Top 10 Facts About a Sidekick<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\nWow, what a concept!<\/p>\n
Used to be musicians were a special club.\u00c2\u00a0 Today’s businessmen wet behind the ears complain about the big bad company, how they’re being ripped off, they do endorsement deals, they’re little corporations.\u00c2\u00a0 Musicians used to be players.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, they still are.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s just that very few "artists" are musicians anymore.<\/p>\n
Paul Shaffer tells about killing it at the synagogue.<\/p>\n
Yes, many musicians start very young.\u00c2\u00a0 Their initial gigs aren’t on MTV, they’ve got a long history of playing live.\u00c2\u00a0 Like at the Brass Rail. That was Paul’s breakthrough gig in Toronto, a strip club.\u00c2\u00a0 Where he played seven straight hours a night, from 6 p.m to 1 a.m., fifty minute sets with only a ten minute break, announcing the dancers’ arrival and departure.<\/p>\n
You learn your chops in these circumstances.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that Paul Shaffer saw the gig as a stepping stone, he felt he’d finally made it!<\/p>\n
So criticize Paul all you want, but he can certainly play.\u00c2\u00a0 Seemingly anything.\u00c2\u00a0 And he learned how from all those years on stage.<\/p>\n
Slowly, he got into the fraternity.\u00c2\u00a0 On tour with the Blues Brothers, he encountered "sweet, sweet Connie".\u00c2\u00a0 If you don’t know who that is, you’re too young, or never listened to the radio.\u00c2\u00a0 She had the whole show in Little Rock, according to Grand Funk Railroad’s "We’re An American Band", and this night Paul Shaffer had her himself, twice.\u00c2\u00a0 (And don’t pooh-pooh this track, produced by Todd Rundgren, it’s Grand Funk’s apotheosis, an exquisite three minute concoction).<\/p>\n
Paul speaks about being nervous backing up Ray Charles when he hosted SNL.<\/p>\n
But his best stories have to do with Dylan.\u00c2\u00a0 Dour Dylan.\u00c2\u00a0 Who seems to be a world apart until he finally speaks.\u00c2\u00a0 When he turns into little Bobby Zimmerman from down the street.<\/p>\n
Paul barges into Dylan’s dressing room on the Letterman show.\u00c2\u00a0 Starts testifying.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’ve never done this, you’ve had no access to stars. But you eventually stop, because you get Dylan’s reaction more often than not.\u00c2\u00a0 Silence.\u00c2\u00a0 But after far too many beats, Dylan speaks and says…<\/p>\n
"’Paul, do you think you could introduce me to Larry "Bud" Melman?’"<\/p>\n
A Letterman fixture, this is hilarious if you watched the old show.<\/p>\n
If not, it falls flat.<\/p>\n
And that’s just the point.\u00c2\u00a0 Few may care about the backstage shenanigans, the jam sessions, the contact with stars that musicians experience.\u00c2\u00a0 But to them and music fans it’s EVERYTHING!<\/p>\n
We want to wax rhapsodic about the shows we’ve attended, the one where this guy sat in or was in the audience or the act played a rare tune.<\/p>\n
If you’ve ever been backstage, you know usually nothing thrilling happens there.\u00c2\u00a0 But we’re always thrilled to be a part of it.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is exactly what the audience wants.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s why they want access, they want to be included!<\/p>\n
As a result of a lot of practice and a lot of desire and a bit of luck, Paul Shaffer has now been included.\u00c2\u00a0 And he’s loving it!<\/p>\n
The Kindle sample includes these Dylan stories.\u00c2\u00a0 Like Paul and Dave bantering about what song Dylan should play on the anniversary special and then Paul calling Bob to discuss it.\u00c2\u00a0 Unfortunately, the free excerpt on the Amazon web page is a different passage.<\/p>\n
I’m only twenty percent in, but when the free sample ended, I immediately purchased the book! I’m enjoying the stories of growing up in a Jewish family, of the description of his parents as swingers, although the timeline is a bit fuzzy, as if Paul had done so many drugs he could no longer remember things in order.\u00c2\u00a0 But the passion, of a fan, shines through brightly.<\/p>\n
In a world of glitz, where the goal is to have your mug everywhere, Paul has lived mostly behind the scenes with exactly what we desire, a backstage pass to the music, access to seemingly every star ever.\u00c2\u00a0 Paul may seem out of touch on TV, but reading his book you believe he’s totally in touch.\u00c2\u00a0 He worships the talent, he worships the lifestyle, not the Rollers and the Benzes, but the up all night let it blow ethos.<\/p>\n
I’m digging it!<\/p>\n
\n"We’ll Be Here For The Rest Of Our Lives: A Swingin’ Show-biz Saga"<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Is worth the price for the Dylan stories alone. Although I was addicted to Letterman in the eighties, when Paul led the Most Dangerous Band, before the switch to 11:30, when "Late Night" was seemingly an extension of seventies SNL, often as funny and frequently as inventive, that’s not why I bought this book. Yes, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,9,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business","category-the-media","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-Bj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2313"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2315,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2313\/revisions\/2315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}