At the centre of Nile Rodgers’ belief system is work. A work ethic that has seen Nile (in his own words) have more failures than successes. Yet the failures mattered too, with David Bowie and INXS both admirers of his lesser known solo work. This helped to inspire his collaborations with those artists. Nile’s virtuosity, self-made belief systems and work ethic paid dividends commercially for almost every artist he and the Chic Organisation worked with (particularly up to the mid-80s) and in many cases helped supercharge their careers. What is the secret of his success and some of those he’s worked with?
Nile Rodgers has seen and done it all. He has collaborated with the world’s top music stars including Madonna, David Bowie and Duran Duran and Daft Punk. The Chic Organisation created by Nile and music partner Bernard Edwards created a string of monster pop hits between 1977 and 1983, when they wrote and produced eight Chic albums, two for Sister Sledge, along with one each for Diana Ross, Debbie Harry, Johnny Matthis, and Sheila B and Devotion. Everybody knows at least a dozen Nile Rodgers songs, and who can say that these days?
In 1981 he worked with a little known Australian band, an “opening act” in Nile’s words, that he discovered while watching another collaboration of his at the time, the Canadian band Spoons. After meeting the band backstage after that show, Nile was delighted to find out that this band and its extremely charismatic singer warmed up their live show by singing their own version of Yum-Yum, a song from his solo album Adventures in the Land of Good Grooves. The bond was established for Rodgers’ first real 80s pop collaboration: what would become the monster smash hit Original Sin by INXS.
As with much of Nile's career, one thing led to another. ‘Original Sin’ was much admired by Duran Duran who then requested he work with them on the next stage of their career and musical transformation. In our conversation, Nile tells me what it was that he so enjoyed about working with Duran Duran and how it became a partnership over a longer period of time (across both the Arena album, the 1986 classic Notorious and then Astronaut after the band’s reformation as a five piece).
How does a virtuoso player have such a knack for a hit? Part of Nile’s secret sauce is his self-made belief systems, including the ‘DHM’. The Deep Hidden Meaning. It was the DHM that connected Nile deeply with the lyrics to Original Sin (which he tweaked to “dream on white boy, dream on black girl” to reflect the story of Beverly and Bobby (his mother and stepfather).
At the centre of his belief system though, is work. A work ethic that has seen Nile (in his own words) have more failures than successes. Yet the failures mattered too. For one thing, his solo work was admired by Bowie and, as mentioned, INXS. But once he’d worked with Bowie, he knew things would be different no matter how successful the outcome.
Nile’s virtuosity, self-made belief systems and work ethic paid dividends commercially for almost every artist he and the Chic Organisation worked with (particularly up to the mid-80s) and in many cases helped boost their careers. But here’s the thing...Nile’s job description (in his own words) is problem solver...whether it’s helping shape the big vision or tweaking minor but critical detail (that Original Sin lyric for example).
Someone counted that he has worked on 18,585 recordings, which even for Nile Rodgers sounds unfeasible. And that audit doesn’t include his work pre-Chic! How can that even be possible? It is because Nile continues to be a serial collaborator, a “worker bee” and one very effective problem solver.
Listen in and find out some of his working secrets and those great little stories.
Nile has recently worked with Edina Menzel, Remi Wolf, Steve Wilson, HARLOE and Sheku Kanneh-Mason. Chic are touring again soon…
Find our Chic Org. A Firm Foundation curated post here
Many thanks to Andrew James Johnson for edits and original music and Mick Clarke for the cover art, as ever