Lost In Music: The Nile Rodgers Story...

Did you know that Nille Rodgers produced Daid Bowie's "Let's Dance' not to mention Madonna's 'Like a Virgin' ? This BBC Radio 2 doc about him comes in two parts. Part 1 recounts tales of his wild times as a founding member of Chic and Part 2 details his role a a producer. Chic were the musical backdrop for Studio 54, the infamous New York club which attracted the likes of Andy Warhol, Liza Minnelli, Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, Mick Jagger to name but a few of their celebrated clientele and lived the life that went with it.

He also talks very candidly about holding court in the lady's loos where he readily distributed cocaine.

On a more sober note he talks about DHM, (Deep Hidden Meaning), which was Chic talk for the essence of a tune. None of their songs were fiction so they had to disguise the lyrics quite heavily. For instance 'Le Freak' came about on New Year's Eve 1977 when Nile and his partner in the band, Bernard Edwards, were refused entry to a Grace Jones gig at Studio 54. They promptly disappeared and en route back to Nile's apartment grabbed a couple of bottles of bubbly. Armed with the necessary they started jamming and instead of ' Le Freak' they started improvising on a rather more 'expressive' lyric, 'F*** Off' , Studio 54, F*** Off'!

 


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Lost In Music: The Nile Rodgers Story...  Staff image