Nile was born in New York City, N.Y. on September 19, 1952. He
grew up to be a first-rate guitarist. He studied classical music and
jazz before he joined the house band at the legendary Apollo theatre in
Harlem.
In Greenville, NC on October 31, 1952 Bernard first saw the
light of the day. He later grew up to be one of the greatest bass
players ever. He inspired lots of people to choose the bass instead of
the guitar. Among the ones he turned to play the bass was John Taylor
of Duran Duran. He just had to play the bass when he had heard Edward's
playing in "Good times".
Sadly Bernard died far too early by the age of 43. On April 18, 1996
Nile Rodgers found his friend dead in his hotel room in Tokyo. Bernard
had been complaining 'bout stomach pains the night before and he had
high fever when playing the gig at the Budokan. He died in his sleep
because of a very bad pneumonia.
His memory and music still lives and will do for a long long time !
Nile and Bernard first met in 1972 when they both were members of the
Big Apple Band. In 1977 Walter Murphy and the Big Apple Band
had a number one hit with the orchestral disco tune "A Fifth of
Beethoven". This song was later featured in the excellent
soundtrack of the movie Saturday Night Fever.
Inspired by this success Nile and Bernard left the Big Apple Band and
formed Chic. They recruited the ex-Labelle drummer Tony
Thompson and hired Norma Jean Wright and Alfa Anderson
to sing. The group recorded a demo of "Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah,
Yowsah, Yowsah)" but couldn't get any label interessted in it.
Finally in the late 1977 Atlantic Records signed them and released the
single, which sold a million copies in its first month. This first
single is also the most important in Nile's opinion - this was actually
the first song with so called sub-bass. Before "Dance,
dance, dance" all bass below 60 Hz had been removed in the
mastering process, but in this song Nile and Bernard decided to keep all
of it. So this was the first song in which you could hear and feel the
speakers in a club rumble with every bass-beat. This was really
something completely new and avant garde at this time... The huge
success of the single led to their first album - Chic (1977).
The album also included the hit "Everybody dance".
Rumour has it that Bernard played the bass part for the song in just one
take. The song really stirred the dancefloors and one night Nile &
Bernard were called by a friend who told them to come down to Studio
54. The DJ had got a promo of the song and the crowd just loved it
and wanted to hear it over and over again. Even though the song was
almost 10 minutes long.
In the book A Touch of Classic Soul 2 - the Late 1970s,
Nile tells the writer of the book, Marc Taylor the
following about "Everybody dance"...
"The first song we wrote was "Everybody Dance" and it
was the perfect Chic kind of song. The chord changes were real
sophisticated, very jazzy, the bass playing was phenomenal, the groove
infectious, and we used to play this record over and over again at this
black after-work club in New York. Our song, "Everybody Dance"
became one of the hottest cuts in New York but no one could buy it
because we just recorded it in our little studio. We realized that the
people who were dancing to our music had a certain look. They were all
wearing suits and the girls were fine and made up. We looked at them and
it was like, 'Damn, what if we looked like that?' "Everybody
Dance" was pumping in this club for three or four months. At the
time Bernard and I were still musicians, working with other people. We
would go to this club every night and see the black urban professionals
dancing to our music and we decided 'What if we started to look like the
people who were relating to our music?' That's how we came up with the
idea for Chic. We didn't have any name, we were just doing music. When
we looked at the people we said, 'Damn, there's the concept right in
front of our faces?'"
Norma Jean left the group to try a solo career on Bearsville
Records. The career was unsuccessful despite the fact that most of the
group were working on her album and the fact that the album contains
some of Nile Rodgers best guitar playing.
There were two singles released from the album and both are
really classic "Chic" type of songs and they are really
worth checking out. The singles was "High society" and "Saturday",
the later was covered in 1997 by a group called - East 57'th Street
- and again in 2000 by - Joey Negro feat. Taka Boom.
Norma Jean was replaced in Chic by vocalist Luci Martin.
