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Nile Rodgers: Broken Record Classic

Published Sep 6, 2022, 9:00 AM

Today we are revisiting one of our favorite early episodes of Broken Record with the legendary producer, Nile Rodgers. Over the course of his five decade-long career, Nile Rodgers has performed on, written, and produced some of the greatest dance songs of all time, including Diana Ross’s “I’m Coming Out,” Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky,” and Madonna’s “Like A Virgin.”

Back in Fall of 2018, Nile met up with Bruce Headlam at the same New York City recording studio where 35 years earlier, Nile recorded the Let’s Dance album with David Bowie. This time around, Nile brought his famed disco funk band Chic to the interview to perform live renditions of their classic hits including, “Le Freak,” “Good Times,” and “Everybody Dance.” So all the music you will hear in today’s episode was recorded live, just for us.

In between performances, Nile shares exhilarating stories from his life, including how he found salvation as a young jazz guitarist whose teenage mom struggled with heroin addiction. Nile also talks about the night he played old James Brown tunes with Prince and Rolling Stones guitarist Ron Wood at a small club in London. And he explains what it was like going clubbing with Madonna as her star was starting to explode in the mid-’80s.

You can listen to a playlist of some of our favorite songs produced by Nile Rodgers HERE.

Pushkin. Hey everyone, Today we're revisiting one of the early great episodes of Broken Record with legendary producer Nile Rogers. Over the course of me more than half a century long career, Nile Rogers has played his signature guitar on, written, or produced some of the greatest dance songs of all time, including Dana ross As I'm Coming Out, Daft Punks, Get Lucky, and Madonna's Like a Virgin. Back in fall of twenty eighteen, now I met up with Bruce Hellum at the same New York City recording studio where thirty five years earlier, Now recorded the Let's Dance Album with David Bowie. But this time around, Nile brought his famed disco funk band Chic to the interview to perform live renditions of their classic hits, including Lafreak, Good Times and Everybody Dance. So all the music you will hear in today episode was recorded live one take, just for us. In between performances, Nile shares exhilarating stories from his life, including how he found salvation as a young jazz guitarist whose teenage mom struggled with heroin addiction. Nil also talks about the night he played old James Brown tunes with Prince and Rolling Stones guitarist Ron Wood at a small club in London, and Nile explains what it was like going out clubbing with Madonna as her star was exploding in the mid eighties. This is broken record liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Mitchman. Here's Bruce Edlam and Nile Rodgers from New York City's Power Station studio in twenty eighteen. That's the original guitar. Yeah, this is it. You still only use one guitar? This is it? I only use one guitar. Do you only have one? Now? I have two hundred? Okay? Do you have nice hollow bodies? Mainly I have. I's going to make sure de Angelico d Pristos L five Super four hundreds. But this one was when did you buy that nineteen seventy three? Wasn't it wasn't an expensive one? You put on a no, it's cheap. I didn't, actually, So I traded my jazz guitar and they gave me this and three hundred dollars. So if in nineteen seventy to be imagine giving me three hundred dollars plus a strat, like what was the jazz guitar worth in those days? Who I mean, even though it's a strat, it's not like any other strat. Yeah, it's light, it's a feather. It's thinner than anything you've ever seen. It's the nineteenth strat that they made in nineteen fifty nine. Look at Look at the difference, and just look at look at the thickness. So the head stock there, just check it out at that, you can see it all the way from there. Look at this, Yeah, this one. You can big hands though you don't need a you don't need a thin Wow, No, I got small hands? You do? Oh man, Jesus, you ever see real guitar players like these guys like Steve Vy and Ship and Hendrix. Like for me when I'm when I'm playing classical guitar, I really have to to get this stretch in certain pieces that that's a big deal for me. I have my finger way down here. Most classical guitar players can still you can still see some of their thumb. But me, you still practice classical. Not really, there's no point. But I just did an orchestral version Let's dance, And I had an idea of playing classical guitar, but it felt better to have Bully singing with the strings. Was amazing. Oh yeah, it's unbelievable. I want to ask you about all the songs, but let's start with Let's Dance. I want you to tell me about the first time you heard the song. Yeah, the very first time David played Let's Dance for me. He walked into my bedroom. We were in Switzerland, and I believe that he had said he had just written it the night before, and he um walked into the studio and he played something, um, something that sounded like that. You know. I was like, and I was like, that was