Name: Staff Favorite Moments: Bassist Will Lee | Letterman
Uploaded: 2023-10-31T15:00:46.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Staff Favorite Moments: Bassist Will Lee | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-10-31. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Staff Favorite Moments: Bassist Will Lee | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-10-31. Transcript available.

I'm Will Lee. I was bassist with Dave Letterman from the beginning of 1982
through 2015 through
both the World's Most Dangerous Band and finally the CBS Orchestra. We had a
really cool inter-band
monitoring system where we could hear each other speak into microphones very
softly while the show
was going on. Paul Schaefer had this uncanny ability to spot a hairpiece or a
wig on one of
the guests. As a guest would walk out, Paul would say, oh my God, look at the
plugs on this guy.
We sort of had our own little wig, not a wig show going on back there while the
main show was going
on. It was always fun. Paul Schaefer's theme that was used from the beginning
days, at the end,
right before the outro, it had two hits. And Dave would walk out, right? So
during the
it was a natural thing for me to just jump up and down during those two moments.
Every once in a while, Dave would have the urge to point out something about
Dick Cheney. And I was
called upon to give this outrageous scream. I hope it didn't hurt anybody's
ears too badly.
How about some good news? Former Vice President Dick Cheney has a brand new
heart, ladies and gentlemen.
And he got himself a heart transplant. Heart transplant.
The heart, the donor heart came from a traveling peasant, lost his way in the
middle of the night
and ended up at Cheney's castle.
Dave and the writers always found ways of incorporating almost kind of normally
people and making superheroes out of them. And Paul would write an incredible
theme along with one of the other writers. And they would ask me to sing this
heroic kind of almost TV theme. The strong guy, the fat guy, the genius. And I
love getting the character to try to pull it off.
They break it, they eat it, they solve it.
We say that's the reason they were pure upon this earth. That's the reason they
were pure upon this earth.
Another was about a guy named Moe, the badass meat slicing man.
The genius of the staff and the crew was able to put together, you know, a
great story about an otherwise kind of ordinary guy.
Now the stage telly already had a meat slicing name, Jimmy.
Jimmy.
So Moe paid a guy to have old Jimmy killed.
Got hired the very next day as Jimmy's replacement.
Now he's Moe, the badass meat slicing man.
Another great example of the regular guy who becomes a giant star is the guy
who played Larry Bud Melman, Calvert DeForest.
One of my favorite things that we did was, again, making a superhero out of a
regular guy with a theme song and everything.
And it runs through my head constantly.
Out on your own, making it work, working it out, having a ball.
Kenny, Kenny the gardener is here.
Another great Paul Schaefer piece.
And it just kind of reverberates this many decades later and I can't get it out
of my head.
Yeah, Kenny, love's a crazy game.
You can fertilize plants, but you can water your heart.
Out on your own, making it work, working it out, having it all.
Keeping it up, checking it out, getting the best, having it all.
Yeah, Kenny, Kenny, yeah, yeah, yeah.
A couple of different times throughout the late night years, Dave had a thing
called the Late Night Film Festival.
And Meryl Margo came up with this great idea, dress cool.
So we all sat around like writers, with Meryl, actually, in the room and came
up with all these lyrics and verses and things.
I was kind of proud.
I came up with the bridge, which went ironing out life's little lines and creases.
Dress cool, dress cool, rock your life, depend it on it.
Dress cool, dress balls yourself, look like you really want it.
Dress up!
There was this guy, Kreskin, that would come on and he was famous for being
like this guy with this otherworldly insight into people's psyches.
It just seems like each time he came on, he would try to do his sort of trickery,
whatever it was he was famous for.
And it would fail every time.
You're looking out at seven of clubs?
Yeah, I am.
Nine of diamonds?
Yes, I am, Kreskin.
I can't get it, it's a club, it's either an eight or a nine, which is it?
Well, you tell me, big shot.
I don't know.
I dropped Kreskin.
There was a guy known as K-Mar, the discount magician, super, super low-budget
magician with, you know, low-budget talent and low-budget tricks.
And he would come on and perform his magic tricks to great failure and bombs
are such wonderful fodder for laughter every time.
Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time, a magician, he will attempt to burn
David Letterman's head.
Now we're going to put this on top of your head and don't move, it's a little
heavy.
I smell gas, K-Mar.
Watch!
Now!
Fire!
Fire!
You need a light?
Fire!
What?
Watch it, David!
David, don't move, please!
We have the fire department.
Ladies and gentlemen, what left of it, David?
We have the fire department.
Ladies and gentlemen, what left of it, David?
We have the fire department.
We have the fire department.
Ladies and gentlemen, what left of it, David?
What left of it, David Letterman.
Let's put the fire off.
No!
My God!
Wait!
David!
David, stay there, please!
Ladies and gentlemen, what left of David.
David!
