by Paul Shaffer
The notion of getting a Linda Ronstadt or a Bette Midler to turn over all power to Phil was a pipe dream, but I didn’t care. The Wall was all.
There were no fewer than thirty musicians in the studio, including six guitarists and six keyboardists. I was one of two synthesizer players; the other was Alan Pasqua, a great jazz pianist. Phil was renowned for including jazz masters on his sessions. In fact, he had vibist Terry Gibbs playing shaker.
His overall strategy was this: to achieve the perfect balance, to create the perfect sound. Then and only then would he go for a live take.
Because I was Phil’s pal, I had an all-access pass to this heavy-duty sonic construction project. I could pass freely from the studio to the booth and watch him work. Phil wanted leakage. He said leakage was the mortar that joined the bricks that built the Wall.
“Leakage,” he explained, “is what creates the room sound. I want that sound to wash over everything.”
Leakage meant that the sound of the drum could leak into the guitar mic, and the sound of the guitar could leak into the drum mic. Getting maximum leakage meant taking down the sound booth walls separating the musicians. Leakage meant opening up the sonic floodgates and letting go of traditional engineering restraints. Larry Levine knew about leakage.
But in this modern studio, Larry Levine couldn’t duplicate Phil’s original methodology. The Back to Mono Rail was a little off track. The arrangement, hastily crafted by Jack Nitzsche, had several empty bars. Everything needed fixing and everything took time.
The Wall went up slowly. Phil mixed down the acoustic guitars to an infectious chug-a-chug-chug shaker beat. Then he folded in four acoustic pianos, then three percussionists. Next he had me and Pasqua looking for synth sounds. I didn’t really know the instrument, so Alan helped me find a classical guitar patch that Phil liked. Phil put a deep reverb on the sound and mixed it in with everything else. The next thing I knew, I was standing in the control booth, listening to myself as part of the Spector sound. Holy shit!
The horns came next. Everything was being layered and relayered. Everything was getting bigger and bigger. The Wall was getting higher and higher.
But unfortunately the Wall had cracks, and Phil couldn’t get what he wanted. He kept running from the control room, where he was entertaining celebrity friends like O.J. attorney Robert Shapiro, to the floor of the studio, trying to make it all happen. By midnight, the Wall was up, but wobbly. The drummers had yet to play.
“Guys, we’re not going to get it tonight,” Phil finally said.
We hadn’t even played the whole thing through. There was never a live take.
The musicians were crestfallen. They would have played all night for Phil. One by one, though, they packed up and filed out. I stayed for the postmortem.
“Too bad about those missing bars,” Phil said.
“I wish they’d had the right tape delay,” I added.
“But I’ll tell you something, Paul. Thirty guys sure sounded warm in there.”
At that point it hit me: Warmth. That’s what I loved about the Spector sound. Warmth.
We went out for drinks afterward.
“The nerve of you, asking for expense money,” Phil said over a Cointreau straight up. I blamed it on my manager.
“You know, Paul,” Phil started to needle me, “some of the cats thought you were just here for comic relief.”
“Which ones?” I asked, panicking.
“Never mind,” he said.
With that, we toasted the memory of Richie Valens.
The project was abandoned, but many months later I received a beautifully written letter from Phil saying that I had played skillfully on the session and had earned the right to consider myself a brick in the Wall of Sound.
On another occasion in L.A., Phil presented me with my very own “Back to Mono” button. That night we went to the Vine Street Bar and Grill, a jazz club where Anita O’Day was appearing. I told Phil how my dad loved Anita and considered her, along with Sarah, Ella, and Billie, one of the greats. “Your dad has good taste,” Phil told me. Anita had survived a long and difficult life, which she had documented in Hard Times High Times, her candid autobiography.
Anita’s set was stunning: “Wave,” “Tenderly,” “Tea for Two,” “I Cover the Waterfront,” “Sweet Georgia Brown.” Despite her advanced age—or perhaps because of it—she swung with percussive ease. At seventy-five, she was free as a bird.