and he was into it, um and um. He had the lyrics as well well. He just he was singing very um, true to it, like he knew what it was. He was singing, Um, it's almost hard for me to do it. Um. What was he doing? No, I did that. That's what he said. He's going, let's stand on the radio nothing something like that. Way that's up your face. And then I asked him if I could do an arrangement. So I fooled around with it and I was going and I knew that he liked jazz, so I could put in the jazzy chord and I could tell that he would like it right away. But then when I moved it from A minor up to B flat, it actually had a different vibe. It got it got brighter in like and funkier sounding. So I started going, you can already hear it like. Oh and by the way, when I started playing it, I only imitated his just for a few bars. I started going, but that still sounded dark. So then I moved it up and oct him when I went. But because of the whole disco sucks back backlash, I didn't want to do chucking on David Poley's album, So you ended up slowing it down after that, Um yeah, and only playing like So, if you hear the demo that I did in Switzerland, I'm chucking. I'm actually playing, you know. When you hear the original demo, I'm doing then Rogers thing. But when we got to America, I made a conscious decision not to do that and had the horns sort of doubling me and giving it some punch. And when Bow and I walked into the studio, Um, Bob Clearmontain was getting the different delays that he was going to use on the various instruments on the drums, so we wound up having a multi tap delay happening on the guitar. So even though all I played was the rhythm that you here, winds up sounding something like what the song now, Let's Dance. As many fans, it has one very famous fan who always wanted to play with you. Um, oh my god, Prince is that? Oh my god? Yeah? So um for years, I mean, I can't even tell you how many years, maybe since the first time I met Prince Um. He had asked me to play Let's Dance live together somewhere. So we had played live together in London at a little club in Camden, and we did not play Let's Dance that night, I'm positive of that. We played a bunch of James Brown's songs and maybe the Ohio Players and some funk songs. When I walked into the club, he was playing with Ron Wood and I don't know what they were playing. I don't remember. I was really pretty high in those days, but they were probably playing the blues or jamming on a popular rock song Sunshine or Your Love or something like that. And then when I walked in, Prince said, whoa, now, Rogers, not, this man has the funk. And he gave me his guitar and he sat down on the keyboards and we just jammed for like I don't even know how long, but that felt like one of the most amazing nights of my life. And I remember calling the concierge at my hotel and asked him if they had purple roses. I didn't know if there was, if there was anything as a purple rose, if they existed, So I said, figure out a way to make them purple, either spray paint them or put food coloring in them and send I don't know, I was pretty absurd in those days. I may have sent like a hundred purple roses to Prince's room. Nice. That's crazy, But you ended up playing the song, yeah, eventually. So years later he tricked me a couple of times. We both were living sort of in Turks and Cacos a bit. He bought a house down there and I was part of a resort project, and one New Year's Eve we played and oh it was cool, and John bon Jovie came when John got his start here, so John bon Jovi and Prince came to the show, and Prince said to me, oh, wow, tonight is the night. Now I'll get the play Let's stance with you in the band. So we set up to set up his amp and everything, did the whole sound check. We're ready for Prince to come out and play New Year's Eve. The places crowded, everybody's having a good time, and we're doing our thing. And I get into the middle of the setting. I say, ladies and gentlemen, we have a special guest coming out tonight. I think you're gonna love this, Prince, and I introduced him and the band. We're just standing there, no print. He doesn't come out, and I keep introducing him. I go, Prince. I don't know if I started screaming press because I knew it was there, and someone told me that he actually ran and hid because he wouldn't come out. So after a while we just said to hell with him. We played the song, and then at the end of the night, I didn't even ask him. Maybe I asked him why he didn't come out or something I don't even remember, but we wound up playing. It was great, everybody had a good time, but I was embarrassed as hell. So now fast forward a year or two later and we're playing a show with him at the Superdome in Louisiana in New Orleans, and he told us that he was going to come out. Now we're in front of like seventy thousand people, and I'm not going to be this idiot and make the same mistake again. And ladies and gentlemen, we have a special guest for you tonight, Prince. And then he doesn't come out. And I'm standing in front of seventy thousand people and he doesn't come out. At least at the resort was only about two hundred, so I didn't I didn't introduce him, even