We'll Be Here For the Rest of Our Lives by Paul Shaffer Read Free Book Online Page B

When he skipped to the bridge, I was there with him; when he sang an extra chorus, I played the extra chorus; when he cut a lyric or improvised a verse, I didn’t miss a beat.
    “Damn, Shaffer,” said Tony, “you know what you’re doing.”
    “I try,” I said. “Well, you succeed.”
    When Andy played Tony, I sensed a sweetness that I never felt when Andy played Andy. In fact, I liked working with Tony Clifton a lot more than working with Andy Kaufman, whom I viewed with a degree of pity. During the actual show that night, the musical rapport between Clifton and Shaffer was silky smooth. The medley came off without a hitch.
    Thereafter, Andy’s career was marked by an increasing predilection toward pain. The pain became alarmingly real when he developed cancer and died tragically in 1984. He was thirty-five. Even now, though, there are those who say his death was the final hoax and that somewhere, in Indianapolis or Indonesia, he lives incognito as a plumber or rug salesman.
    My fascination with Andy continued long after his premature demise. In fact, when his manager, Bob Zmuda, wrote a book about Kaufman, I bought it immediately. Imagine my shock, then, when I read Zmuda’s description of Tony Clifton’s appearance with me on Letterman. It wasn’t Andy Kaufman who played Tony, said Zmuda; it was Zmuda himself who played Tony. Andy was home that night taking it easy.
    How heartening to learn that Tony is indeed alive and well! If only the same could be said of Andy.

Chapter 9
Frank Sinatra Welcomes
Elvis Back from the Army
    A quarter century before Andy Kaufman, I was falling in love with the improbable and paradoxical nature of show business via our black-and-white TV set. What could be more unlikely than the joint appearance of Frank and Elvis?
    Sinatra’s television show was sponsored by Timex, and the guests included Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop, and Nancy Sinatra. Special lyrics by Sammy Cahn. It was the start of the sixties, the Rat Pack was swingin’, and Frank was flying high.
    I watched the show in wonder. In a duet with his daughter, Frank didn’t sing, “You make me feel so young;” he sang, “You make me feel so old.” In turn, Nancy replaced the line, “And even when I’m old and gray” with “And I don’t need a dowry, Dad.” Frank’s lyrics also referenced Tommy Sands, Nancy’s fiancé at the time. The whole thing made the audience feel like part of the Sinatra family.
    But the segment of the show that moved me most was Frank and Elvis, the kings of warring universes, singing each other’s songs. Frank did a big-band version of “Love Me Tender”while Elvis Elvis-ized “Witchcraft.” Frank was constantly straightening his tie; Elvis had undone his. Frank was folding his arms; Elvis swiveled his hips. Frank was uptightsville; Elvis was loose as a goose. Frank was a good sport about it, but you couldn’t help but feel that he saw the future of music and it wasn’t him.
    I was caught between these two worlds. And, to some degree, so was Elvis, who cited Dean Martin as an influence. Frank was my dad’s man. My dad also loved Arthur Prysock, whom Elvis credited as another influence. I knew Prysock’s one and only rock hit, “It’s Too Late.” My father knew it too but had little use for Elvis.
    Without doubt, Elvis was a towering influence on future rockers around the world. Even in our frozen corner of Canada, we felt the heat. And although Elvis’s post-army songs were certainly charming—who could resist his reading of “Follow That Dream” and the honky-tonk piano that rocked the chorus?—other artists spoke to me more directly. For example, I loved the Moody Blues. I especially loved their preorchestral singles rendered in an R&B vein: “Go Now” and “I Go Crazy.” When I played those records, my dad would say, “That’s a black group, isn’t it?”
    “No, Dad, they’re English.”
    “I wouldn’t have believed that anything English could be that hip,”