We went to meet her in her dressing room. She was polite to Phil, though it wasn’t clear whether she knew who he was. When she saw me, though, she greeted me with a hug. “I love the Letterman show,” she said. “I watch it every night. I dig the band.” And with that, she reached into a Saks Fifth Avenue shopping bag, fished out a copy of her autobiography, and said, “Paul, this is for thou.”
Hip, I thought. Phil forced a smile.
Later that night we went to the Polo Lounge where, lo and behold, we encountered our idol, Ahmet Ertegun. Ahmet was at a table with a young couple from the Midwest who were honeymooning in Beverly Hills. Ahmet had given them a bottle of Dom Perignon and, if I read the situation correctly, was also angling to give the bride a private toast in his suite. In his ultrasuave manner, he was arguing that, beginning with the honeymoon, an open attitude toward marriage is the only way to ensure a long-term relationship between a man and woman.
Phil and I were intrigued by Ahmet’s romantic maneuvers. Who else but the great Ertegun would hit on a newlywed in the presence of her husband?
The couple recognized me from Letterman, but they hadn’t heard of Phil.
“Phil Spector is a genius,” said Ahmet. “In the dark and dreary music business, he is one of our bright lights. I respect him tremendously. There is, however, a major and irreconcilable difference between Phil and myself.”
“What is that difference?” asked the extremely impressionable young bride.
“Well, I am a proponent,” Ahmet said drolly, “of stereo.”
Years later, Phil was in New York and asked that I join him on another jazz jaunt. Richard Belzer was also along for the ride. Phil explained that a reporter profiling him for a national magazine would be part of the entourage, but not to worry, the journalist would be without his pad. I assumed that meant that the evening would be “off the record.”
We started out at the Plaza. Then it was on to Elaine’s for dinner. The reporter was silent and, as Phil had promised, was not taking notes. No one took pictures. The second stop was Fez, a downtown downstairs jazz club where Phil wanted to hear the Mingus Big Band, an edgy orchestra dedicated to the music of the immortal Charles Mingus. The band was a groove, and before long I was asked to join them onstage.
“You can’t play this stuff,” said Phil. “It’s too far out.”
Nevertheless, I got onstage, sat at the piano, and had a ball. Calling upon the illuminating spirit of my mentor Tisziji Munoz, I managed to dance my way through the avant-garde arrangement and add some improvisational touches of my own. The band was pleased and so was the audience.
Phil wasn’t.
“You cheated,” said Phil. “You rehearsed it. I’d bet a million bucks you rehearsed the fuckin’ thing before we got here.”
“Make the check out to cash, Phil. I don’t cheat. I just play.”
Several months later, the profile of Phil appeared. Off the record indeed! The evening was recounted in detail!
Belzer and I were described derisively as friends of Phil who were not on the A-list. In the words of the reporter, we were on the “J-list …Jews of middle vintage whose show-biz lives let them hang out and on for eons without having to smile in the middle box of ‘Hollywood Squares.’” I thought the remarks had a somewhat anti-Semitic tinge. Besides, the characterization was inaccurate. Both Belzer and I had proudly appeared on that classic game show loved by millions. So there.
Chapter 35
Loving Gilda
When Gilda went off to marry Gene Wilder in 1984, it left a hole in the
soul of the SNL crowd. We thought of her as our Gilda. We were convinced that we loved and understood her more deeply than anyone in the world. So when, five years later, we heard she had contracted ovarian cancer, we were devastated. It couldn’t be happening, not to someone with the life force and love-giving spirit of Gilda Radner.
By then she and Gene were living in Connecticut and, understandably, not answering anyone’s calls. They were contending with Gilda’s debilitating condition.
When I heard, though, that her days were few, I had to call. Miraculously, Gene answered.
“It’s Paul Shaffer,” I said.
“Oh, Paul,” said Gene. “Gilda’s right here. I know she’d love to talk to you.”
“Paul?” It was Gilda’s distinctly sweet voice, but a voice that had grown terribly weak.