though we went through the same steps we did sound check. He had his am there in the whole bit. So when we get into the part of the song where Ralph tells the whole crowd to jump, Jump, Jump, I'm standing on the stage and I'm jumping up and down, and then I hear this crowd like, give this loud roar wow, And I look to my left and there's Print jumping with me, jumping up and holding his hand up in the air, and the crowd freaks out. And then we go into the next bit and he takes over and starts sewing and it's just killing. It's so good. So he did a little bit of like the sort of Stevie ay Vaughan kind of thing, but then he went into like just chucking with me, and that's what I got nuts. And you can go online and see it. It's on YouTube. It's so great. We'll have more with Bruce Headlam and Nile Rodgers after the break. We're back with Bruce Headlam, Nile Rodgers and Cheek. Now. I looked up, and this is for the music nerds out there. I looked up the chords to Everybody Dance, and it's a C minor seventh, B flat eleven, B flat eleven. I should let you tell the chords. You know, the chords C minus seven, B flat eleven to C eleven A flat major seven. Now this chord, you can spell it a number of ways. I like to think of it as a minor seven with a raise five, or a minor a minor seven flat thirteen, but most people would probably call it a D minor eleven with an A in the base. UM to a B flat eleven, And the reason for that is because um, I wanted to have this chromatic movement. So right, so it goes to everybody dances, do do do do? Clap your hands. Okay, you're a serious jazz guy. Yeah, nobody else would do it that way. I don't do do do? You do all your songs that way? It is it that kind of chording I like to think. So, I mean, look at Let's dance? How cool that is? I mean that's um that. I guess that's somewhat of a trademark of mine, putting different types of jazzy chords and cool voicings. Um in pop songs, you know, look at Diana Ross and I'm Coming Out and all that stuff. And you also, was everybody dance the first time? You used to break down? And um, no, breakdowns were actually quite common in our live shows. Um, it was just the first time I did it when I was recording and I was the boss. Every other time that I recorded, I was not the boss, so I didn't have any control of it. Yeah, And was that from jazz? Like breaking it down like that head kind of rebuilding? That's an R and B thing. It's a it's an R and B disco thing. It's a common R and B move. You would hear a lot of R and B bands breakdown and go now I want to talk to ladies for me, or I want to talk to you, or like Earth when and Fire when you hear them say pop, I want to talk to you about things I see every day, you know, and they break down on the record. It's all about So it was very common in R and B to do that. I want to talk a bit about good times. You said in an interview once that all your songs are nonfiction, absolutely, and they're often about things that you want to see happen. Can you tell me what good times? Yes? So when we wrote Good Times in America, at the time, we were in the midst of the greatest financial recession since the Great Depression. We had gas rationing, you know, I mean if you lived in New York State, I remember, if you're a license plate ended with an even number, you can get gas on a certain day or an odd number a different day. So times were sort of hard, and we thought, well, what other period in American history seemed to feel like that? And we went wow, you know, the Roaring twenties and the you know, the the Great Depression and that sort of jazz era and the whole thing about dance marathons, and that's why we came up with the whole yas y'alls the thing on dance, dance dance. The whole concept of the first few Chic albums was all jazz era stuff and h on risque. When we finally did Good Times, we were confident enough in our band to now sort of expose our formula to the world. So the lyrics to Good Times were sort of ripped off from Al Jolson and the song that they used to sing after Prohibition when they were happy Day and then time and any dang about quarter to night. So we go, happy, happy Days are here again. Right, that was we start right with it. So we are obvious again times. Right, let's get together, Let's do it again. Because Good Times came out at a particular political time because the Disco Sucks movement had come they had the riot in Chicago. Yeah, um, summer of seventy nine. What did that feel like for you? Well, it was really interesting because it was sort of like a biphasic kind of feeling because when we found out about it, we were on an airplane flying from Europe back to America. So it happened while we were away, and we didn't think of ourselves as a disco band. I mean, listen to every chic album. We have ballads, everyone has an instrumental. It's always a jazzy, you know type of thing. The Diana Ross album is incredibly As far as the composers, I gotta say that that's really unique. There's nothing I've ever written that sounds like that before or after. That was purely written for Diana Ross. I mean, you listen to a song like I'm coming Out, and I mean I have a fanfare in there. I mean, we're