Sadly, the David Letterman days are ticking down to the inevitable culmination of the talk show host’s esteemed and historic career.  We’ve been enjoying Letterman since 1982 when he and talented band-leader Paul Shaffer would jokingly recall the illusory days when the show began “15 years ago.”  33 years later, Letterman and Shaffer will end their talk show collaboration, and the baton will be passed by a “class act” (as Dave likes to say).  Sad, but inevitable.  Many of late night’s best musical moments (Warren Zevon, Tom Waits, James Brown (killing it in 1982), R.E.M., U2, Joe Strummer, Janelle Monae, etc., etc., etc., but NOT that uber-lame Future Islands performance) have occurred on the Letterman Show, and while we fear the void, we trust that Stephen Colbert will carry on that tradition when the show re-starts on September 8th.

As the nights dwindle down, Letterman is bringing out some of the musical greats, to be capped off by Tom Waits as the last musical guest on the show on Wednesday, May 20th.

Last night was another great musical event.  As mentioned yesterday, Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam and Band of Horses’ Ben Bridwell showed up to cover Unicorn’s No Way Out Of Here (but see “Exit” sign above) from their forthcoming covers album Sing Into My Mouth (which you can pre-order HERE).  With Shaffer and the great studio band riffing along, Bridwell and Beam lit up the stage with their harmonies and exchanges.  Check it out below.