I quoted the Stevie Wonder song from The Woman in Red, the film she did with Gene. “I just called to say I love you.”
“I love you too, Paul.”
“You know, Gilda, I still feel awful that your record didn’t turn out better. I really messed that one up.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Paul, forget about it. That’s old news. Let yourself off the hook.”
“Thanks, Gilda. I will. Hey, I’m thinking about that moment I played piano while you auditioned for Godspell with ‘Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.’ I fell hopelessly in love with you. We all did.”
“And Paul, how ’bout back in Toronto when I walked into one of our little parties with Peter Boyle on my arm and your jaw dropped to the floor.”
“You told us you’d picked him up on a plane trip. We were so in love with show business back then, any star would have knocked us out.”
“Paul, you’re the most show business person I know,” said Gilda with that laugh we all cherished.
“Baby, you’re a star,” I said. “Your light will never dim.”
Gilda passed on May 20, 1989. Her light shines even brighter today.
When Lorne Michaels decided to “produce” a private memorial for Gilda, he did so in typical Lorne style. He decided it would be held in Studio 8H, the SNL home, the most appropriate stage imaginable. In our world, when someone dies, all we know how to do is put on a show. So we put on a show for Gilda.
As was his MO, Lorne called it for 4 p.m. but didn’t make his grand entrance until 6. None of us objected. After all, we were all there because of Lorne.
I started off the evening by announcing that the Harlem Boys’ Choir would sing a song. I have no idea why the Harlem Boys’ Choir had been chosen by Lorne, but so it was. They sang splendidly. I also performed “Honey, Touch Me with My Clothes On,” one of the songs Gilda and I wrote for her one-woman show. The three ladies of Rouge sang it, the same three who had accompanied Gilda on Broadway.
Then the comedians. Laraine and Jane were touching. They really missed Gilda. Danny Aykroyd told of his getaway weekend with Gilda when, in his words, “I finally had this irresistible lady all to myself.” There were other such loving remembrances on the part of Gilda’s male cohorts. It became a Gilda love-off: who loved her more, who loved her longest, who loved her best.
But the entertainer who caught the dark-and-light comic moment with greatest clarity and humor was Bill Murray. Bill got up in front of the audience of Gilda’s SNL peers and said what we were all thinking but were too afraid to put into words. “Of course we all loved her,” said Bill. “She was our Carol Burnett, our Lucille Ball. She was our own special genius. The more vulnerable she became, the more we adored her. And then one day—beyond the control of any of us—she met her Prince Charming. Suddenly she was out of our sphere. She was in Connecticut—with him.” Here Bill paused for effect before uttering the words “Gene Wilder killed Gilda.”
What may now appear harsh in print was just the comic antidote we needed. It was the biggest laugh I’d ever heard. We laughed uproariously. We laughed until it hurt. We cried until it hurt. We’re still laughing. We’re still crying.
Chapter 36
“Kick My Ass-Please!”
Among the immortal lines we remember from the movies—Clark Gable’s “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” Marlon Brando’s “I could’ve been a contender,” Robert De Niro’s “You talkin’ to me?”—are these words spoken by Artie Fufkin the promo man, played by yours truly in the great rockumentary This Is Spinal Tap:
“Kick my ass—please!”
I am referring, of course, to my brief movie career during those wild and crazy eighties when, perhaps because of the buzz from my sitcom A Year at the Top, I was in great demand. While I didn’t have a starring role in Spinal Tap, there was some talk about a supporting actor Oscar nod—mainly from my mother who saw a nuanced interpretation that others may have missed.
This Is Spinal Tap was written by Harry Shearer, Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, and Rob Reiner. It’s a mockumentary about a make-believe rock band. The original idea was for all four screenwriters to portray the band members. Three of them did, but legend has it that Rob couldn’t fit into the spandex.
That’s how he got to play the part of the doc film director. Reiner was, in fact, the real-life director of Spinal Tap.