When we first saw Diana Ross, Bernard walked with me and said, wow, look at that. She's like our black queen. So I kept that in my head and when I wrote that fanfare, I said to Diana, I said, look, you know, like when the President of the United States walked walks in the room, they go dad, Hail to the Chief. I said, this is your fanfare. And I told her, I says, you will never start a show without this song ever the rest of your life. And now we see thirty five years later, I was right. She would never start to show without playing out Coming Out at the beginning of her show. Although one of your most famous songs, the Freak, is actually about being rejected at a disco. Correct, Can you tell that story quick? Yeah? So our first song, Everybody Dance, was the real sort of super cool club song on our first album. Even though Dance Dance Dance was popular and was big on the radio and was platinum twelve inch, I mean it was huge, it was Everybody Dance that really secured our vibe as a cool, hip, underground dance group. And so Grace Jones had heard Everybody Dance and she was a fan of that song, and she was thinking about having these two young new producers do what would then be her next album. She said that the only way we could truly understand her artistically is to see her live show. Then we really would understand who Grace Jones is. But the problem was we had only spoken to her that one time. We never met her. We were on the phone. So Grace has a very unique accent. She's the only one on earth that sounds like that, and she says, so darling. But you go to the back door and you tell them your personal friends of miss Grace Jones, and they would let you in so we did that with that accent, and the guy slams the door in our faces. And while he's slamming the door, he's going, oh, fuck off, and we said no, no, no, no no, no, we're kicking the door again because now we had to be above the level of the music. Now once we finally got his attention, so we wanted to get him before he walked away from the door. So we kicked really hard and he said, you know, he reiterated what he had said, I told you the f off, so we knew we weren't going to get in. It was New Year's Eve seventy seven going into seventy eight, and we were walking back to my apartment, which is on fifty second Street between eight and nine, and to get there we had to pass a liquor store, so we bought two bottles of damper On, which in those days we called it rock and roll mouthwash. We bought two bottles of DP and went to my house and we downed them so fast we got really light headed, and we turned his rejection phrase f off into shriek out. We went, oh, well, when we first wrote it, we wrote a whole song using the original lyric and thinking of every situation where the appropriate response would be fuck up. So we're playing no, no, if a cab driver cuts you off, don't, don't fuck up. And I remember saying, if your mother asked you to do homework, fuck up. And we were into, were laughing, feeling great, and then finally my partner Bernard's I'm a man, you notice is happening and I'm like a Bernard. You know, this is two years before hip hop. We can't get you know, a radio record on the radio that's got the F bomb in it. But somehow we wound up with freak up. We have to take a quick break right here, but we'll be right back with Bruce Headlam and Nil Rogers. We're back with Bruce Headlam, Nil Rogers and Chic. You mentioned that you and Bernard didn't see yourselves as stars as frontman and you saw a chic very much as this organization. Yes, you've built this incredible career, You've had hits literally in every decade since you started by being this great collaborator. Why does collaboration seem to mean more to you than being the front man? Because as a composer, I write for ensembles. That's what I hear. The only time I could ever think of writing a composition that was actually recorded and performed for either a soloist, a solo instrument, or maybe a duet. It's just for films. I can coming to America write this queue where they go the Royal Penis is clean, your Highness, and it's just like a pan flute, you know, pan flute and harp. And then in the movie called Soup for One, I do this thing called Tavern on the Green and it's just me playing classical guitar along with a Yamaha CSAD synthesizer with my keyboard player. But those are the only duets that I've ever really recorded. Everything else is for a bunch of a room full of people. But in your autobiography, which I'm going to recommend everybody because it's it really is this incredible life story and it is it's sort of James Baldwin and Charles Dickens wrote a book together. It may start to approach your You know, you had a very you come back to this a very lonely life. Yeah, you're around your parents or your stepfather and your mother, whom you love dearly, but who would send you on bus rides across the country by yourself, who often left you alone. And they were heroin attics. I mean they were in pursuit of their number one love. And when when someone first tuned your guitar and you played I think a day Day life, right, and you thought I'm going to be Were you thinking I want to be a star? I