Godspell to Saturday Night Live Shaffer began his music career in 1972 when
Stephen Schwartz invited him to be the musical director for the Toronto production of
Godspell, starring
Victor Garber,
Gilda Radner,
Martin Short,
Eugene Levy,
Dave Thomas, and
Andrea Martin. He went on to play piano for the Schwartz
Broadway show
The Magic Show in 1974, then became a member of the house band on
NBC's
Saturday Night Live (
SNL) television program from 1975 to 1980 (except for a brief departure in 1977). Shaffer also regularly appeared in the show's sketches, notably as the pianist for
Bill Murray's Nick the Lounge Singer character, and as
Don Kirshner. Shaffer occasionally teamed up with the
Not Ready for Prime-Time Players off the show, as well, including work on Gilda Radner's highly successful Broadway show and as the musical director for
John Belushi and
Dan Aykroyd whenever they recorded or performed as
the Blues Brothers. Shaffer was to appear in the duo's
1980 film, but as he revealed in October 2009 on
CBS Sunday Morning, Belushi dropped him from the project. In a memo to fellow
SNL colleagues, Belushi said that he was unhappy that Shaffer was spending so much time on a studio record for Radner. Belushi said that he had tried to talk Shaffer out of working on the album in the first place to avoid sharing Shaffer's talents with another
SNL-related project. Shaffer later reported that he was in (unrequited) love with Radner. He went on to appear in 1998's
Blues Brothers 2000. Shaffer left
SNL in 1977 for a few months to co-star with
Greg Evigan in
A Year at the Top, a short-lived CBS sitcom in which Shaffer and Evigan play two musicians from
Idaho who relocate to Hollywood, where they are regularly tempted by a famous promoter (who is actually the devil's son), played by
Gabriel Dell, to sell their souls in exchange for a year of stardom. Though the series only lasted a few episodes, a soundtrack album was released. Following the series' cancellation, Shaffer returned to
SNL during the show's
third season during the 1977-78 season. He was named a cast member during the
1979-80 season as a featured player, making him the first and only band member to join the cast. In the spring of 1980, Shaffer became the first person to say "fuck" on
SNL. That year,
SNL parodied
The Troggs Tapes with a medieval musical sketch featuring Shaffer, Bill Murray, Harry Shearer, and a "special guest appearance" by John Belushi (who had left the show the previous year). In the middle of a long tirade that featured repeated use of the word "flogging", Shaffer inadvertently uttered the forbidden word. It not only escaped the censors in the live broadcast and the West Coast taped airing, but also reappeared in the summer rerun, and even in the syndicated versions of the show for several years. Shaffer, along with executive producer
Lorne Michaels, the entire cast, most of the writing staff, and several other band mates, left the show at the end of the season, after five years. Decades after leaving the show, Shaffer recounted that
Jean Doumanian (who was taking over as producer the
next season) offered him to be the new musical-director in light of
Howard Shore leaving, but he turned it down. Citing in part that he didn't want to start the show again with a brand new cast, and he felt five years was enough time to do the show. In February 2015, Shaffer appeared on the 40th-anniversary special of
SNL, playing music to Bill Murray's lounge-singer character, a love song from the movie
Jaws.