The filming technique employed the use of scene outlines rather than an actual script. The overall plot was planned, but the dialogue was a kind of free-for-all improvisation. Some of the actors might cook up their comic lines in advance, but they wouldn’t reveal them until the cameras rolled. People were breaking up right and left. On playback, though, Rob would say, “That’s okay. You would break up if someone said something like that. We’re leaving it in.”
There are some who say my role as Artie Fufkin was typecasting. Of course, I have known a gang of brilliant promoters over the years, the greatest of whom is Donny Kirshner. Certainly I had Kirshner in mind as I developed the character.
In my key scene, Artie has arranged a record signing for the band’s new release, Smell the Glove, at a retail store. He arrives wearing a silver satin tour jacket. When not a single fan shows up, though, Artie is humiliated. He tries to blame the store manager, berating him unmercifully. To express his disappointment, Artie tells him, “We’re talking about a relationship here.”
“Artie, don’t take it so personal,” the manager says.
“Forget about personal, what about a relationship?” asks Artie, invoking the spirit of the great Don Kirshner.
Ultimately, though, Artie assumes the blame for the fiasco. In a moment of mea culpa passion, he bends over and tells the band, “Kick my ass! Enjoy! Kick an ass for a man! I’m not asking, I’m telling with this! Kick my ass—please!”
By the way, the movie did kick ass.
In 1843, Charles Dickens wrote a timeless fable called A Christmas Carol. Its two lead characters are Tiny Tim and Ebenezer Scrooge. One hundred and forty-five years later, my good friend Bill Murray used the story as a launching pad for the film Scrooged.
I was asked to participate.
My screen time in Spinal Tap might have spanned six minutes. My screen time in Scrooged was considerably shorter—six seconds. It was memorable nonetheless, mainly because of the presence of one Miles Davis.
The setup was this: Miles, a true jazz icon, would be leading a group of street musicians during a Christmastime outdoor scene as Bill Murray walked by. I was in the band along with Larry Carlton and David Sanborn. I couldn’t believe my good fortune. In wide-screen Technicolor, I was Miles Davis’s keyboardist.
During the musical prerecord, Miles said, “Where’s the drummer?”
“It’s a street band, Miles,” said the music director. “So what?” said Miles. “Even the Salvation Army got drums.”
That’s when I pulled in Marcus Miller to play drums on a machine.
Miles began sketching out the way he wanted us to play “We Three Kings of Orient Are.”
“We’ll do it in three,” said Miles, “then go to a funk section.”
Carlton whispered in my ear, “Why is Miles directing this thing? Why do we have
to do it the way Miles wants it?”
“Maybe because, um, he’s Miles?” I said.
The result was a major music lesson for me. I was playing synth bass. Instructing me, Miles said, “Paul, don’t play the root. Don’t land on the root. Ever. Play around it, but never hit it.” In doing so, I realized this rootless technique floated the whole thing. It immediately sounded like Miles.
The six seconds on camera were extended to six full minutes on the album sound track.
Miles was also a wonderful artist and illustrator. I had the great honor of having him sketch me as I appeared to him on Letterman. He then gave me the sketch. As if that wasn’t enough, he pointed to his sketch pad and said, “Paul, pick out another one. Pick out whatever you like.”
I liked a sketch of Miles being serviced by a lovely Asian babe.
“You have good taste,” he said.
“Thank you, Miles. So do you.”
“Hey, Paul,” he added. “Let’s do this Christmas song on Letterman.”
“Groovy.”
The very next Friday, Miles came on the show and played “We Three Kings” with my band.
During rehearsal, listening to us vamp on a Sly song, he came over and said, “If it ain’t funky, you can’t use it. Ain’t that right, Paul?” I smiled in agreement as I absorbed one of the great compliments of my career. Then, in that same rehearsal while we were playing “We Three Kings,” Miles brought our level down to a whisper. “This is how you get guys in a rock band to listen to each other,” he said. On the show itself, the World’s Most Dangerous Band never played with greater subtlety. Miles was magic.
Picture this:
We’re on the set in Seinfeld’s apartment. Jerry, Elaine, and Kramer watch TV.
Downstairs buzzer sounds.
“Who is it?”