In an interview with Swedish journalist Mats Nileskar, Bernard
re-told the story of how they wrote "Le Freak".
The guys hade been contacted by Grace Jones who wanted to work
with them for her next album. She invited them as her guests to her gig
down at the Studio
54. It was New Years Eve in 1977, the guys were all dressed
up, it was snowing and freezing cold... When Nile and Bernard got to the
club the doormen couldn't find their names on the guest list. Nile and
Bernard explained that they "were" Chic and that Grace was
expecting them. But the doormen just wouldn't let them in...
In anger they went back home and Nile in just 25-30 minutes
wrote a whole song they called "Fuck off". It went like
this... "aaahh Fuck off". They just knew this was a hit song
and they (of course) had to change the title to be able to release it.
So they changed the text and that line to "aaahh Freak out"
and their biggest hit was a fact - "Le Freak". The song
topped the US charts for 6 weeks and "Le Freak" became
Atlantic Records biggest selling single ever. It also became the 3'rd
biggest single in the music history. It's still the most sold record
ever in Canada and the single sold over 6 million copies only in the US.
But after 6 million copies sold of the single, Nile and Bernard choose
to stop the single to not have it cut down the album sales. Who knows
how big it would have become if they hadn't stopped it !?
Just for the record... Rodgers and Edwards, as a team, never worked with
Grace Jones ! But Nile produced her 1986 "comeback" - Inside
story, which included the hit "I'm not perfect".
Another thing for the record... About one year later to this episode
at Studio 54, the people of the club was releasing a LP called - A
night at Studio 54 - and the top tune of this album was no less
than - "Le Freak".
While talking 'bout Studio 54... There was 2 movies released
about this famous Discoteque during 1998. First out was a film called "The
Last Days of Disco", directed by Whit Stillman
(director of "Metropolitan" and "Barcelona"). The
story is about Studio 54 in the late 1970's/early 1980's and the people
who hang there. The soundtrack, however, is the star of the film:
featured prominently are "Good Times", "Le
Freak" and "Everybody Dance" by Chic,
as well as "I'm Coming Out" by Diana Ross and "He's
The Greatest Dancer" by Sister Sledge and some other
classic Disco songs. The film is a veritable Nile/Bernard tribute in
itself !
The other movie was just called "54" and was the life
story of the owner of the club, the late Steve Rubell, with most
attention on Studio 54. With this movie it came no less than 2 albums
with great music, of course there was one Chic track - "Dance,
dance, dance".
Specially when you listen to "Le Freak"
you can hear the special "Chic-technique" Nile and Bernard
used when they wrote songs. They used to start with a intro and then
they went right on to the chorus. Almost every other song used the
"standard" routine... with intro, verse and then the chorus.
But this technique of building a song was something Nile had picked up
from an old jazz musician. Check out your Chic records and you will hear
this for yourself.
The Groups next single "I want you love" did also
very well and peaked at number 7 in the US charts. Both "Le
Freak" and "I want you love" was included in
their second album - C'est Chic (1978).
The next year the group returned with one of the most important
singles of all times... "Good times". Edwards great
bassline was copied by Queen in "Another one bites the dust"
and the song was used in "the Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on
the wheels of steel". The song was also the base for the Sugarhill
Gang's "Rapper's delight".
The first time Nile heard "Rapper's delight" was in a
New York club. He first thought it was the DJ who was rapping over his
and Bernard's "Good times". He thought it was quite
cool and went up to the DJ and came to find out that this was actually
another group using "his" song in their record without
having got the permission in any way to use the song.
Nile and Bernard naturally threatened to sue these people. These people
answered by sending armed gangsters to the studio, the gangsters pointed
guns at Nile and Bernards' heads and told them NOT to try to sue these
people. The guys were shocked of course, but they didn't want no one to
get away with the stealing of their song. They contacted their lawyer,
who happened to have been working for the mafia earlier, and he actually
knew these people. He managed to work out a deal with them and Nile and
Bernard got paid - half a million dollars ! In cash !!!
