Editing Paul Shaffer (section)

===Collaboration with David Letterman===
Beginning in 1982, Shaffer served as musical director for David Letterman's late night talk shows: as leader of [[Paul Shaffer and the World's Most Dangerous Band|"The World's Most Dangerous Band"]] for ''Late Night with David Letterman'' (1982–1993) on NBC, for which he also composed the theme song, and as leader of the [[CBS Orchestra]] for the ''Late Show with David Letterman'' (1993–2015) on [[CBS]]. Letterman consistently maintained that the show's switch to CBS was because NBC "caught Paul stealing pens" or some other trivial reason. Shaffer guest-hosted the show four times when Letterman was unavailable: February 9 and 11, 2000, during Letterman's recovery from his quintuple [[heart bypass surgery]]; March 24, 2003, when Letterman was suffering from [[shingles]]; and January 19, 2005, when Letterman went to receive an award for his [[Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing|racing team]]'s victory in the [[2004 Indianapolis 500]].

Shaffer wrote and performs the bridging music on Letterman's [[Netflix]] series ''[[My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman]]'' which premiered in 2018.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Stuever|first1=Hank|title=Review: Letterman sits down with Obama, but both men seem rusty and off their game|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/tv/letterman-sits-down-with-obama-but-both-men-seem-rusty-and-off-their-game/2018/01/11/2b6dc8c0-f70c-11e7-a9e3-ab18ce41436a_story.html|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|access-date=January 13, 2018|date=January 12, 2018}}</ref> After Netflix announced publicly that it had given the series an order, Shaffer received a phone call from Letterman asking him to work on the show. Soon after, Shaffer began to receive cuts of episodes from the first season and he started to put music in afterwards where the director thought it was needed. In developing the sound of the show's music, Shaffer initially looked to Letterman for guidance. Finding none, he remembered his and Letterman's shared love for the sort of music produced at the [[Muscle Shoals Sound Studio]] in [[Sheffield, Alabama]], describing it as "the honesty you hear, the southern soul feeling". The score initially included drums, but the show's producers and director thought that the music should "feel like it's Dave's old friend Paul playing," so it was ultimately stripped down to solely include piano and organ.<ref>{{cite magazine|last1=Leight|first1=Elias|title=Paul Shaffer on Writing Letterman's Netflix Theme Song & the Value of Humor in Pop|url=https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/8097779/paul-shaffer-letterman-netflix-interview|magazine=Billboard|access-date=February 9, 2018|date=February 2, 2018}}</ref>