We'll Be Here For the Rest of Our Lives (7 page)

This time, in a split second, I reached far down into my soul, so far that I went all the way back to my dad’s Ray Charles albums. I found the riffs and I delivered them. The Genius didn’t smile, but he also didn’t stop the band to criticize me. When we finished the entire song, the Genius turned toward me and said, “Yeah, that’s more like it.”

It was nothing like the congregation of Shaarey Shomayim giving me a standing ovation after I played “Exodus.” It was better. Man, it was a whole lot better.

Let me introduce the beautiful couple that brought me into the world. I loved them both dearly.

How about it for my mother, everybody.

Mom was Shirley Eleanor Wood Shaffer, a native of Toronto and a gal of great dignity and class who dreamed of living in Paris’s 16th arrondissement or Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Mom was an antique collector. She was all about her delicate Crown Derby china, her love of Toulouse-Lautrec, and her fondness for a nice sipping sherry. She was an oil painter, a Bohemian du Maurier smoker, an exquisite host, and a doting mother.

Among my earliest memories is Mom at the piano. She had great style and poise; her touch was light; and when she played Gershwin and Chopin, I’d sit on the floor and lean my head against the piano leg, the sounds seeping into my little soul. At age six, she started me on piano lessons and I immediately began playing by ear. I worked out the black-notes-only William Tell Overture and was soon copying practically everything
I heard on the radio. Once I started playing, Mom stopped. It was as though her work was done. She never touched the piano again.

When it came to music, my mother also had a sense of humor that surely influenced my own. Example:

At an alarmingly young age, her little Paul had fallen for rock and roll. After discovering the Ronettes and the Four Seasons, the yin and yang of his musical identity, he applied his classical piano training to the Top Ten tunes of the day. He learned them by ear and played them incessantly. The first single he bought was the Supremes’ “You Can’t Hurry Love,” and his first LP
The Four Seasons’ Golden Vault of Hits
. But Shaffer was never a record collector. He was a keyboard slugger whose interest focused on two-fisted duplications of the sounds he’d heard on the radio. He was smitten with the heroic confections of producer Phil Spector and the erotic cries of Phil’s onetime wife Ronnie. It all came together in a song inspired by Ronnie and sung by the Four Seasons’ high tenor Frankie Valli. Appropriately enough, the tune was entitled “Ronnie,” and the lyrics had our young hero lost in a daydream of sweet romance: “I’ll go on living and keep on forgiving because …you were my first love.”

“Ronnie” was indeed Paul’s first love. He had first seen her with the Ronettes singing “Be My Baby” on
American Bandstand
. Her high bouffant hair, her tantalizingly short skirt, her heavy mascara, and that voice—sweet as honey, wicked as sin. She was the very definition of feminine heat. He had learned to play “Ronnie” on piano, memorized the words, and ingested it whole.

“I’ll go on living and keep on forgiving” became his mantra.

To his own spirited accompaniment, he sang the song over and over again. He rushed home from school to attack the piano so he could re-create the mood that set his imagination soaring.

“I’ll go on living and keep on forgiving” was the sound that filled the Shaffer household.

He couldn’t stop playing it, couldn’t stop singing it, couldn’t stop offering up this cry of teenage angst.

“I’ll go on living and keep on forgiving,” he emoted with even more impassioned conviction.

“For God’s sake, Paul!” his mom shouted from the kitchen one day. “Forgive Ronnie already and come eat your lunch!”

Meet my dad.

Bernard Shaffer, barrister, solicitor, notary public, respected civic leader, skilled litigator, and life of the party. He had a little temper on him, but a great passion for music—not just any music, mind you, but the most sophisticated jazz on the planet. Dad was a connoisseur. And although he liked his role as big legal eagle in the little nest of Thunder Bay, he, like Mom, felt the allure of brighter lights.

Example:

The Shaffer family is off to Vegas!

Young Paul is not yet a teenager, but fully aware of Sin City’s well-advertised enticements. Most of those enticements are musical. This is the early sixties, the heyday of the Rat Pack. Sinatra is at his ring-a-ding-dingiest. Dean, Peter, and Joey are by his side, and Sammy has converted. All’s right with the world.

