Saturday, November 12, 2011
Le Freak: An Upside Down Story of Family, Disco and Destiny
Nile Rodgers, Little Brown, €18.45
EVEN if you haven’t heard of Nile Rodgers, it would have been nigh impossible to live through the latter end of the 20th century without hearing his music.
As part of Chic he gave us such classic dancefloor grooves as Le Freak and I Want Your Love, but his other achievements in popular music are so numerous, it would be impossible to mention even half of them here without turning this review into a sizeable list.
So just to scrape the surface, as a producer and/or writer the former Black Panther was behind the biggest selling records of the careers of the likes of Diana Ross, David Bowie and Duran Duran, as well as having a huge part in Madonna’s breakthrough album, Like A Virgin. And all of that is still only part of an incredible life captured here in an autobiography that bristles with interesting anecdotes.
As you’d expect many of these tales come from the recording sessions with the big name celebs or from the ladies’ toilet of Studio 54 where Rodgers spent a lot of time with a big bag of cocaine and a steady stream of female visitors. But the surprisingly enjoyable package here is the candid account of his early life. Born to a 13-year-old mother, he remembers as a kid not understanding how he hated getting injections at the doctor, but his parents seemed to love sticking needles in their arms every day.
While his childhood experiences obviously left a mark on him, he emerged as an amazingly positive, resilient and talented individual.
After an entertaining tour of New York in the latter stage of the disco boom, we read how Rodgers broke through the music world’s colour bar when he produced Bowie’s Let’s Dance. He later resented the lack of credit the British singer gave him for his work on the record.
That album opened the door to work on an album by an emerging young singer named Madonna. We get a glimpse of her abrasive personality even at this early stage when she blew her top over a studio assistant taking a toilet break without first asking permission.
As well as diva tantrums, one of the other hazards of Rodgers’ job was facing down armed heavies trying to put pressure on him not to claim writing credits on the first ever rap record, when the Sugarhill Gang laid their Rapper’s Delight vocals on his Good Times track in 1979.
Drugs and drink had always been part of Rodgers’ existence and he’s refreshingly honest and uncontrite about how they contributed to his sex life, musical output and general enjoyment of life for many years. He’s also just as straight up about the morning Heinekens and cocaine psychosis that drove him to sobriety.
The one area of Rodgers’ life that we don’t hear about is his feelings about the absence of any offspring. Surely it’s an area of reflection for a man of his age and success. And a book on somebody who’s sold more than 100 million records should really have some sort of appendix detailing his output.
Overall, though, Le Freak is a hugely enjoyable account of a life lived at the centre of some of the best music of our age. Good times indeed.
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