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00:00You take a seat here. Thank you.
00:04Nice to see you. And you.
00:08Niall Rogers, one of the most successful and influential music figures of all time.
00:13As a songwriter, producer and performer over a 50-year career,
00:18he sold more than 500 million albums and 100 million singles worldwide.
00:23In 1977, he co-founded the band Chic and created Hit.
00:31After Hit.
00:32I want your love. I want your love.
00:37After Hit.
00:38Everybody dance.
00:41Ooh, clap your hands, clap your hands.
00:44He went on to collaborate with a roster of the world's most renowned artists
00:50on some of the most popular music ever produced.
00:53We've come to fight.
00:56In this episode of This Cultural Life, the Radio 4 programme,
01:00Niall Rogers shares his formative influences and experiences
01:04and reveals the moment that he embraced pop music.
01:08I consciously said, I am no longer trying to be the smartest guy in the room.
01:14I am no longer trying to be something other than a person who could speak to a million strangers.
01:20So,
01:49Now, Rogers, welcome to This Cultural Life.
01:51Thank you very much.
01:53You are joining us today in the midst of a global tour.
01:56Two days ago, you were in South Korea.
01:58Two days' time, you're in South Carolina, according to your itinerary.
02:02You must be caught in the midst of time zone limbo.
02:07When do you sleep?
02:08My body clock is completely fooled.
02:12When I awaken, I look at my watch and I go,
02:15is this on the other side of the international dateline?
02:20So is this Wednesday or is this Tuesday?
02:24Well, it's great to have you here, whatever time it is in your head.
02:28On This Cultural Life, I ask my guests to choose the most important influences
02:33and experiences that have informed their own creativity.
02:36It's not on the list that you sent us, but surely there is a case to be made
02:40for this Fender Stratocaster guitar that you brought with you today,
02:43and I guess a guitar which goes everywhere with you.
02:46This is the guitar you call the hitmaker.
02:49Yes, it is indeed.
02:50I think that Bernard named it that.
02:53I was doing so many records, so many sessions, and early on in my career,
02:59it was just sort of like hit after hit after hit.
03:02And then I was picking up a guitar.
03:05I believe somebody just said, no, no, why don't you just grab the hitmaker?
03:09And I got this one.
03:11And you talk about Bernard Edwards, who we'll talk about later in the program,
03:14your musical partner, with whom you formed Chic,
03:18and who plays a part in your relationship with this guitar as well.
03:22When did you first buy the guitar? How long have you had it?
03:25Yeah, so I got this in 1973.
03:28My band was a group called New York City.
03:30We had a hit record called I'm Doing Fine Now
03:37Without You, Baby
03:39What happened was we were playing at a nightclub in Miami.
03:45And the opening act would just plug into our gear and do their set.
03:51And then, you know, and then we'd come and do our set.
03:53And our set, we not only did original songs from our first album,
03:58but a few cover songs.
04:00And I noticed when they were playing the cover songs,
04:04theirs sounded better.
04:07And it was to do with the guitar sounding.
04:08It had a lot to do with the guitar sounding.
04:10And Bernard looked at me and said,
04:12I keep telling you to get a strap.
04:14That's why I listen to how that sounds.
04:16That sounds like the record.
04:17Because at that point, you were playing a, what,
04:19a hollow body guitar that had a thicker sound.
04:21Yeah.
04:22So why has this guitar served you so well?
04:25Why is this guitar so associated with the Nile Rodgers sound?
04:29Typically, on old records, there were two or three guitar players.
04:34So one person would be holding down the...
04:38And the other person would be holding down the...
04:46Some other guy going...
04:53You put the three parts together and wow, you have magic.
04:56So as a covers band, I'm the only guitar player.
05:00So Bernard was saying,
05:01you could play all three parts at the same time.
05:04And I'm like going, yeah, but it's going to sound wacky.
05:07He said, not on a Strat.
05:09Anyway, when I got a Strat and played those cover songs all by myself,
05:14he was right.
05:15So if a song was a big song and it had a lick,
05:20I could play the lick, play the chord,
05:23and also give the vibe.
05:27And that's what Bernard taught me.
05:29So next thing you know, I just went into the bathroom,
05:33I practiced for a few weeks,
05:35and I emerged Nile Rodgers.
