Le Freak: An Upside Down Story of Family, Disco and Destiny

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So many of my "embarrass the kid" songs - the ones I can't help singing all the words to while I get my groove on no matter where we are or who is watching - are Nile's. From the glamour of Studio 54 to the squalor of New York's Valhalla, and with a cast of bohemians, drop-outs, disco divas and the odd world-famous celebrity, Niles Rodgers tells his astonishing story. His childhood was spent moving around 50s New York, from Alphabet City to the Bronx, interspersed with two stints in Los Angeles. It’s an awe-inspiring reading list for any budding musician, not because the books chosen are brightened by the huge stars they cover but because Rodgers’ selection is so intelligent.

No kid likes shots, so why, 7-year-old Nile wondered, did his parents and their friends stick themselves with needles every day? I'm not even that big of a fan of some of the areas of Pop Music that Nile has most worked in, but that almost doesn't matter at all.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. Chic was able to parlay the sting of exclusion into a breakthrough single and the band’s first seven-figure check. Le Freak is as much about the greatness of life as it is about Nile Rodgers's extraordinary musical journey. His knowledge on how to work collaboratively, how to deconstruct and then reconstruct a song puts to shame all the simplistic bombast of the (generally white) Disco Sucks "authentic" music brigade. Regrettably, Rodgers all but ignores the magnificent “Real People” and the subsequent “Tongue in Chic,” “Take It Off” and “Believer,” as well as his excellent first two solo LPs.

For Rodgers, the project was a chance to launch his comeback and to salvage the word dance from its toxic association with disco. As Rodgers narrates his story, anecdotes like this show that his signature talent is working as the perpetual underdog, finding artistic inspiration in unlikely places.

For Bowie, the Rodgers-produced album Let’s Dance (his best-selling record ever) was a pop exercise—the title track was Bowie’s “postmodern homage to the Isley Brothers’ ‘Twist and Shout. In this immensely readable autobiography, Rodgers tells of his chaotic childhood (parents doing and selling drugs, a murderer, several half brothers living with various parents and grandparents - it's all there), his career progression, and his own struggles with addiction. The Chic years (they take a while to make it) are dealt with much more briskly than I thought they would be, though with the bands story tied inextricably to the timeline of disco, Rodgers covers this time well (enjoying the excesses that were there, whilst being astonished that he was responsible for a significant part of it - the Rappers Delight business, for instance, is both amusing and surprising). In fact, one of the surprise gifts of “Le Freak” is that a third of it covers Rodgers’s own opening act — a coming-of-age tale every bit as impressive as the musical insights and star-time chronicles that follow.

Born to a mother who was 13 years old when she got pregnant he was moved around for relatives to care for him and then back to mum. The shifting times of his growing up and the strange mirror and fractured perspectives that bohemia can cast on the straight world provide a picture of USA and its changes -life, music, culture, politics, ambitions, dreams and disasters through fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties and onward that is as original, lively, honest and perceptive as his music is. But if you want to learn about the education of a journeyman musician and, even better, where hits come from, skip the first third of the book as well as the last couple of chapters, which tell the sorry but familiar tale of near-death from substance abuse, rehab and redemption. Obsessed by music from a young age, he played flute and clarinet at school, where his more classical tastes included Gershwin. There are tales of studying jazz harmony with legendary pianist Dr Billy Taylor, an early gig with the ‘Sesame Street’ house band and notable cameos from Thelonious Monk, Lenny Bruce, Timothy Leary and Jimi Hendrix.About that particular title, Rodgers said: “This is an amazing look at the dirty underbelly of the recorded music business. I could not help throwing the Niles playlist on my stereo while reading about the artists he worked closely with starting with CHIC, David Bowie, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Diana Ross, and Madonna. But Chic was Rodgers’s concept — a minimalist funk band inspired image-wise by Roxy Music’s ersatz elegance and Kiss’s refusal to show their faces.

But since this does not come for free, I guess they already knew that besides bringing joy to the world through music, he would still do charity work, as it indeed turned out to be.He pretty much dominated the pop charts in the 1980s, while remaining a more or less anonymous figure. Rodgers and Edwards regarded Chic as a rock band for a multicultural disco movement that made good on hippie peace, love and freedom. I lost like 3 lbs listening to this book because I was also listening to all the music mentioned - and I apparently can't listen to anything Nile Rodgers had his hands in without dancing.