Columbus' Palace Theatre is celebrating 100 years of entertaining audiences. A special one-time only event is among the celebrations.
"Palace 100: The Genius of Ray Charles" is coming in November. The event will be hosted by Paul Shaffer, David Letterman’s long-time musical director.
Shaffer joined Morning Edition Host Stu Osborne to preview the event.
Stu Osborne: What can people expect when they attend “Palace 100: The Genius of Ray Charles?”
Paul Shaffer: Well, Ray Charles is, I mean, he's more than a musician. He was a force of nature. His music will live forever. He played the Palace Theater in Columbus many times. Most recently it was 1992. We have a cast of wonderful singers to recreate his numbers from all genres. Because his range was incredible. It's just going to be a celebratory evening of music, celebrating that wonderful theater, that beautiful house, which is 100 years old. And I couldn't think of a more apt way to do it than with the music of the genius Ray Charles.
Stu Osborne: You mentioned it's going to be a long list of musicians. Who are some of those that the fans will be able to come listen to that night?
Paul Shaffer: Patti Austin, whom we all know, had many hit records through the, I think it was 70s, 80s, a wonderful singer whom I worked with very early in my career when she was in New York, singing in the recording studios, but she moved to Hollywood and that's where her solo career really took off. And then Aloe Blacc, who we all knew, guests on many influential hip hop records. Just a few, you know, Lisa Fischer, an incredible woman singer who was in that movie "20 Feet From Stardom" and toured with the Rolling Stones specifically to do “Gimme Shelter” with Mick (Jagger). She was with him for about 20 years. She'll be with us that evening. Billy Valentine is a local Columbus artist who left town and made it big and actually wrote a song which became an album for Ray Charles. He's returning to Columbus to do this. We're excited about it. Monica Mancini, Blessing Offor and Jackson Dean, a great country artist who is gonna do some of that new sound, modern sounds in country. And Ray Charles had a beautiful soulful country album too.
Stu Osborne: Are we going to get to see you behind the piano as well.
Paul Shaffer: Absolutely, I get to do a few Ray numbers, besides him seeing the whole thing. My connection with him goes back to when I was a kid and my dad, this conservative lawyer in northern Canada, on Sundays would pull out his own records, Sarah Vaughan and Billy Eckstine and Ray Charles. That's where I first was exposed to him. When R&B bands would do numbers by Ray Charles, I started to realize that this isn't just music for my parents, it's for me too, it is for everybody. Then, I got to work with him the first time on Saturday Night Live in (the) 1970s. I was a house pianist the first five years. That was, I don't know how to describe it. I've never been so nervous though, playing for the genius, who stopped the whole band during rehearsal and said, “Organ, play it with some soul!” And my God, I was dying. I knew I had soul. I just couldn't quite sum it enough at that point, until my great friend Howard Johnson from the band piped up from the horn section. And he said “he's got it.” And then I played something that he liked. And thank God, you know, from then on it was, I played for him many more times. And I think there was a little bit of trust built up over all those times. I sure learned the meaning of soul from the genius, I'll tell you that.
Stu Osborne: You've kind of already spoken to it, but his music has really stood the test of time all of these years. I mean, even people still today are doing covers of his songs and playing his songs at shows. It's just a testament to his musical genius.
Paul Shaffer: It sure is, and his sincerity, and I don't know what else to say except that he was the truth, you know. You look for soul music, the definition of it in the Webster's Dictionary, there's a picture of Ray Charles. What more can one say?
Stu Osborne: Now I didn't know this until I did some research. I believe you were the musical director of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, is that correct?
Paul Shaffer: Well, I was for the first 35 years of the induction ceremonies. And we inducted Nat Cole one year. And Ray came to do “Nature Boy” in honor of Nat King Cole. That was just one of the times that he really put the thing in my hands and said, you know, Paul, how are you doing it? How are we? We want to do it how you want to it. Oh, I'll go with you. You know, and we really did a head arrangement on that one. All of these are such strong memories for me.
Stu Osborne: What kinds of projects are you working on these days?
Paul Shaffer: You know, I'm gigging when the phone rings, and otherwise I've slowed way down. And I think that after 33 years with Dave Letterman, I kind of deserve it. Now, Dave is doing a few live events now, and I always go out with him and bring some music to the table. I'm also appearing in a great documentary called, “You Had to Be There,” which is about the 1972 production of the show “Godspell”, the rock musical from ‘72. And there was a Toronto company, which I played in. It was my first real theatrical job. And in the company was a Eugene Levy and Martin Short, Andrea Martin, Victor Garber, this cast full of stars. They all became stars. Today, that's a real interesting little documentary that I'm proud of.
Stu Osborne: What's one of your favorite memories from your time with David Letterman, whether it be a guest that he had or a musical guest or someone you got to play with.
Paul Shaffer: Ray Charles is right up there. Who would have thought that I would have gotten to play with him? But James Brown is another one that comes to mind that was very important to me. And just coincidentally, I got a communication the other day from a guy named John Halliwell. He was the saxophone player from...“Breakfast in America.” Oh my God, I'm spacing on the name of...
Stu Osborne: Supertramp.
Paul Shaffer: Yeah, he was the sax player of Supertramp. And the first guy in about, early in the run of Letterman, early 1980s, called up and said, I would like to sit in with the house band. First guy to ever kind of think of doing that. He suggested it. And I thought, well, what a cool idea. And he came and I happened to like a lot of that, Supertramp’s music. He played all of that stuff with John Helliwell. So he was the first guy to sort of invent that sitting in with a house band on a talk show and all the other shows picked up on it and are still doing it. John Halliwell was the first guy to do it on our show.
You can see Paul Shaffer and a host of others at “Palace 100: The Genius of Ray Charles,” Saturday, Nov. 14 at 7:30 p.m. at the Palace Theatre in downtown Columbus.