When Bernard, Shirley, and Paul arrive, the sun is shining and the city is sparkling. Paul is riveted by the cabdriver’s special
patois. The Desert Inn is referred to as the “D.I.” The Tropicana is the “Trop.” The Riviera is the “Riv.” The language carries a magic of its own.

Walking into the Sahara, I’m galvanized by the ringing sounds of the slot machines, but even more by the swinging sounds of the band. My heart leaps at the sight of Louis Prima performing in the open lounge. Louis’s backup band is the world-famous Witnesses led by tenor man Sam Butera. Prima’s duet partner is Keely Smith who, with her perfectly-in-place black bangs and stoic facade, is the prototype for Cher. Louis is singing “When You’re Smiling” in his “Louis Armstrong meets Dean Martin” voice. Then he’s singing “Buona Sera,” then “Angelina,” then he and Keely trade licks on “That Old Black Magic.” Riveted by the show, I refuse to move as my parents tell me our bags are being transported up to our room and it’s time to freshen up.

When we reach the room, my father immediately scans the Vegas entertainment guide and gets mad.

“The travel agent told me she was at the Sahara,” he says. “Now I see she’s at the Riviera. Well, if that’s the case we’re moving to the Riviera.”

“Bernie,” says Shirley, “we just got here.”

My father doesn’t care. “We’re here but she’s not. We’re leaving.”

“Who’s she?” I ask.

“The Divine One,” he answers.

“Sarah, Dad?” I ask.

“Yes, Sarah,” he says, pronouncing the name like a prayer. “Sarah Vaughan.”

Bags in tow, we check out of the Sahara and grab a cab for the Riv. I love scooting around Vegas, especially in pursuit of jazz.

The Riv is cool, although inside it looks just like the Sahara. Another endless ocean of slots.

But that evening, the music in the lounge—Sarah’s music—
is
different. It’s a world away from Louis, Keely, and Sam. It’s quiet; it’s subtle; it swings gently, firmly, intoxicatingly; but mostly it emanates from a vocal prowess that, according to my dad, “creates the sound of honey-coated perfection.”

I view the show not from my parents’ table—kids aren’t allowed in the lounge—but standing up on a raised area surrounded by a low railing that lets me see Sarah from afar. She is wonderful. My elevated position also allows me to lean over and stare into the deep cleavage of the waitresses, who are also wonderful.

Sassy Sarah sings a set of standards, the highlight of which is “Misty.” The audience gives her a standing ovation, with Bernie and Shirley leading the cheers. Dad turns around to make sure I’m still there. He nods his head as if to say, “Son, take note. This is the music that matters.” I do take note. I also see how Sarah, upon reaching the bridge, allows her pianist to seamlessly complete the vocal line as the spotlight moves from her to him. The Divine One disappears, only to return with an even more baroque lick. The audience is surprised and delighted. I understand that jazz and show business are not complete strangers.

Ironically, when we return to Thunder Bay I’ll discover a different music by Sarah: “Broken Hearted Melody,” her only record to reach the hit parade. Neither she nor my father liked the song—it wasn’t jazz, it wasn’t a Gershwin-style standard, it was mere pop—but I loved it. In fact, it opened up my ears. It had the same chord changes as Gene McDaniels’s “Hundred Pounds of Clay” and represented an advance beyond the basic
rock and roll song structure—four chords instead of three. Within days, I was rocking that fourth chord.

Back in Vegas, though, I was in love with Sarah’s fabulous standards and the waitresses’ fabulous bosoms. I figured this was surely the high point of my Vegas experience, but I figured wrong. As Steve Allen wrote, this was only “the start of something big.”

Something big turned out to be something late. The notion of “late,” incidental to some, loomed large in my personal mythology. It was in Vegas that I learned the inviolable axiom “the later the hipper.”

“Take a nap,” said my father, the day before we were scheduled to fly back to the frozen north.

“I want to go swimming,” I said, thinking of the bikini-clad waitresses who served poolside.

