Chic are coming to town and that means the best dance party of the summer is happening in the open in Dublin 2. Here’s our Nile Rodgers playlist with some choice tracks and albums associated with the Chic co-founder, producer and guitarist. Everybody dance!
Chic - Le Freak
The story of how Rodgers and Bernard Edwards came to write this song, after an unhappy encounter with the Studio 54 bouncers, is the stuff of legend. The tune too is legendary, a groove that continues to send folks here, there and everywhere to nirvana. Proof that something great can occasionally come out of whinging.
Sister Sledge - Lost In Music
Lost in music, caught in a trap, no turning back: a couple of stanzas which contain more emotional power than any amount of earnest singer-songwriters can muster. Sister Sledge's evocative anthem is all the better for the blue-chip production assistance of Rodgers and Edwards.
Chic - Good Times
James Brown, famously, is the most sampled man in hip-hop, but Chic are not far behind with Good Times in particular providing robust, colourful ballast for rap anthems from Sugarhill Gang, De La Soul and LL Cool J. One of those tunes which works on any dancefloor and which has saved the ass of many a DJ over the years.
Diana Ross - I’m Coming Out
Another one for the hip-hop crews, courtesy of Notorious BIG sampling it for Mo Money, Mo Problems. It's also a great example of Rodgers's ability as a producer to coax great performances from returning megastars. A huge track which worked wonders for Ross and her Diana comeback album in 1980, though Rodgers called this "the most difficult record" of Chic's entire career. "Nothing was more challenging on every level than that record," he said of the experience.
David Bowie - Let's Dance
As with Ross, Bowie needed a hit and a connection with a younger audience, an exchange which Rodgers oversaw with his expert eye and finely tuned ear for a groove. "David composed it originally as a folk song," Rodgers said in an interview in 2012. "That's what it sounded like to me, it sounded pretty folky. It certainly didn't sound anything like it did when it finally reached everyone else's ears."
Nile Rodgers - Adventures In the Land of the Good Groove
The Chic man's 1983 solo debut may not have been a huge commercial success and remains under-appreciated, yet there's plenty on the album to warrant inspection 30-plus years on. Certainly, the experimental hues and future- funk washes on tracks such as Yum Yum and Rock Bottom set a template for Rodgers's future moves.
Grace Jones - I'm Not Perfect
From Jones's 1986 album Inside Story, this track still works today and is a high point in the Jones back catalogue, helped enormously by the guitar at the start which is sprinkled with Rodgers's stardust. Check out the video for its Andy Warhol cameo and the outlandish dress that artist Keith Haring designed for Jones.
The B-52s - Cosmic Thing
Rodgers hooked up with Don Was to produce the band's fifth album in 1990. It's the album that features Love Shack ( a Was production), but it also has Roam, on which Rodgers shook a little of his inimitable magic into the Atlanta band's new wave groove.
Daft Punk - Lose Yourself to Dance
Everyone knows that Rodgers's unmistakable liquid guitar hook took Get Lucky to a whole new high. But the Random Access Memories album from the French motorcycle helmet gang also has this rub of languid, thrilling, inventive funk, hallmarked by Mr Chic at his best.
Chic - I'll Be There
The dude is still making hits. From the forthcoming Chic album, It's About Time, this is a classic disco-funk track which fits effortlessly alongside all those solid gold hits with which Chic made their name back in the day. The song, which began life as an out-take from a Sister Sledge writing session in 1979, is brought bang up to date with a brash, bold groove that complements that glorious guitar lick.
Chic featuring Nile Rodgers play the Iveagh Gardens, Dublin, on Thursday, July 9th
