OTHER TECH

Did Mike Smith get a chance to see the concert?

I did take the DVD over to England to the hospital that Mike was in, and I sat in his room and played it for him. He analyzed each thing, and he just loved it. At the end of the day, he said, "Can you come back tomorrow? We could watch it again." So I said, "Of course." I ended up going up there all 3 days that I was there, and what an experience that was. It almost doesn't matter if the DVD comes out, because it was made for him and he got to see it. It was very gratifying for him to see all these musicians pay tribute to him. When Mike saw Donald Fagen from Steely Dan get up at the end to play "Glad All Over," he said, "Blimey."

Between your stints on Saturday Night Live, Late Night, and the Late Show, you've performed with an incredible number of famous musicians.

Well, Late Night was hot when it first came on, so a lot of musicians wanted to do it - especially the people who heard their music coming at them. My band was the first rock-style band on a talk show, and we were doing covers of all this music we loved - Stax and Motown, and the Beatles and the Stones.

There's been a CD of the Late Night performances, but there's never been a DVD.

No, there hasn't, but I see a lot of stuff from the old show on YouTube - numbers like "Land of a Thousand Dances" with just Wilson Pickett and the four-piece band. It was terrific. When Late Night first came on, we were catching up on all of the artists who had been making great music before the show started. We had a lot of the greats on. I got to play with everybody that I ever really wanted to play with. I missed people like Elvis and Sinatra, but otherwise I've done pretty well.

Who stands out?

James Brown. I always say him right away. That was an incredibly high musical moment for me. Sly Stone, Carole King. I'll always remember how excited I was about those three. Eric Clapton was one of the first guys to sit in, and then a lot of people started sitting in. Now all the other shows do it as well.

The band seems to be pretty important to Dave.

He's always been very generous with us. He's always interacting with me and the rest of the band. He's heard every note that we've played over all these years, and he continues to be a great supporter. He absolutely will react to what we play, and sometimes talk about it. It's amazing that he's listening so closely.

England Swings The DVD Paul Shaffer and His British Invasion (VDI/Koch) documents a concert Shaffer organized in 2005 as a benefit for Dave Clark Five lead singer/keyboardist Mike Smith, who became paralyzed 2 years earlier after a freak accident. (Smith died this past February, just 11 days before the Dave Clark Five was to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.) The disc features performances from the Zombies, Peter & Gordon (playing together for the first time in almost 40 years), Denny Laine, Billy J. Kramer, and Beatles soundalikes The Fab Faux, with guest appearances by Steely Dan's Donald Fagen and E Street Band drummer Max Weinberg. And at the center of it all, unfazed by the presence of so much British royalty, stands the irrepressible Paul. - M.G.