Piano man

(Flying Dolphin Press/Doubleday)

Q: You grew up in Thunder Bay, a long way from Toronto and even farther from New York. Can you tell me about growing up in Thunder Bay and your exposure to the showbiz world there?

A: My mother was from Toronto. My dad was a Thunder Bay native. He married my mom and took her up there, so in that way Toronto wasn’t so distant — I was coming down ever since I can remember to visit my mother’s family. My dad went to University of Toronto and Osgoode Hall Law School and always pictured me following in his footsteps.

Yet, at the same time, both my parents loved show business. They had the same kind of duality that I have; when I announced to them that I had no alternative but to take a year off my university studies and try to do music full time, there was a part of them that wished that I was going to go to grad school right away. But there was another part that was secretly thrilled, because they loved music and show business and they imparted that love to me.

A: They brought me up watching The Ed Sullivan Show faithfully. They knew everything about everybody on it – the English music hall performers, whether it be Tessie O’Shea or John Raitt and the Broadway people that Sullivan would have on. It was quite an education. I don’t know why they were so cosmopolitan, but they had very hip taste in music. My dad with his Ray Charles and Sarah Vaughn, Billy Eckstine the great jazz vocalist, and Oscar Peterson was his favourite pianist. I had a well-rounded musical education just from my parents.

Q: Can you tell the story about your trip to Las Vegas as a kid? Not many parents would take their 12-year-old to an after-hours show on the Strip.

A: This was life-changing for me, and at that time, this was not the Las Vegas of Paris Hilton hosting a party at Pure or something like this. This was the old Las Vegas, the Rat Pack Vegas that we read about in the legendary stories. My parents wanted to go see shows. They didn’t gamble, they took me along and I was thrilled about it.

Juliet Prowse was a singer-dancer from South Africa who was dating Frank Sinatra at the time, so of course she was royalty, too. My dad heard she was doing a late show, later than any of the other shows on the Strip, so the other performers could come and see her show. Well, at 12 years old, I thought this was the hippest thing I ever heard of. We went to see this show and it left me forever with the mantra, “The later, the hipper.” It served me well in later years when I got that call from David Letterman, who said “I’m doing a show even later than Johnny Carson.” I said, “That’s for me, I’m there.” It seemed like a perfect fit for me, right after Johnny Carson. It reminded me of Juliet Prowse in Las Vegas.

Shaffer poses with his star as he is honoured at Canada's Walk of Fame in Toronto in 2006. (J.P. Moczulski/Reuters)

Q: When I watch you playing on Letterman, you seem to be transported to another place. Obviously you have this profound love of music and an encyclopedic knowledge. Can you talk to me about those early years of listening to radio in Thunder Bay?

A: It was like a lifeline for me. Someone threw me a lifeline. I didn’t fit in up in Thunder Bay, necessarily. I skied and I was a pretty good skier because you had to be. That was what the kids were doing. But really, it was freezing cold on the slopes, 30 below Fahrenheit and we thought nothing of going out and taking a run. But what I remember is getting on a chairlift and hearing The Lion Sleeps Tonight playing at the chairlift on the loudspeaker. I remember that very clearly. And I also remember seeing the Ronettes singing Be My Baby on American Bandstand, and then going skiing and all I could think about was those hairdos and those short dresses and the sound, that wall of sound, the castanets evoking a hot Spanish Harlem night. I thought: Man, that’s where I want to be. I gravitated towards the Brill Building sound, the sounds of the Drifters singing Up on the Roof and Under the Boardwalk. And [singing] “There is a rose in Spanish Harlem.” It all just seemed so glamorous — hot. We didn’t have much hot weather up there in Thunder Bay.

Q: In the book, you talk about recreating those records in your home.

A: That saved me in my childhood. I didn’t buy records, I would just learn how to play the songs by ear on the piano, and play them as loud as I could and get off that way. I wouldn’t practise my lessons much, but I’d come home from school and spend a good two or three hours at the piano, just banging out the hits. And I learned how to recreate the whole orchestration just with the piano. We had a grand piano in the rec room, and I would rest the bongo drums on top of the piano, so I could do the intro to the Four Seasons’ Walk Like a Man. I’d start with the bongos, then I’d go to the piano. I don’t know why, but it got me off as a kid.

