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

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Here Levellers, Diggers, Ranters, Muggletonians, the early Quakers and others taking advantage of the collapse of censorship to bid for new kinds of freedom were given centre stage' Times Higher EducationIn . Le Freak, a tremendous recording of musical influences inclusive, but not exclusive of classical, rock, pop and disco, incorporates so much by way of content that one review is far too little space to give it all the praise it deserves. Rodgers the “junkie workaholic” driving himself even harder than he drove his speedboats and sports cars.

who drifts in and out of his son's life --and the book-- before succumbing to alcoholism), Nile Rodgers' father figure was a white junkie who worked in the garment district in New York.Nile Rodgers was someone in the music business I had been aware of since 1977, when I --- who had just crossed the threshold into adolescence --- first heard on the radio the song "Dance Dance Dance" from his group Chic, with whom he would enjoy a dizzying and intoxicating run of success over the next 2 years with hits like "Le Freak (C'est chic)", "Everybody Dance", "I Want Your Love", and "Good Times. 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.

In the 1970s and 1980s, he wrote and produced the songs that defined that era and everything that came after: “Le Freak,” “Good Times,” “We Are Family,” “Like a Virgin,” “Modern Love,” “I’m Coming Out,” “The Reflex,” “Rapper’s Delight. By this time, Nile had become independent of the Chic moniker and was suffering from severe alcoholism and drug problems. Note: If you're not familiar with Nile Rodger's body of work, here is a video interview of him playing a medley of some of his most important hits with his band Chic, in just sixty seconds. He tells only one drug-related story which names names, and he notes that he did so with permission. Subtitled “An Upside Down Story Of Family, Disco and Destiny” and written by a true original, gentleman and legend in the popular music industry this is a fascinating insight into Nile Rodgers and his Chic organisation.

Turning off the personalized advertising setting won’t stop you from seeing Etsy ads, but it may make the ads you see less relevant or more repetitive. As it is, he covers his tumultuous early childhood, his meteoric rise to success, some of his most famous collaborations such as David Bowie and Diana Ross, and his downward tumble into alcoholism and coke addiction. The scandalous namedropping is kept to a tasteful minimum, but this book is still juicy and full of crazy tales. Rodgers holding court in a stall of a Studio 54 ladies’ room where he’d share his blow and his sexual apparatus with visiting lovelies. This is an intelligent, thoughtful book free of the egomania that you'd expect from a man with his extraordinary CV.

Le Freak: An Upside Down Story of Family, Disco, and Destiny is one of the most engaging, entertaining, profound, and relatable memoirs that I've yet read. The most obvious example is that he tells the story of his partner Bernard Edwards' death, but doesn't mention the cause of death. Nile Rodgers is an American musician, composer, arranger, and guitarist, and is considered one of the most influential music producers in the history of popular music. But while all of these play a part, nothing makes or breaks a musician more than what goes on behind the scenes, where invisible, detail-oriented taskmasters like Rodgers toil late into the night while the stars are signing autographs. This man's life inside and outside of music is kind of astonishing, and he shares an awful lot of it.

It is a competition for artists where through a series of "Paint Offs", the final winner is commissioned to paint a portrait for the chosen subject to hang in the infamous Albert Hall. Great singles like "Everybody Dance," "Le Freak," "I Want Your Love," "Good Times," and "Rebels Are We" were among the most popular songs in the country during the late 1970s, distinguished by the core elements of Chic's sound: Edwards' fluid and highly melodic bass lines, Rodgers' jazz-influenced guitar work, the muscular drumming style of Tony Thompson, and a host of vocalists including the late Luther Vandross. What I didn't realise however was what an interesting and sometimes harrowing life Nile Rodgers has had. In the 1970s, Rodgers and bass player Bernard Edwards formed a writing and production partnership and created the band Chic, which skyrocketed to fame and fortune on the strength of their lean, irresistible grooves.

In fact, I believe that by disorienting them it freed them to vent bitter and intelligent hidden meanings on four albums they released in the teeth of declining sales.I used to see Mr Rodgers all the time on music documentaries, always commenting on bands and entertainers from NKOTB to Jimi Hendrix as an avid music lover I was captivated by his all encompassing knowledge of the different genres. He tires towards the end of his story, skipping years in a few sentences (hence four stars), but we'll forgive him that given how many drugs he claims to have downed. By the time he was sixteen, Nile was on his own, busking through the sixties, half-hippie and half–Black Panther. 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).