“Then nap in a lounge chair,” he urged, “because I have a special treat tonight.”

“More Sarah, Dad?”

“No, a by-invitation-only late show that doesn’t start till 1 a.m. It’s the show Juliet Prowse does so other entertainers on the Strip can see her after they get off.”

“And we’ve got seats?” I asked.

“Ringside!”

I’ve been told that Marcel Proust described the socialites in turn-of-the-century Paris with poetic brilliance. They say that Henry James captured high society on Washington Square in a way that will never be duplicated. I cannot compete with the literary masters of yesteryear, nor will I try. I invoke those names, however, only to let you know how I yearn to do justice to what I experienced that night at Juliet Prowse’s by-invitation-only show
that began, as her then-boyfriend Sinatra termed it, “in the wee small hours of the morning.”

You know, there are show-biz buzzes and then there are show-biz
buzzes
.

This buzz hit me as soon as my parents and I got off the elevator. The slots were still ringing, the roulette wheels still turning, but there was a stream of energy even stronger than the gaming passion that flowed through the casino floor straight to the showroom. Despite the late hour, my state of fatigue had morphed into a state of high excitement.

As we entered the showroom, my dad shmeared the maître d’ a twenty to seat us near the stage, but our table turned out to be in the rear. As Dad tried to better our position, my eyes were jumping out of my head. I was craning my neck so violently I nearly twisted my head off. I wanted to see stars. I did see stars, or at least I thought I did. Wasn’t that Frank walking in with his famous confidant Jilly? Wasn’t that Buddy Hackett, the comic from the Sullivan show? And hey, speaking of comics, wasn’t that Fat Jack Leonard, whose take-my-wife jokes were my folks’ favorites? That
had
to be Red Buttons. That
had
to be Shirley MacLaine. That
had
to be Bob Mitchum. “No,” said Mom, “that’s Van Heflin.” I recognized—or at least I thought I did—Jerry Lewis, another early idol, whose yearly telethon became as sacred to me as fasting on Yom Kippur. “That’s not Jerry,” said Dad, “that’s Jan Murray.”

“I know the difference between Jerry and Jan,” I said. “That’s Jerry.”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Mom, “they’re all here.”

Mom was right. The world was here. The world that remained unknown to the average man and woman was making
itself known to me. The world of entertainers, usually hidden in dressing rooms and darkened limos, had, like a gorgeous woman stepping out of her clothes, suddenly exposed itself to me.

“Holy shit!” I heard someone behind me say. “It’s the Great One! Jackie Gleason!”

As if being in the same room with so many stars wasn’t enough, minutes before showtime we were ushered up to the ringside table Dad had coveted. We were practically in the spotlight.

We soon learned why. Opening comic Jackie Gayle needed a little kid as a foil. The waiter spotted me as a prime candidate and moved us up front.

Gayle called me to the stage. Surprisingly, I wasn’t the least bit nervous. He asked me how many TVs we had in our house. I said, “One.”

His joke depended upon our having more than one TV.

“Don’t you have more than one?” he asked.

“No,” I answered in a deadpan tone that rivaled Jack Benny’s. “Just one.”

And with that, I wrecked Jackie Gayle’s act. He sent me back to my seat. He was glowering, but I was glowing. I was in show business!

When our salads arrived, the waiter asked me, “What kind of dressing, sir?”

Always a picky eater, I said, “No dressing.”

“No dressing?” the waiter repeated. “That’s the way to treat girls, not salad.”

Mom shot the waiter a menacing look, as if to say, “Careful, this is a proper young Canadian you’re addressing.”

A few minutes later the orchestra swelled and Juliet appeared, covered from head to toe in feathers. Then, in a flash,
the feathers fell and my life changed. My view of womanhood changed. Her moves, her curves, her bends and bounces had me soaring over the moon.

“Does she have to get undraped in every single number?” asked my mom.

“Please, God,”
I silently prayed,
“let her get undraped in every single number.”

God granted my prayer.

At the end of her last number, I looked at my little Davy Crockett wristwatch and saw it was nearly 3 a.m. “Happy?” Mom asked me.