NILE RODGERS: A guitar icon talks funk, band culture and being a Francophile
#juneisblackmusicmonth
Nile Rodgers is one of the first people I interviewed when I started by music journalism career in the late ’70s at Billboard magazine. Throughout the years he’s been one of the more insightful artists I’ve spoken to. Not a surprise because he’s had a long, hit filled career as a producer/writer while developing one of most identifiable instrumental sounds in all of pop music. Starting with Chic in the late ’70s and continuing with Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” Nile has remained at the forefront of danceable pop music. These quotes are outtakes from my documentary FINDING THE FUNK, which can be rented or purchased on Amazon Prime video. #juneisblackmusicmonth
Listening to these recordings will enhance your reading pleasure: THE COMMODORES “SLIPPERY WHEN WET,” “MACHINE GUN.” THE OHIO PLAYERS “FIRE,” “SKIN TIGHT,” “LOVE ROLLERCOASTER.” CHIC’S “EVERYBODY DANCE,” “GOOD TIMES,” “STAGE FRIGHT.” EARTH, WIND & FIRE “MIGHTY MIGHTY,” “SERPENTINE FIRE,” “SHINGING STAR.” RUFUS “AT MIDNIGHT,” “YOU GOT THE LOVE,” “STOP ON BY”
THE FUNKY EARLY COMMODORES
Believe it or not. Lionel Ritchie’s band, when the Commodores first started, let me tell you something, you know, people, because Lionel Ritchie as he developed he got more Vegas and stuff like that but I am going to tell you something right now, now I am going to go on record. There was a time when The Commodores would come to New York city and put fear in the hearts of bands. The Commodores come to town, you better make sure you played three of four acts before The Commodores cause they were funky and not only were they funky they were a Funk band. They played Funk music that was a hard driving Funk.
FUNK BANDS AS SELF-CONTAINED UNITS
Funk became the foundation, from my point of view, of black music. It was in order to play Funk you had to have a band and in white music you had rock and roll bands and when a rock band would get signed they were what we call self contained. They wrote their own songs, blah, blah, blah, if they didn’t do all that stuff they didn’t get signed. Like very rarely did a rock band get signed and then say well like “Now let’s go out to song writers and get songs.”
Funk bands were self-contained units and they were the main stay of the black music business. Of course, we still had the singing groups but Funk became the bedrock of the band because once you signed the band you got a songwriter, you got an arranger, you got an orchestrator and all that stuff so you just signed that band and economically it was powerful. So that’s what I grew up idolizing. I am young enough to, well let me say, I am old enough (laughing) am old enough to have appreciation for Motown, but they were not really self contained acts except for one or two. But after the Motown era black music was based on the self contained band and they were Funk bands. No band sounded like the Ohio Players, you could learn an Ohio Player song but you didn’t sound like them cause you had to be the Ohio Players to play that.
INFLUENCES ON HIS GUITAR PLAYING
It was all the Funk guys of course. When I first started listening to Kool & The Gang and I first started listening to James Brown, I mean think about all of the funky James Brown records that had no keyboard players on it. There were just two guitars and it was just funky, funky, funky and I started to think to myself ‘That’s what I want to be like. I want to be the guy that can be in the band and hold down the groove by myself with just a bass player and a drummer.” I developed a style that locked the Funk part of it down. If you notice in Chic Records and all my compositions, the Funk part of it comes from me and the bass.
I listened to Al McKay from Earth, Wind & Fire. When I first heard Tony Maiden of Rufus I was like “I gotta get that”. There were these people that were coming along after I had already developed my style and they just helped me to redefine it cause I was mainly a Jazz guitar player and so I was able to take my knowledge of harmony and start to that rhythmic thing in it and start to speak melodies with my chord playing. Like if you notice with normal guitar players, no matter who they are, whether they are Funk players, rock guitar players, whatever — whenever they play a part, that’s their part.
If you watch me play a part, I never play just the part, like if I play good times you just hear that first de, de, de, but you listen to the record, I’m all over the neck. I never stop and that is because of my jazz background.
SOPHISTO FUNK
We made up the name and called ourselves “Sophisto Funk”. We couldn’t just be normal Funk. We had to be a different type of Funk and the concept was, you know when a lot of black artists make it especially in Jazz which was my primary background at least that is how I fanaticized myself. So black artists we make it, we get to go to Europe or particularly France and they embrace us as normal citizens, great musicians, great artists. Nina Simone was like a queen in France. So we thought “Wow, why don’t we act like we are from France when we come back to America, that way we can cut out the middle man. We don’t have to get big and move to France, we can get big in France and move back to America and then that way we would be cool right from the jump.”
We figured anything from France was sophisticated. Just to give you an example: I was at a recording session not too long ago with a hard core Hip Hop guy. There were these two guys who were beat makers from France and the dudes who were the artists didn’t know who were making the beats. They didn’t know they were white. They walked in and they saw these guys making beats and they said “Man, what the fuck you doing with those white guys in the studio?” and they went “Oh no, no we’re not white, were from France.” And they went “Oh you’re French, okay cool man.” So that was the interesting mystique that we all as black people have with France. So when we came up with our Sophisto Funk we figured Chic was that bridge between hard core American Funk and New York style sophisticated Funk.