David!
Okay, David, hold him there.
Okay, David, hold him there.
What left of David?
David!
David!
Okay, David, hold him there.
What left of David?
David!
David!
David!
Okay, David, hold him there.
David, hold him there.
Hold him there.
Hold him there.
Hold him there.
Oh!
Oh!
Oh my God, David Letterman!
You're not coming back, all right?
You have to imagine how thrilling it was for a musician to walk into the Ed
Sullivan Theater
every day.
And the main reason for that was the moment of February 9, 1964, when the
Beatles hit that stage.
To walk in that room is a little bit like a cathedral.
The ultimate version of that had to be the day that Paul McCartney returned to
the building and came on as a guest.
That was one of the greatest moments, you know, of the greatest gig.
We would call and find out, can he be on the show, and can he be on the show.
And after the first 15 years, we started to get her feelings hurt.
And now it's been close to 25, 30 years, and I just need to know, going forward,
any problems that we don't know about?
I don't like the show.
I'm always asked about what's the greatest moment musically that you had on the
show.
And James Brown first came on during the first year of taping.
We were so into James Brown that he called an unrehearsed third song for us to
play with him, and we were right on top of that as well.
You know what I'd like to do right now?
What was that?
James Brown, before you close, can we close that I got the feeling?
Yes!
Oh, baby!
All right!
Come on!
I have a Beatles band, the Fab Faux.
But if I didn't have a Beatles band, I would have a Sly and the Family Stone
cover band.
Because that music to me is just futuristic.
It was timely.
So when we finally had Sly Stone on one day, it was just life-changing.
One of the things that happened one time that was probably the closest to dying
that I ever came, and it would have been worth it.
Steve Martin came on, and he pretended to have a collection of ultra-rare urns
from different Chinese dynasties and things worth dying for.
That's how funny it was.
That's how you can tell if something's authentic by the actual tone.
Oh, yeah, I can hear just a little resonating.
Bring the mic in there and just put that in there.
This is Tang.
Tang.
And there's different periods of Tang.
You have the high Tang, middle Tang, and late Tang, so that's beautiful.
What Tang would that be?
This is...
Mm-hmm.
Paul Schaefer was the greatest friend and band leader I could have ever had,
because he would always let me go off and get some energy to bring into the
show, basically.
Because I really needed to go out and have a variety of stuff in my musical
life for me to sort of be alive.
And I knew that the last NBC show was approaching.
Feels like a big deal.
This time I had an offer to go do a week somewhere out of the country.
The word was that, yeah, Dave said he's not going to make a big deal out of the
last show.
I come back to hear all this chatter about how Springsteen was on the show and
how they made a huge deal out of the end of the show.
And it was like, oh, man, if I have any regrets at all, that's one that I
missed.
So a recurring character that used to just make the band go nuts was Jody Ebert,
who, affectionately, we know as the...
"Fuck you" guy.
Hey!
I was just walking outside.
Right.
And you sprayed me.
I know.
I was on my way to a job interview.
Oh, wait.
I'm sorry, we were just goofing around a little bit.
Goofing around?
Yeah.
Well, here's some goofing around for you.
"Fuck you!"
Wait a minute.
And "Fuck you!"
And "Fuck you!"
Okay.
Throughout the years, we would be lucky enough to play a Christmas song with Darlene
Love, "Christmas Baby, Please Come Home."
Even though we would add more and more bells and whistles to her performance
each year, at the heart of all that was Darlene Love, who really had the goods.
And the best way to really focus on that and to really know about that is to go
back to the first time that we did it back at late night and see the quartet of
four guys and just her.
All that energy that you heard year after year with the 20,000 piece band was
all there with just the four guys and her.
And it was all about her.
I remember with you and here, another fun reality. If there was a way, you know
I won't get this deal. On its Christmas day.
So Warren Zevon was one of the best assets the show could have had and he had
all the support and love from Dave who was such a fan and for all the right
reasons.
When he finally came on and did the last show that he was ever going to do, all
the humor was there and his intentions were there and his intent and all the
stuff that we loved about him and we held it together very well, right up until
the moment that we sat down with him and played Roland the Headless Thompson
gunner and at that point, I just completely fell apart because knowing it was
the last time we were ever going to do it with him was a little bit too much
for me and we miss him like crazy.
Once in a while, not often, the band would get together and learn some new
material.
One of the things we were being asked to give a try to was the song MacArthur
Park that Dave had become focused on I think because of interest that he had
found that his son had for this song.
Dave said, okay, well, I'll give you the get the budget together to get a sort
of an orchestra add to the horn section. I was a nervous wreck.
I was I had to play bass and sing this song and how many takes do you get to do
the song? You get a take.
Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take it
'Cause it took so long to bake it
And I'll never have a recipe again
Of you
Any names you want to throw out?
Not a one.
No, go ahead.