want to be up on snow No, no, no no. Prior to that, I had only really played classical music, so I just wanted to be part of a symphony orchestra. I used to play the clarinet, which is funny now because if I tried to play the clarinet it would probably sound hysterical. But my dream when I was a kid was to be a part of Maybe that's what it's all about it because I've always wanted to be part of an orchestra, to be part of an organization, and because in a big symphony orchestra, basically you could hide, but you know every now and you might get a great solo, you know. So that was sort of my dream growing up. I wanted to emulate my biological father, who was always just a percussionist with bands. He was never like the guy out front, like Tito point there or something. But you like that sense of anonymity, yeah, because it was the way that I never felt attractive or anything like that. And when you looked at stars, stars were always like you know, they walk into the room. You know. I remember I used to walk into a club with Madonna. Now I'm born in New York, knew every club owner in town, and I'd walk into a club with Madonna and she was relatively unknown, and people go, hey, who's that girl with Now who's that girl? You hear it then like who's that girl? Who's that girl? Now? Who's that girl? And she was unknown, but that's because she was a star. She felt like a star from the moment you met her. She you know, they just have that thing, Bowie, it's a star. He walks in the room and like wow, they just you know, you could feel it, so I knew. I never It's funny. I always laugh. I say, you know, if I walk into a room with Lady Gaga, people go, oh my God, there's Lady God. Then he go wow God, Then he go, hey Nile, you want to be the Hey Nile guy. I like being here now, so like I've done, you know, maybe almost like uh, I mean I heard the other day they said like fifteen thousand, eight hundred and eight recording something insane but still like walking through. Hey, n man, are you doing? I think think Fran might beat me up if you guys go any farther. Um and I would stay here all day. We only have one more song to talk about that Daft Punk. But I think we're okay. All right. That was unplugged. That was just fantastic. Thank you. Bruce and Nile didn't have time to talk about the Daft Punk song Get Lucky that Nile played on and co wrote, but Chic did perform it for us. So here it is in its entirety, like the legend the fan all lives with beginning, what keeps the planet spinning, the fall from the beginning because came to far to give star right by and come to die. She's I'm back to the Sun. I'm a fun back to get home. She's a fun night fun, I'm a mom dage. We're a found night to the sun. Were mount again down night Mine run night together, Lucky, We're up fun nice again. Up, We're up fum nice again. Luck, We're ubout Night get lucky night together, Lucky bag and no river my shucket keep funking man, Yeah, what is the time to la? If you want to leave my wet come by to give far And I'm a fun song. She's a fun fun from a fun fun light of the sun. I'm a fun night to get song with a fun night for the fun or up fun night to get lucky from my fun night to get lucky. We're up fun night to get lucky. We're up one night to get lucky, grow up on lack to get lucky. Ship she to get back the sun from a pumack. So she's a funda for the fun about sometime lucky. We're up that of the sun, were up the son. We're up back of the fun. We're upun back together. We're un night to gel lucky. We're up lucky. We're upun back to get lucky. We're up gel lucky. We're up night to get lay sure up night to get lovey for a full night to get laughing my lucky. We're fun to get lucky. We're a fun time to get lucky. We're up fun time to get lucky. We're up found time to get lucky. We're U found time to get lucky. We're found time to get lucky. We're a found night to get lucky. We're fun time to geen, come too far to get up who we are? So let's raise the bar in the car to start. Thanks to now Rogers for the incredible stories and Too Chic for the performances we heard now Rogers on guitar and vocals, Ralph Roll on drums, Kim Davis and Flami on vocals, Rich Hilton and Russell Graham on keyboards, and Steve Janowski and Brendan Wright on horns. Than You Year all of our favorite Chic and now Rogers produced songs on a playlist at broken Record podcast dot com. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash broken Record Podcast, where you can find all of our new episodes. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced with helpful Lea Rose, Jason Gambre, Ben Holiday, Eric Sandler, and Jennifer Sanchez, with engineering help from Nick Chafee. Our executive producer is Mia Lobet. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you like this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content an uninterrupted, ad free listening for four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcasts, Subscriptions, and if you'd like to show, please remember to share, wait to review us on your podcast app Our theme mus Expect Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond,

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