05:38So that's 50 years ago that you bought this guitar.
05:42The world changed in a way
05:43because that is instantly identifiable as a Nile Rodgers sound.
05:47Let's take you right back to the beginning now.
05:49You were born in New York City in 1952.
05:52Your mother, Beverly, was just 14 years old when she had you.
05:56What are your earliest memories growing up in Greenwich Village?
05:59I became self-aware when I was about five years old.
06:03So I looked out my window, and I saw these kids.
06:10They were all dressed like the Lone Ranger,
06:13and it looked really sort of scary to me.
06:15I started talking to the kids, and they were cool.
06:17We had a good time.
06:18And my next memory was now of walking down that exact same street
06:27composing music, like swashbuckler-type music.
06:31In your head.
06:32In my head.
06:33And I was doing very adventurous-type swashbuckler,
06:39like dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-bom.
06:42In the seven seas, and I'm like a pirate or something.
06:45Because I had a very lonely childhood,
06:47I imagined scenarios,
06:51and I imagined characters within those scenarios.
06:57and typically it was swashbooklets
06:59because the first book I ever read was Treasure Island.
07:04And when I read Treasure Island, it was just so fantastic.
07:08Like I transformed lower Manhattan into, you know, like the high seas.
07:15Was it about escape as well?
07:17Because you say you had a lonely childhood.
07:20Yes.
07:20Your mother very young, only 14 years older than you.
07:23You had stepfather Bobby, who was white, a beatnik,
07:28I mean, very much a jazz man, drug user as well.
07:32That must have been quite unusual, though,
07:34that mixed marriage, mixed-race marriage,
07:36even in late 1950s, early 1960s.
07:39Yeah, it wasn't unusual at all for us.
07:42In Greenwich Village, which was the heart
07:45of the sort of beatnik movement in New York,
07:49it's just where I live.
07:56My stepfather came from a family of haberdashers
08:01and they made clothing and he was quite sophisticated.
08:07My mom, very fashionable, smart.
08:11What was home life like?
08:12Home life was wonderful.
08:14But the problem was is that I didn't have enough of it
08:20because my parents were both heroin addicts
08:22and they were quite nomadic.
08:25So I always cherish the time I got to spend with them at home
08:30because it was just so random.
08:32I never knew.
08:33You see, when you're a kid and you don't quite understand
08:37heroin addiction,
08:38you don't know that it's a sort of triphasic process.
08:43The getting high part is the end of the deal.
08:47The first thing they got to do is figure out,
08:49okay, where do we get the money?
08:51After we get the money, where do we get the drugs?
08:53Then we got to get the drugs home
08:55and cook them up and then do them.
08:57So every day was an adventure in my parents' life.
09:02And in my life, I was just getting up and going to school.
09:06Were you aware of what they were doing?
09:07Were you aware that they were...
09:09I didn't know that it was drug addiction.
09:14I knew I saw it.
09:16They didn't hide it or anything like that.
09:18I didn't know that you had to pay for it.
09:21I didn't understand.
09:23Like I would watch them cook it sometimes,
09:26which looked a little bizarre to me,
09:28but you're a child.
09:29How important was music at home?
09:32Music was incredibly important.
09:35The arts of all sorts,
09:39every manner,
09:41dance, theater, music,
09:45painting, sculpture.
09:46Were you taken to the theater and museums by your parents?
09:48All the time.
09:49My parents, oh my God,
09:50my parents were so culturally literate.
09:53Because my dad was a sort of top-of-the-line haberdasher,
09:58they made fine clothing.
10:00So a lot of the jazz musicians would come over
10:05and buy my dad's stuff at a discount.
10:09I remember reading years ago in your memoir
10:11that people like Lenny Bruce, the comedian,
10:14or colonious monk jazz people...
10:16All the time.
10:17...were hanging out in your apartment all the time.
10:19All the time.
10:19They're just there,
10:20and they're having a good time,
10:22and they're laughing and joking,
10:23and they're talking about Truffaut films,
10:26and they're talking about Hitchcock
10:27and playing chess with me.
10:29I mean, it's an exciting, wonderful cultural life.
10:34It was rich.
10:35Your biological father was also...