"Good times" is still a anthem and floorfiller in nightclubs,
and many new artists uses samples of either Chic's remarkable basslines
or the catchy hooks in their songs. It's probably only James Brown
who has been sampled or copied more than Chic and Bernard's basslines.
"Good times" was featured on Chic's third album - Risque
(1979). The album also included the albums second single "My
forbidden lover" and another disco highlight - "My feet
keep dancing".
"My forbidden lover" had a special meaning to Nile and
Bernard, "To us, that was the cut,"
claims Rodgers. "It was like... just the musicianship we played on
that cut, just where it was coming from, spiritually, what we were
talking about. That was the beginning of us talking about coming out of
our shell. There are certain things society says is not right. There are
certain things society says should be hidden, whether it be interracial
couples, gay couples, black people in a town that's predominantly white,
or white people in a town that's predominantly black; all of these
things. And we were talking about a bond between spirits; between two
people that say, 'No matter what happens, no matter what people say, I'm
still at your beck and call. I'm still there, I got your back, I love
you, I'm there for you. Nobody knows it, but you know it and that's good
enough.' That's what my relationship was like with Bernard. "My
Forbidden Lover" was about our whole struggle, what we had gone
through as people."
Later in 1979 the groups first Greatest Hits album were
released.
The writer/producer team's great successes made them very
sought for and there were many artists that wanted to work with them.
Nile and Bernard wrote, produced and played (with the rest of Chic) on
the Sister
Sledge album - We are family (1979). The album include some
real classical DISCO masterpieces as the title song "We are
family", the designer counting "Halston-Gucci-Fiorucci"
in "He's the greatest dancer" and the brilliant "Lost
in music".
The same year the duo also wrote and produced "Spacer"
for the frensh group Sheila B. Devotion. This song is also a true
DISCO masterpiece. Sheila has actually recorded "Spacer" again
now in 1998, this time in a new fresh up to date remix. Sheila is a
popular singer in France and the song is doing great there again...
In 1980 the group released their - Real people - album. The
album has got some great songs like "Real people" and "Rebels
are we", but the album couldn't follow up the successes of
their earlier albums.
Still in 1980 the guys were hired to write and produce the next Diana
Ross album - Diana. Rodgers and Edwards wrote some
unforgettable classics as "Upside down", "Tenderness",
"My old piano" and "I'm comming out"
for the Diva. But the guys and Diana didn't come along very well... As
the Diva Diana was, she was used to be part of the production and
telling people how she wanted it to sound. And Nile and Bernard were
used to have free hands to do everything their way and finally when the
studio recordings were finished, Motown people took the tapes and mixed
the album. So... what the record would have sounded like, if Rodgers and
Edwards hadn't been cut out of the final mixing of the songs, we'll
never know. But probably the album would have a more "Chic-ish"
sound.
Some trivia that might be fun to know regarding "I'm coming
out", is that the trombone player who plays the jazz solo in that
song - is no other than Meco Monardo - the guy who used to Disco
up famous movie themes, like; Star Wars, Superman and
others.
The same year, 1980, Nile was also playing the guitar for another
group's biggest hit, namely Revelation's now classic and
hard-to-find track "Feel it". It's (as always) a great
guitar performance that lifts the song and it gives the whole track a
little of this Chic magic.
In the beginning of the '80-ties people started to claim that
"Disco is dead" and former disco artists all of a sudden lost
popularity and soon were out in the cold. The same thing happend to the
earlier so successful Chic. The group recorded three more albums - Chic
chic (1981), Take it off (1981) and Believer
(1984). But none of them got any real attention and in 1985 the band was
disbanded.
Nile went on playing and producing for other artists like David
Bowie, Madonna, Duran Duran, Philip Bailey, Mick
Jagger and Paul Young.
Bernard also played and produced but he wasn't as successful as his
former partner. Artists he worked with Power Station (of
which he became the bassist after John Taylor left the band), Robert
Palmer, Joe Cocker, Jody Watley and Rod Stewart.
