike Smith (formerly of The Dave Clark Five), who had suffered a paralyzing fall at his home in Spain. Shaffer cites Mike Smith as an early influence.

In 2008, Shaffer made a cameo appearance at the beginning of the Law & Order: Criminal Intent season 7 episode "Vanishing Act".

Shaffer's memoir, We'll be Here for the Rest of Our Lives: A Swingin' Show-biz Saga (co-authored by David Ritz) was published by Flying Dolphin Press (an imprint of Random House Inc.'s Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group) on October 6, 2009. The same day, he made an appearance as a guest on The Late Show.

Paul Shaffer never returned the call which offered him the role of George Costanza in Seinfeld.

Personal life

Shaffer has been married to Cathy Vasapoli since 1990, with whom he has two children — Victoria (born 1993) and Will (born 1999).