Letterman used to rib his guests by pretending not to know common things about them. I remember he asked Jane Curtin whether she was Kate or Allie, and her reaction indicated that he had done so previously (she had a tape cued up of her asking, “Who the hell is David Letterman?”)
Possibly, sarcasm that Rudolph wasn’t on to? Which I guess is unlikely if she was a lifelong fan.
FTR I knew who Rudolph was from her starring in Idiocracy in 2005, and I learned she was the daughter of Minnie Riperton around the same time.
I just found this interview he did almost three years ago about the Oscar gig, and he doesn’t acknowledge any connection to Yma Dream, so maybe I was wrong to make the connection. It certainly seems like the kind of thing he would have read, though.
I think of ‘Lovin’ You’ as being the typical sort of love song where the sexual references are not directly made but easy to understand for an adult. Maya Rudolph was nine days short of her third birthday when that episode of The Midnight Special was shown on television. A lot of The Midnight Special was done live (which was rare for a television show at the time). Supposedly during that particular performance Maya Rudolph was just off the side of the stage (or somewhere that she could see her mother looking at her). Supposedly Minnie Riperton was looking at her as she sang, trying to indicate to her that the song was about loving her.
A couple of years ago, there was news of Maya accusing people like Jimmy Fallon and the other male idiots of soft bigotry for complaining about the smell when her hair was in in hot curlers.
But it had zero effect on her subsequent SNL appearances….so since then I really don’t pay much to things like this with her.
On a different note, an article described her as a “Jewish black woman”….interesting. I always just thought of her as Maya Rudolph. If anything I thought she identified as Hispanic.
Maybe Letterman is merely a klutz and bungled her name just as he said. Coincidentally, I just got home from a trip spent listening to Blind Pilot on Spotify. Having never heard of them until they popped up on Fleet Foxes Radio, I looked them up. Wikipedia mentioned:
To promote We Are The Tide on January 6, 2012, the band made their second network television appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman, in which Letterman initially introduced the band as “Blind Spot” before correcting himself and poking fun at the gaffe.
I note that Dave Chapelle takes great delight in telling how the MC bungled his name in his first appearance and an older comedian stole his jokes. As in, " I guess you know my name. NOW, don’t you. bitch".