Collaboration with David Letterman Beginning in 1982, Shaffer served as musical director for David Letterman's late night talk shows: as leader of
"The World's Most Dangerous Band" for
Late Night with David Letterman (1982–1993) on NBC, for which he also composed the theme song, and as leader of the
CBS Orchestra for the
Late Show with David Letterman (1993–2015) on
CBS. Letterman consistently maintained that the show's switch to CBS was because NBC "caught Paul stealing pens" or some other trivial reason. Shaffer guest-hosted the show four times when Letterman was unavailable: February 9 and 11, 2000, during Letterman's recovery from his quintuple
heart bypass surgery; March 24, 2003, when Letterman was suffering from
shingles; and January 19, 2005, when Letterman went to receive an award for his
racing team's victory in the
2004 Indianapolis 500. Shaffer wrote and performs the bridging music on Letterman's
Netflix series
My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman which premiered in 2018. After Netflix announced publicly that it had given the series an order, Shaffer received a phone call from Letterman asking him to work on the show. Soon after, Shaffer began to receive cuts of episodes from the first season and he started to put music in afterwards where the director thought it was needed. In developing the sound of the show's music, Shaffer initially looked to Letterman for guidance. Finding none, he remembered his and Letterman's shared love for the sort of music produced at the
Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in
Sheffield, Alabama, describing it as "the honesty you hear, the southern soul feeling". The score initially included drums, but the show's producers and director thought that the music should "feel like it's Dave's old friend Paul playing," so it was ultimately stripped down to solely include piano and organ.
Musical collaboration Shaffer recorded the synthesizer solo in the 1982 song "
Goodbye to You" by the band
Scandal. He used his
Oberheim OB-Xa to emulate a 1960s organ sound. In 1984, Shaffer played keyboards for
the Honeydrippers, a group formed in 1981 by former
Led Zeppelin frontman
Robert Plant, on their only studio album,
The Honeydrippers: Volume One. The album included the hit single "
Sea of Love" which reached number one on
Billboard's adult contemporary chart in 1984 and number three on its Hot 100 chart in 1985. He released two solo albums, 1989's
Coast to Coast, and 1993's ''
The World's Most Dangerous Party, produced by rock musician Todd Rundgren. Shaffer has also recorded with a wide range of artists, including 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, Scandal, Brian Wilson, Late Show'' regular
Warren Zevon, jazz trumpeters
Miles Davis and
Lew Soloff, jazz saxophonist
Lou Marini, and bluegrass legend
Earl Scruggs. In 1982, he co-wrote "
It's Raining Men" with
Paul Jabara. It was number one on the US
Billboard Hot Dance Club Play charts, a number-two hit in the UK for
The Weather Girls in 1984, and a UK number-one cover for
Geri Halliwell in 2001. Shaffer and the World's Most Dangerous Band performed the
Chuck Berry song "
Roll Over Beethoven" for the 1992 film
Beethoven. Shaffer has served as musical director and producer for the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony since its inception in 1986 and filled the same role for the
1996 Summer Olympics closing ceremony in
Atlanta. Shaffer also served as musical director for
Fats Domino and Friends, a Cinemax special that included
Ray Charles,
Jerry Lee Lewis, and
Ronnie Wood. Shaffer has hosted
Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum induction concert and ceremonies. In 2017, Shaffer reunited with his band, resuming its previous name, and recorded the self-titled album ''Paul Shaffer and the World's Most Dangerous Band
. Shaffer and the band released their album in March and then went on tour, as well, as making appearances on both Jimmy Kimmel Live and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert'', for which Shaffer and the band returned to the
Ed Sullivan Theater for the first time since Letterman's finale two years earlier. In 2023, the band returned to
30 Rockefeller Plaza to act as the house band for one episode of
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon while the regular band,
the Roots, prepared for the
65th Annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. They returned to the
Tonight Show for a week in February 2025 when the Roots took a week off to rehearse for
Saturday Night Live's
50th anniversary special. Shaffer revisited Studio 6A, where
Late Night had been taped, in 2023 to perform a cover of
Patti LaBelle’s “
New Attitude” with
Kelly Clarkson for her
eponymous talk show.
Movie and documentary appearances Shaffer has appeared in a number of motion pictures over the years, including a small role (Artie Fufkin of Polymer Records) in
Rob Reiner's
This Is Spinal Tap and its 2025 sequel
Spinal Tap II: The End Continues,
Blues Brothers 2000, a scene with
Miles Davis in the
Bill Murray film
Scrooged, and as a passenger in
John Travolta's taxicab in ''
Look Who's Talking Too''. In addition, Shaffer lent his voice to
Disney's animated feature and television series
Hercules as the character
Hermes. Shaffer appeared in Greg Zola's documentary about Sly Stone,
Small Talk About Sly which was completed sometime prior to 2017. He is portrayed by
Aaron Lustig in the 1996 telefilm
The Late Shift and by
Paul Rust in the 2024 theatrical release
Saturday Night.
