Paul Shaffer

Paul Shaffer

Paul Shaffer is the bandleader on the David Letterman TV show which airs in the U.S. on the CBS network. Letterman is in the news for his own reasons these days, but Shaffer has a memoir coming out next month called We’ll Be Here for the Rest of Our Lives. Vanity Fair magazine has published an excerpt that just happens to be all about Shaffer’s various encounters with Bob Dylan through the years. It reads as the precious memories of a fan excitedly meeting his idol, and indeed that’s what it is. One excerpt, regarding Dylan’s 1983 appearance on the Letterman show:

Shaffer also describes his discomfit at seeing Dylan wearing a cross in 1979, when he performed songs from Slow Train Coming on the Saturday Night Live TV show. Shaffer, being Jewish himself, had taken pride in the Jewishness of “the most important poet of our generation.” In later years Shaffer was gratified to see evidence that Dylan was apparently now practicing Judaism (but not so gratified when Dylan left a rehearsal early, apparently because of the Sabbath). All in all, amusing and nice stories from Paul, but the biggest revelation is surely that Bob Dylan was a big fan of Larry “Bud” Melman (real name: Calvert DeForest).