Nile gave a fun informal chat at the Edinburgh Book Festival's Speigel tent in August, with many impromptu plays of the guitar when the audience enthusiastically sang along. 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.
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.
He 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.
Blog on Nile's highly entertaining talk in Edinburgh last year-
http://www.musicfootnotes.com/nile-rodgers-why-did-disco-suck.html
Nile Rodger, American musician, producer, composer,
arranger and guitarist, discussed his autobiography Le Freak – An Upside Down
Story of Family, Disco and Destiny at the Edinburgh International Book
Festival.
