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A GUY YOU JUST GOTTA LOVE

review of Paul Shaffer's music memoir, "We'll Be Here for the Rest of Our Lives"

Date published: 11/1/2009

AND the No. 1 reason you should shell out 26 bucks for Paul Shaffer's showbiz bio?

"Four words: young female staff members."

Just kidding! Just kidding!

The fact is, you probably won't read a funnier book, certainly not a biography, all year.

Take, for example, the anecdote in "We'll Be Here for the Rest of Our Lives" involving Bob Dylan:

It concerns the night Letterman hosted two world-famous musicians--Liberace and Bob Dylan. Liberace wasn't there to tickle the ivories, he was demonstrating how to cook a souffle.

Dylan followed the sequined pianist with a killer three-song set. After the show, "Late Show" bandleader and Letterman comic foil Paul Shaffer tried to ingratiate himself with Dylan in the iconic folk singer's dressing room.

Shaffer explained how the two of them were literally linked by Highway 61, with Shaffer having grown up just up the road from Dylan and Minnesota in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

Dylan remained unmoved. Then, Shaffer, wanting to impress the singer with their common interests, spoke of his love for all things R&B. Didn't that make them soul brothers? he wondered.

Dylan looked him in the eyes, and Shaffer thought they'd finally made a connection.

"Paul, do you think you could introduce me to Larry 'Bud' Melman?" asked Dylan, referring to the lovable nerd who was a running character on the show.

Shaffer thought Dylan was kidding, but he wasn't.

The man who has made a career of being an oxymoron--a hipster sidekick--covers everything in his bio, from playing organ at age 12 in synagogue and envying Ray Charles' B3-organ skills to his nearly 30 years of appearing before millions every night, broadcasting from the Ed Sullivan Theater.

In between are described the years when he: played in a Canadian strip joint with a band called the Shaf-Tones; landed his first legit gig in musical theater with future stars and lifelong friends Gilda Radner, Martin Short and Eugene Levy; served as musical director for the Blues Brothers band; performed in skits on "Saturday Night Live"; and starred in an extremely short-lived sitcom.

I guess I just really relate to Shaffer, who turns 60 this year, as another middle-age, R&B-loving guy who has got lots to atone for.

Come to think of it, Shaffer reminds me of no one so much as that other impish, Jewish celebrity-worshipping musican he happened to adore--Sammy Davis Jr.

Kurt Rabin is a copy editor at The Free Lance-Star.

WE'LL BE HERE FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES By Paul Shaffer with David Ritz(Doubleday, $26)

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Date published: 11/1/2009