(Vocal/instrumental group, 1976–83, 1990–92, 1996, 1998–present) Chic were a disco outfit built around the songwriting and production team of Nile Rodgers (guitar) and Bernard Edwards (bass), who were originally part of a New York rock band but changed direction when unable to secure a record deal. Chic evolved from demos recorded by the pair that formed the ...
‘70s Show, ‘In The Street’, while band members featured in sessions for John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Double Fantasy (1980). Styles & Forms | Seventies | Rock Personalities | Chic | Seventies | Rock ...
One of the great chameleon figures in rock, David Bowie has also been among the most influential. Born David Robert Jones on 8 January 1947, his earliest records with The King Bees, The Mannish Boys and The Lower Third were unsuccessful. In 1966 he changed his name to David Bowie and combined his songwriting with an interest in ...
High’ (their collaboration with childhood friends The Temptations). When third original Mary Wilson left in 1976 The Supremes finally folded. Ross’ phenomenal solo career, working with top producers including Chic and The Bee Gees, saw UK hits every single year until 1996, although she was less successful in America. Styles & Forms | Sixties | Rock Personalities | ...
‘Flash is fast, Flash is cool’; Flash returned the favour in 1981’s ground-breaking ‘The Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel’, which sampled ‘Rapture’ as well as Chic and Queen. ‘The Message’ was the track that broke Flash and The Furious Five, the team of rappers he had assembled in the late 1970s: Melle Mel (Melvin Glover), ...
The biggest heavy metal band of the 1970s, Led Zeppelin left an indelible mark that is still felt a quarter of a century later. The band was put together in London in 1968 by guitarist Jimmy Page (born James Patrick Page, 9 January 1944), singer Robert Plant (born 20 August 1948), bassist John Paul Jones (born John Baldwin, ...
A Virgin (1984) established Madonna as an international star, its title track becoming her first worldwide smash. Her material was given a commercial sheen by producer Nile Rodgers (of Chic fame) and the album featured another massive hit in ‘Material Girl’. Madonna’s first UK No. 1 single ‘Into The Groove’ (from the movie Desperately Seeking Susan) was added to the ...
(Guitar, b. 1952) In addition to writing, producing and performing with Chic, Rodgers, along with long-time collaborator Bernard Edwards, undertook similar duties for Sister Sledge. The pair worked with Diana Ross on her 1980 Diana album and Deborah Harry’s Koo-Koo (1981). Rodgers went on to helm many high-profile albums – David Bowie’s Let’s Dance (1983), Madonna’s ...
As a session guitarist, co-leader of the smash late-Seventies band Chic and star-making producer, Nile Rodgers (b. 1952) combined genres to create unexpected hits seemingly out of thin air. His funky guitar playing (along with partner Bernard Edwards’ bass) helped make Chic the most successful non-disco disco band, and his innate sense of rock and soul made a ...
UK, and INXS had only marginal success on the charts until 1986 with the release of Listen Like Thieves, on which the band displayed its Rolling Stones and Chic influences. In the US the second single, ‘What You Need’, became a Top 5 Billboard hit, bringing INXS their first breakout US success. Farriss became known as a ...
Once hip hop had expanded beyond apparently using the hook lines from Chic’s ‘Good Times’ as the basis for just about everything, it quickly became as diverse as any other black music genre. Its evolution in recording studios took it way beyond the scope of conventional instruments. Can’t play piano like Herbie Hancock or bass like Bootsy ? So what ...
a white horse – and indeed, the attending glitterati were probably more important than the music. It was the sort of joint that Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of Chic loved, but their exclusion one night prompted them to return to their studio and, enraged, pen one of disco’s most enduring anthems, originally called ‘Fuck Off’‚ ...
For many veterans of the punk era, new wave is not a genre at all. The term was coined by the music press to encompass acts who were influenced by punk, but less overtly rebellious and with more traditionally crafted pop skills. New wave acts traded largely on a back-to-basics desire to revive the short, sharp thrill of ...
Early ’76 The Sex Pistols’ First Gigs The Sex Pistols played their first gig at London’s St Martin’s School of Art in November 1975, racing through a batch of Faces and Who numbers plus some of their own, including ‘Pretty Vacant’ and ‘Did You No Wrong’, while Rotten sneered at the audience, calling them ‘f***ing boring’. The pattern ...
recording sessions. Significantly, the group also saw Page and Jeff Beck playing together for the first time since they sparred in The Yardbirds. With the legendary Nile Rodgers of Chic producing, along with Page and Plant, The Honeydrippers: Volume One was a five-track EP of standards covers culled from the studio sessions. Personalities | Introducing Led Zeppelin Personalities ...
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