Other television and radio appearances He hosted
Happy New Year, America in 1994 on CBS. Shaffer was considered for the role of
George Costanza in
Seinfeld, but never returned the call from
Jerry Seinfeld that offered him the role. In 2001, Shaffer hosted the
VH1 game show
Cover Wars with DJ/model Sky Nellor. The show featured
cover bands competing for the ultimate series win. Each week, Shaffer signed off with, "Just because you're in a cover band, it doesn't mean you're not a star." The show lasted 13 episodes and featured celebrity judges including
Kevin Bacon,
Nile Rodgers, Cyndi Lauper, and
Ace Frehley. Shaffer served as musical director for 2001's
The Concert for New York City, and accompanied
Adam Sandler's "
Opera Man" sketch and the
Backstreet Boys' "
Quit Playing Games (with My Heart)". In 2002, he hosted the infamous Friars Club Roast of
Chevy Chase on
Comedy Central in which the presenters' insults directed at the comedian were so vicious, Shaffer reportedly had to console him afterwards. Shaffer hosts the 60-second radio vignettes called "Paul Shaffer's Day in Rock". These audio shorts were first produced for Envision Radio Networks and debuted in 2007 on New York station
WAXQ-FM. In 2008, Shaffer made a cameo appearance at the beginning of the
Law & Order: Criminal Intent season-seven episode "
Vanishing Act". In February 2013, he appeared in an episode of the sitcom
How I Met Your Mother titled "
P.S. I Love You", in which the character of Robin (
Cobie Smulders) is revealed to have been obsessed with him. The letters "P.S." in the episode title refer to Paul Shaffer. Shaffer was the musical director for
A Very Murray Christmas, a 2015 Netflix variety special starring Bill Murray in which Shaffer also appears and performs extensively. In December 2018, he made a cameo appearance in an episode of the Canadian sitcom ''
Schitt's Creek,
during which he played the piano at a Christmas party. The episode, titled "Merry Christmas, Johnny Rose," also reunited him with his former Godspell'' colleague
Eugene Levy. Shaffer competed on the
second season of the TV series
The Masked Singer as "Skeleton". In 2019, Shaffer began hosting
Paul Shaffer Plus One, a monthly talk show on
SiriusXM and
AXS TV that featured Shaffer interviewing colleagues in the music industry such as
Sammy Hagar,
Graham Nash,
ZZ Top's
Billy Gibbons, and
Donald Fagen of
Steely Dan.
Charity work Since 2002, he has been the national spokesperson for Epilepsy Canada. On September 29, 2005, Shaffer made a major contribution to Lakehead University to dedicate the fifth-floor ATAC boardroom to his father Bernard Shaffer, inaugural member of the board of governors. In June 2006, he received a star on
Canada's Walk of Fame. In 2005, along with
Steven Van Zandt, he organized a benefit for
Mike Smith (formerly of
The Dave Clark Five), who had suffered a paralysing fall at his home in Spain. Shaffer cites Mike Smith as an early influence. In 2012, Shaffer appeared in
12-12-12: The Concert for Sandy Relief, where Shaffer accompanied Adam Sandler. The concert raised money for the people who were affected by
Hurricane Sandy in October 2012. Shaffer is a member of Canadian charity Artists Against Racism.
Memoir Shaffer's memoir, ''We'll Be Here for the Rest of Our Lives: A Swingin' Show-biz Saga
(co-authored by David Ritz) was published on October 6, 2009. The same day, he made an appearance as a guest on The Late Show''. ==Honours==