In 1992 the guys went back into the studio together to record a
new Chic album. The re-formed Chic was a different group with just
Rodgers and Edwards from the original setting. This time they hired Sylver Logan
and Jenn Thomas for the vocals. The studio work resulted in an
album called - Chic-ism (1992). The album didn't do that well,
but it's really one of my favorite dance music albums with great tunes
like "Chic mystic", "Your love" and "M.M.F.T.C.F".
This is really Chic with a up to date funky dance sound, this is what
Chic should sound like in the '90-ties.
Talking 'bout Chic in
the '90-ties... Nile Rodgers and "Chic" did 2 memorable shows
at Tramps, 51 W. 21'st Street - Manhattan - New York, on April
3'rd 1998. The band was (of course) Nile on guitar, Jerry
Barnes on bass, Omar Hakim on drums, Bill Holloman
and
Mac Gollehon on horns, Richard Hilton on keys, Katreese
Barnes on keys and vocals, Gerardo Velez on percussion and Sylver
Logan Sharpe and Audra Lomax are the vocalists. Sylver is
the bands lead singer since the "Chic-ism" album in 1992.
Both two shows were all sold out and incredibly well received by the
audience and the press. VH-1 filmed the event and a small segment will
be aired on one of their shows in the future. The vibe was strong, the
band was incredibly exciting and entertaining (very cool band), the fans
were pressed up against the barricades in front of the stage and half
the audience wanted to meet with Nile and the band after the shows.
That's because they were in their hometown.
The songs performed were "Everybody Dance", "Dance,
Dance, Dance", "I Want Your Love" and "I'm
Comin' Out". Kathy Sledge appeared and sang "We
Are Family" and then the band continued with high-lights as "Chic
Cheer", "Le Freak" and (of course) "Good
Times".
These band members had done Japanese tours for the last two years with
the exception of Jerry, Katreese and Audra. Bernard was one of the
members for the first tour when he suddenly and tragically passed away.
Jill Jones and Philippe Saisse was with the band on the first tour and
then Audra, Jerry, and Katreese joined for the second tour. The first
tour was a tribute to Nile called JT Super Producers. It featured Chic
with special guests - Steve Winwood, Sister Sledge, Simon
Le Bon and Slash.
BUT... They will do more shows when the new record and video
are released !!!
Yep - The band are currently working on a Chic live LP at the
moment and are also working on the video of "Le Freak"
live in Japan with Slash on lead guitar. This is signifigant for
a few reasons - there has never before been a live Chic record or video
- and the video will show Bernard playing his last show just a day
before he passed away in Japan.
On Saturday, May 23, 1998 - Nile & Chic performed a incredible show
in Atlantic City, NJ at the Trump Marina Resort & Casino. Again,
Kathy Sledge came onstage and sang lead on Sister Sledge's "We Are
Family" and "He's the Greatest Dancer", which then
"naturally" broke into Will Smith's "Gettin' Jiggy Wid
It". Pretty awesome !
As with the NYC Tramps shows, the band also played Diana Ross's
"I'm Coming Out" and the Chic evergreens; "Everybody
Dance", "Dance Dance Dance [Yowsah Yowsah Yowsah]",
"Chic Cheer", "Le Freak", and "Good
Times". One of the higlights of the show was when Nile introduced
the band, one by one, during "Chic Cheer" and then when he
came to Jerry Barnes on bass, said "Let's take 'em to
school" and the two of them got into some serious riffing
funk. About 15 sweet seconds of a heavenly Chic bass & guitar jam.
As you can see - Disco is now having a revival !
You can hear classical Disco gems everywhere and lots of new artists
choose to make covers of those great Disco anthems. Many classic songs
are also used in commercial advertising, in Sweden "We are
family" has been used by a clothing store called KappAhl and "Le
Freak" has been used by another company.
This proves that Disco never died and that writers like Nile Rodgers and
Bernard Edwards really have made many timless classical masterpieces
that still influence peoples lifes.
