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| Nile Rodgers Edinburgh Book festival 2012 |
Rodgers is
one the most successful writers/ producers from the 70s. He wrote for Diana
Ross's major hit album Diana,
Madonna's Like A Virgin, David
Bowie's Lets Dance and produced many
hit singles such as - We are Family, Lost
in Music, Lets Dance, Le Freak and many more. He was originally in the band Chic who had
hits with Le Freak and Everybody Dance.
Nile gave an informal chat at the Edinburgh Book Festival's
Speigel tent in August 2012 - with many impromptu plays of the guitar that sat
on his lap when the audience enthusiastically sang along. He was also in
conversation a couple of nights later at the festival with renowned Scottish
writer Irvine Welsh. This was quite a contrast with Welsh in his white t shirt
and bald head and Nile with his long dark
dreadlocks (wish I had a photo!)
Rodgers
learned flute and clarinet at school and later taught himself guitar. At 18 he
auditioned for the children’s tv show Sesame
Street for which he wore a crazy green wig!. He
then worked at the Apollo theatre in New
York with Screaming J Hawkings. On a trip to London he saw Roxy Music at the Roxy theatre! Which he thought was so unique.
He thought
they should be the black version of Roxy Music and be a ‘totally immersive experience in music’ and they called themselves
the Big Apple Band
They played
sophisticated funk – and their track ‘Everybody
Dance’ was a big success in the dance clubs but there was little interest
in a black rock band at that time. Jazz bands often went to France to make it then (Nina Simone and others)
so they pretended that they were from France! Chic was born and they had a hit with ‘Le Freak’ – which has been the biggest
selling song for Atlantic Records and has such an awesome guitar riff!
They then wrote
hit songs for Sister Sledge – We are
Family and Lost in Music. He wrote for Diana Ross – who he interviewed for
three days firstly – Michael Jackson, Madonna, David Bowie and many more. He
has jammed with Hendrix. Madonna's Like Virgin sold more than 20m records and Nile wrote David's Bowie's best-selling album Let's Dance in just 17 days.
Nile talked about his music. He said when he wrote songs – first
came the words and he always started with the chorus or hook. He likes to use
the jazziest chords and fuse concepts together. He talked about the level of
pop culture and that Bowie
was ‘disruptive’ and therefore stood out in the charts. He believed in the
‘artistic powers’ of music itself. He said that the people made Good Times a No 1 which he said was his
favourite song.
Disco went
out of fashion and in the late 70s disco suddenly sucked – and so Nile went into producing for others. Yet he said if you
look at the biggest chart hits for artists at that time their hit songs were
disco influenced – for example Rod Stewart (Do
You Think I’m Sexy) , Queen ( Anther
One Bites the Dust), Rolling Stones (Miss
You).
Trends come
and go and by the late 70s many rock bands had become flashy (or trashy!) with
over the top, overblown sounds and productions and in reaction punk was born in
the 80s. The good thing about punk music was it 'let go' and simply went for
it! Never mind the rules, who cares -
lets just be nuts and the more off the edge the better - punk was raw and
raucous! Sometimes art needs to be rough edge.
So why did disco suck? Well there is that macho element in some music critics who can't accept that not all of us enjoy heavy rock. The uniformity of the mainstream plays it safe
and we can only move forward when we question and challenge the accepted and
that's what punk, the 60s, the revolution were all about.
Yes there
was an anti-disco movement but lets not forget at the start disco had much to
offer.
Some of my
favourite Disco tracks - Diana Ross Upside
Down, BeeGees Grease, Chic Le Freak, Michael Jackson Billie Jean, Stevie Wonder Superstition.
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| Nile Rodgers Edinburgh Book festival 2012 |
Nile Rodgers – sometime actor for Sesame Street,
songwriter, musician, producer, arranger and guitarist. Le Freak, Everybody
Dance, We are Family, Let’s Dance, Like a Virgin, The Reflex.
Nile has written his autobiography “Le Freak
– An Upside Down Story of Family”, 
With the advent of punk rock music an anti-disco sentiment developed. Many groups that were popular during the disco period subsequently struggled to maintain their success. The Bee Gees never had a major hit in the United States after the 1970s—even though later songs they wrote and had others perform were successful.
