Paul Shaffer

Paul Allen Wood Shaffer, born November 28, 1949, is a Canadian musician, actor, comedian, and book writer whose career has spanned Broadway, television, and recording. He was born in Toronto and raised in Fort William, now part of Thunder Bay, Ontario, the son of Shirley and Bernard Shaffer. His father, a lawyer, was a jazz enthusiast, while his mother had a passion for show tunes. Shaffer was raised in the Jewish faith. At age 12, a family trip to Las Vegas, where he saw Nat King Cole perform, proved formative; he later described the experience as life-changing and credited it with his decision to pursue a career as a performer. As a child he studied piano, and during his teenage years he played organ in a Thunder Bay band called Fabulous Fugitives with schoolmates. He later performed with the Flash Landing Band at venues across Edmonton and the interior of British Columbia. Shaffer earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology from the University of Toronto in 1971, during which time he played with jazz guitarist Tisziji Muñoz and developed an interest in musical theater. He appears briefly in the 1971 IMAX documentary North of Superior, playing organ at an outdoor wedding.

Shaffer's professional career began in 1972 when Stephen Schwartz invited him to serve as musical director for the Toronto production of Godspell, a cast that included Victor Garber, Gilda Radner, Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, and Andrea Martin. He subsequently played piano for Schwartz's Broadway production The Magic Show in 1974. From 1975 to 1980, with a brief departure in 1977, Shaffer was a member of the house band on NBC's Saturday Night Live, where he also appeared regularly in sketches, most notably as the pianist accompanying Bill Murray's Nick the Lounge Singer character and in the role of Don Kirshner. During the 1979–80 season he was named a featured player in the cast, becoming the first and only band member to join SNL as a cast member. He departed the show at the end of that season after five years, alongside executive producer Lorne Michaels and much of the cast and writing staff. In February 2015, Shaffer returned to the SNL 40th-anniversary special, again playing alongside Murray's lounge-singer character.

His Broadway credit as both performer and book writer came in 1979 with Gilda Radner – Live From New York. He had also served as musical director for John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd when they recorded and performed as the Blues Brothers, though Belushi ultimately removed him from the duo's 1980 film, citing Shaffer's concurrent work on a studio record for Radner. Shaffer later appeared in the 1998 film Blues Brothers 2000. In 1977, he briefly left SNL to co-star with Greg Evigan in the CBS sitcom A Year at the Top, in which the two played musicians from Idaho who relocate to Hollywood and are tempted by a promoter — the devil's son, played by Gabriel Dell — to trade their souls for a year of fame. The series lasted only a few episodes, though a soundtrack album was released. Shaffer also appeared as a keyboardist on the 1978 album Desire Wire by Cindy Bullens.

Beginning in 1982, Shaffer became the musical director and bandleader for David Letterman's late-night television programs. He led the World's Most Dangerous Band on NBC's Late Night with David Letterman from 1982 to 1993, composing the program's theme song, and then led the CBS Orchestra on the Late Show with David Letterman from 1993 to 2015. He guest-hosted the Late Show on four occasions: February 9 and 11, 2000, during Letterman's recovery from quintuple heart bypass surgery; March 24, 2003, when Letterman was ill with shingles; and January 19, 2005, when Letterman traveled to accept an award related to his racing team's victory at the 2004 Indianapolis 500. Shaffer also wrote and performed the bridging music for Letterman's Netflix series My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman, which premiered in 2018. For that project, he drew on a shared affinity with Letterman for the sound associated with Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Sheffield, Alabama, ultimately paring the score down to piano and organ alone.

As a recording artist and session musician, Shaffer recorded the synthesizer solo on Scandal's 1982 song "Goodbye to You," using an Oberheim OB-Xa to replicate a 1960s organ sound. In 1984 he played keyboards for the Honeydrippers, a group formed by Robert Plant, on their studio album The Honeydrippers: Volume One, which produced the single "Sea of Love," reaching number one on Billboard's adult contemporary chart in 1984 and number three on the Hot 100 in 1985. He released two solo albums: Coast to Coast in 1989 and The World's Most Dangerous Party in 1993, the latter produced by Todd Rundgren. His recording collaborations have included work with Donald Fagen, Ronnie Wood, Grand Funk Railroad, Diana Ross, B.B. King, Asleep at the Wheel, Cyndi Lauper, Carl Perkins, Yoko Ono, Blues Traveler, Jeff Healey, Cher, Barry Manilow, Chicago, Luba, George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Nina Hagen, Peter Criss, and Scandal, among others.