“They were all guitars”: Paul Shaffer recalls why The Beatles didn’t click — at first

Legendary musician, band leader, actor and comedian Paul Shaffer joined host Kenneth Womack to talk about whether he would have passed on The Beatles as a “guitar group” and much more on our eighth season premiere of “Everything Fab Four,” a podcast co-produced by me and Womack (a music scholar who also writes about pop music for Salon) and distributed by Salon.

Shaffer, the longtime musical director and sidekick of David Letterman, said that although he watched The Beatles on “The Ed Sullivan Show” (and shows Womack his excellent impression of Sullivan’s famous introduction of the band) in February of 1964, he “didn’t quite understand them yet.” Growing up in Canada, Shaffer had been enamored with the musical style of American acts such as the Four Seasons and Jackie Wilson, and when The Beatles came on the scene, he says, “they were all guitars. On ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand,’ John Lennon’s rhythm guitar work kills me now – I just wasn’t hip enough to understand these things at the time.”

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It was later, “when their music got more sophisticated, like with ‘Rubber Soul,’ that’s when I started to get it,” Shaffer said. “They heard stuff in American rock ‘n’ roll that the Americans were taking for granted.” And then, “Everybody tried to do The Beatles in their own way. Even people older than them said that’s why they picked up a guitar. If you didn’t have The Beatles, you didn’t have anything. They were always inventing ways to do things for the first time.”

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Shaffer, whose other credits include being a featured performer on “Saturday Night Live” and musical director for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s annual induction ceremony, was also on that cutting edge, working with a wide array of artists such as Diana Ross, Bill Murray and Robert Plant. And that also includes serving as Paul McCartney‘s musical director for 2001’s “The Concert for New York City” – and even producing for John Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono. “I was always attracted to both the avant-garde stuff and the square stuff,” he explained. “It’s like what Ray Charles said: Every type of music has its beauty.”

Listen to the entire conversation with Paul Shaffer on “Everything Fab Four” and subscribe via Spotify, Apple, Google or wherever you’re listening. “Everything Fab Four” is distributed by Salon. Host Kenneth Womack is the author of a two-volume biography on Beatles producer George Martin and the bestselling books “Solid State: The Story of Abbey Road and the End of the Beatles” and “John Lennon, 1980: The Last Days in the Life.” His latest book is the authorized biography of Beatles road manager Mal Evans, “Living the Beatles Legend,” out now.