He has been enormously successful with a wide range of artists but never explains how or why, which is frustrating for any serious music fan—and they're the ones who would pick up Le Freak in the first place. However, that hasn’t stopped Rodgers from providing one of the most well-thought-out and thorough lists on music books we’ve ever seen, even if he does think the whole idea of writing about music is a little pointless. Punk 45: There Is No Such Thing As Society (2024 Edition) Get A Job, Get A Car, Get A Bed, Get Drunk! g for artists such as David Bowie, Diana Ross, Duran Duran, The Thompson Twins, INXS, Steve Winwood, Mick Jagger, Madonna, Blondie, Brittany Spears, and the B-52s), which is part of the soundtrack of my life.

Although Nile Rodgers makes the grade as a B-list celebrity, he isn’t as famous as the musical record warrants. This is a fantastic book Mr Rodgers modesty makes me respect him even more, this guy is a true genius, literally THE hit-maker, because even up to today, there is barely a hit song without him being involved. Because, amongst the inevitable famous namechecks and millions of units shifted, hits made and dollars traded for powder and tooted up the nose there's a great (self)portrait of a child -gifted to the point of serious strangeness- growing up independent, inventive and (yep! As Rodgers muses on that pivotal experience: “By not getting what we wanted, we got more than we ever imagined. He's dead interesting without being pretentious about disco arguing that -contrary to popular prejudice of the time- it was not decadent, self centred hedonism but an ecstatic celebration (decadent and hedonistic, admittedly) of something shared, even if it's only a dance floor.charming and hard working in a world of junk, dysfunction, and the casual social destructiveness (rape, murder, incest, addiction, madness) that is sometimes concomitant with the more extreme and impoverished edges of bohemian cool. The second half of this book focuses on his years as a big-deal producer in the 80s/90s and his drug problem and sobriety. After Chic he produced Madonna's "Like a Virgin," as she was just starting to become a household name. About a third of the book details his childhood and teens (he has a very complicated family history) and then he meets Bernard Edwards, the two quickly becoming inseparable and incredibly supportive of each other.

When he met Bernard Edwards on the chitlin' circuit, they quickly became inseparable, forming the Big Apple Band, then Chic, inspired by Roxy Music and, more oddly, Kiss. The two musicians parted company eventually, but several of the hits Rodgers had a hand in continue to be club standards. But as I read this book, I learned about his unconventional upbringing in both New York (where he was born in 1952) and Los Angeles, and the richness --- complete with highs and lows, and brushes with death --- of his life.

as a Spiritist, I'm pretty sure his friends on the "other side" helped him avoid prematurely ending his present life. Legendary producer and co-founder of Chic, Nile wrote ‘We are Family’ for Sister Sledge and ‘I’m Coming Out’ for Diana Ross, and then produced Let’s Dance for David Bowie and Like a Virgin for Madonna. If you’d like to file an allegation of infringement, you’ll need to follow the process described in our Copyright and Intellectual Property Policy. About that particular title, Rodgers said: “This is an amazing look at the dirty underbelly of the recorded music business.