He’s with the band
Musician Paul Shaffer, best known for leading Letterman’s band, talks to Cassandra Szklarski about hitting the road again.
Q I think you’re not one who can retire easily.
A It just did get very depressing and I realized I need to keep playing the piano, you know. When I got this call from the legendary Seymour Stein, the great record man, record executive, who said, ‘Would you like to get back in the music business and make a record?’ I just jumped at the chance. And getting the old band back together from Letterman was fun because we really played so well together. We were like a guerrilla war team, a special OPS of rock ’n’ roll for all those years. And we did fall right back into it and had a very fun time with a lot of laughs making this record.
Q Which vocalist will come with you on tour?
A The great Valerie Simpson is coming with me. This is like a dream come true for me. Not only did I idolize her as a writer when I was a kid, because with her late husband
Nick (Ashford), she wrote Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, Reach Out and Touch Somebody’s Hand, You’re All I Need to Get
By, oh my goodness, Let’s Go Get Stoned, for Ray Charles. So many classics ...
Anyway, when she said she would do this tour, it’s like, I just flashed back to (hearing) her first solo album came out on which she played gospel piano and I had never heard anything like it. I froze in my tracks and I used to slow down that record and really study that style. It was the first sort of inroad that I was able to hear into that stone gospel style of piano that she could play. She is an amazing musician, singer as well as writer. And is inspired and wants to get out on the road.
Q Any chance of convincing Bill Murray to appear at any of the shows?
A He might be in Morocco, for all I know. That cat swings wild on an international level. I’m glad he surfaced long enough to spend an afternoon with me in the recording studio, during which he worked really hard, by the way, on his vocal. Putting it under the microscope and wanting to just sound really musical. Because although he loves to sing, he’s often doing it for comedic purposes. But he did take after take and wanted it to be right.