The Westport Library Resource Guides: Nile Rodgers: About

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Who is Nile Rodgers?

Among music legends, Nile Rodgers is truly exceptional. He amplifies his legacy as a multiple GRAMMY-winning composer, producer, arranger and guitarist by constantly traversing new musical terrain and successfully expanding the boundaries of popular music. As the co-founder of CHIC and the newly elected Chairman of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Rodgers pioneered a musical language that generated chart-topping hits like "Le Freak," (the biggest selling single in the history of Atlantic Records!) and sparked the advent of hip-hop with "Good Times". Nile Rodgers transcends all styles of music across every generation with a body of work that's garnered him inductions into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (2017) and the Songwriters Hall of Fame (2016).

Most recently, he was appointed as the first ever Chief Creative Advisor for the legendary Abbey Road Studios to cap off a year that has included "festival best" performances at both Glastonbury and Coachella that resulted in the BBC nominating the band for the BBC MusicAwards as "Best Live Performance Of 2017" and the LA Times stating "Nile Rodgers' influence stretches all over Coachella, beaming the sound of a better future".

His work in the CHIC Organization and his productions for artists like David Bowie, Diana Ross, and Madonna have sold over 500 million albums and 75 million singles worldwide while his innovative, trendsetting collaborations with Daft Punk, Avicii, Sigala, Disclosure, and Sam Smith reflect the vanguard of contemporary music. Nile Rodgers & CHIC recently released their first new studio album, "It's About Time" in over 26 years to critical acclaim and a Top 10 position in the UK album charts.

Rodgers was born in the Lower East Side, New York City, on September 19, 1952, to Beverly Goodman. She became pregnant the first time she had sex, and gave birth to Rodgers when she was 14. His biological father, Nile Rodgers Sr. – a traveling percussionist who specialized in Afro-Cuban beats – was rarely present as Rodgers grew up; although influential in his life, Rodgers saw his father only a "handful" of times prior to his death in 1970. In 1959, Goodman married Bobby Glanzrock, who Rodgers described in his 2011 autobiography as a "beatnik PhD, whose observations had angles that would make Miles Davis contemplate his cool." Richard Pryor, Thelonious Monk, and Lenny Bruce, often visited their home in Greenwich Village. Glanzrock and Goodman were addicted to heroin, and Rodgers began using drugs at 13.

Before learning to play the guitar at 16, Rodgers played the flute and the clarinet. As a teenager, he played guitar with African, Persian, Latin, jazz and Boogaloo bands. He also became a subsection leader of the Lower Manhattan branch of the New York Black Panther Party as a teenager. Continue reading from Nile Rodgers Official