Q: Your first big break came when you got the gig as the conductor on that legendary Toronto production of the rock musical Godspell in 1972-73. Can you describe working with that group of young performers?

A: In the show was this marvelous group of kids — the funniest, most musically talented kids that you could possibly come across: Martin Short, Andrea Martin, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, Gilda Radner, Victor Garber. I thought every show was going to be like that, but every show was not like that. It was exceptional and a coming together of all these kids and it was everyone’s first job in show business. Everybody was about 22 years old. We hung out incessantly, we talked about the show non-stop. Marty Short and Eugene Levy shared a house at 1063 Avenue Road. We were there all the time, especially Friday nights after the show, and we called it our Friday night services. Sometimes Marty would just get a cassette recorder and press record and say, “Let’s be funny.” Some of those tapes we still have. And I learned so much from these kids, hanging out with them and just about life, and how to have an attitude towards life. Nothing got Marty down – and I tried to be as much like that as I could. We’re still best friends to this day, and when we get together, we just start at the top of that Godspell score and sing it all down even today.

Shaffer performs with actor Martin Short at the 2003 Emmy Awards in Los Angeles. (Vince Bucci/Getty Images)

Q: Your friendship with Martin Short is interesting to me, because you both straddle two generations: you’re part of the rock ’n’ roll generation, but you also share this love for pre rock n’ roll/Catskills culture.

A: Yeah, well, Marty is hilarious and he’s a phenomenon in that rock ’n’ roll has never fazed him. It never got through to him. He loves Frank Sinatra Jr., he loves Judy Garland. Marty and I went together a few weeks ago in New York to see the first night of the wonderful Rock and Roll Hall of Fame two-night extravaganza at Madison Square Garden, where you have people like Crosby, Stills and Nash and Springsteen. And Marty said, “I couldn’t care less about this. If Frank Jr. and Lorna Luft were doing a medley of songs that weren’t nominated for Oscar, then I’m there!” He hasn’t changed. I love to hang out with him and talk Sinatra and the Rat Pack. I can do it for as long as he wants.

Q: How did you become a band member on that first season of NBC Saturday Night?

A: I had met Howard Shore [now an Oscar winner for his work on the Lord of the Rings series] just before I left Toronto, in a show called Hey Justine at the Global Village Theatre. Cut to about two years later, and I’m working on Broadway in The Magic Show, and I get this call from Howard. He said, “You’d be perfect for this show called NBC Saturday Night – you already know a lot of the performers who are going to be in the cast.” And I did. But I said to Howard, “This is a professional job and I can barely read music.” I was chicken and he had to talk me into it. He told me not to worry, that I’d have time to work on the music.

He forced me to take this job as his pianist and key member of the Saturday Night Live orchestra. I immediately started creating/working on musical material with the show’s writers and developing stuff with the cast members. It was a great fit for me. And the experience of doing Godspell and then hanging out with the kids from the Godspell show as they all made the transition into the Second City nightclub show that turned up in Toronto and would evolve into the SCTV show — all of that was great training. I didn’t do Second City with them, but I was there almost every night watching the show, absorbing their technique. And Saturday Night Live was very much a Second-City style of improvisational comedy.

VIDEO: Paul Shaffer talks about writing the disco classic It's Raining Men.

Q: What is the key to the success of your partnership with David Letterman over a quarter-century?

A: Well, he certainly makes me laugh on a nightly basis. I don’t think there’s anybody quicker in show business. He has been very generous with me and given me this time to learn what he needs for support. And I’m there certainly to support him, whether it’s by playing a little tinkly piano music while he learns how to make a soufflé, or to just keep a constant undercurrent of “Yes, oh really? Is that so?” – that kind of thing, just so he has somebody to talk to. It’s nothing more than that. We did an interview together last week – he was gracious enough to do an interview with me for a CBS Sunday morning show – and they said what is the secret of your success? He says, “Success? We don’t know what the hell we’re doing.” And it’s true: We just kind of go on night after night and see what happens. And he likes it that way. He likes it totally spontaneous, and I guess you have to be loose enough to swing with that.