Nile Rodgers explains how a shared love of jazz inspired David Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance’
Nile Rodgers’ collaboration with David Bowie was the result of one of those rare moments where the right producer meets the right artist at exactly the right time. Together, they crafted Bowie’s biggest-selling album, Let’s Dance, and remapped the boundaries of pop in the process. Here, Rodgers opens up about the first time he met the musician and how they bonded over a shared love of jazz music.
Rodgers was introduced to David shortly after the breakup of Chic. The band’s dissolution left him with more time to dedicate to production, and he quickly switched his focus to working with other artists. During a conversation with GQ, Rodgers recalled: “The first time we met we talked about avant-garde jazz and I was mega impressed with his knowledge, like blown away. And he was impressed with mine too, he didn’t know I was such a jazz fanatic, and that’s perhaps what sealed the bond between us. On some level we were kindred spirits and that allowed him to say, in our next meeting, that he wanted a hit album.”
Rodgers was the right person for the job. As the brains behind ‘We Are Family’, ‘Good Times’ and ‘Freak Out’, he’d already crafted a raft of hits. Bowie wanted in. “I thought we’d do some spacey cool jazz, prog-rock record,” he said of Let’s Dance, “But when he basically commissioned me, he said, ‘This is why I’m hiring you. I want to work with you because I want a hit and not just a single but a whole album.’ At that moment I felt I was charged with that responsibility.”
Working with Bowie proved far easier than Rodgers had been expecting. The pair were able to communicate their ideas to one another neatly and succinctly. “He just had this very avant-garde way of looking at things, this very interesting way of explaining it to me; and I knew everything he was saying,” Rodgers later said. “That kind of connection between an artist and producer is rare, but that’s what you dream of. You dream of people like David Bowie, who can talk to you at whatever speed they choose, and you get every word of fit. You go: ‘you got it, babe. Sit back and relax. Coming up in ten minutes.’ David is one of the most incredible people I’ve ever worked with,” he added.
Rodgers concluded: “One of the most altruistic; one of the kindest; one the funniest; one the most talented people, and I honestly don’t throw those words around lightly. To me, David Bowie is the Picasso of rock ‘n’ roll.”