10:38was a musician, I think.
10:39Yes.
10:39He was a percussionist.
10:40A great, terrific musician.
10:41Did he have an influence directly at the time?
10:43How much time did you spend with him as a child?
10:45Yeah, so I didn't spend a huge amount of time with him,
10:50but the time that we did spend together
10:52was always, once again, about music and art.
10:56Always.
10:57We never spent a day together
10:59without going to a museum or a movie theater
11:03or just jamming, ever.
11:06When did you first start playing music yourself?
11:08And was it your father who was encouraging you?
11:11My father, yes, absolutely.
11:12My biological father, indeed.
11:15We started playing percussion together.
11:18However, the standardized curriculum in America
11:21demanded that we learn classical instruments.
11:24So I started playing the flute
11:26as well as playing percussion with my father for fun.
11:30You have quite a sophisticated musical understanding
11:32from a young age, and you build upon that.
11:34Do you remember the first time you picked up a guitar?
11:36Yeah, sure.
11:37My grandfather, he had a guitar hanging up on the wall,
11:40and whenever he wasn't around,
11:43I would sneak the guitar off the wall and play it.
11:45And I got fascinated with it.
11:49Did it come naturally straight away?
11:51Were you a natural-born guitar player, do you think?
11:53No.
11:53Well, I was not natural at all.
11:58I looked at the guitar the same way I looked at the violin or the cello.
12:03I didn't learn how to tune the damn thing first.
12:05So because of all the classical training,
12:08I didn't know anything about the guitar being its own unique instrument
12:13that was tuned differently than a violin or a viola or a cello.
12:17So I was playing a Beatles song, The Day in the Life, from the book,
12:21and I just kept struggling and struggling and just didn't sound right.
12:26And one day, one of my mom's boyfriends came in and said,
12:30whoa, what do you got that thing tuned like?
12:33So when this gentleman came over and retuned the guitar,
12:38and I was looking at the exact same book,
12:41and I played the chord, and it was like, right?
12:45I was like, whoa, this was incredible.
12:48It was magic.
12:49It suddenly made sense.
12:50It made more sense than everything.
12:54I just, like, I play a...
12:58And I was like, holy cow, that was incredible.
13:03I read the news today, oh boy.
13:08And I went, whoa, what?
13:10How cool is this?
13:13And then I got into it.
13:14And the world changed.
13:15Everything changed.
13:17Your next choice for this cultural life, Niall,
13:19an inspirational figure is your jazz guitar teacher, Ted Dunbar.
13:24Yeah.
13:24Who was he, and why was he so important to you?
13:26Ted Dunbar was a teacher at Billy Taylor's Jazzmobile.
13:31He taught us the techniques of jazz.
13:35He was a taskmaster.
13:37Had it not been for Ted, I would not be talking to you.
13:42Because what he taught me was...
13:47So the natural parts of my personality, my musical personality,
13:53Ted was able to make me understand that you could fuse those talents together
13:59and be a composer and an arranger.
14:03And when I was younger, those words were huge.
14:08An arranger?
14:09You mean, like who?
14:11You mean like Count Basie?
14:15Like, I could do that?
14:16And he said, yeah, because you naturally love harmony.
14:21And I was like, man, you mean I could take this part of the orchestra
14:26and mix it with that part of the orchestra?
14:28He foresaw that because that's, of course, what you are.
14:30You're a great songwriter.
14:31You're one of those great guitarists.
14:33But you are a producer and bandleader, arranger.
14:37You're bringing all these elements together all the time.
14:39And that's what you've done.
14:40I write for ensembles.
14:43Ensembles.
14:44That's what I do.
14:45I write for a group of people.
14:47And it does many difference how big the group is.
14:50The bigger the better, frankly.
14:52It was around this time, I think, when you were working with,
14:54studying with Ted Dunbar, that there was an open audition for Sesame Street,
14:58the live show of Sesame Street.
15:00And you went along.
15:01And you got the role.
15:02You got the parts.
15:03So you were playing guitar with the Sesame Street band.
15:06I know there was a time also that you spent in the Apollo in Harlem.
15:10Yeah.
15:10Who were you backing there?
15:11Who were the stars on stage?
15:13It's just extraordinary to me.
15:15I have played with everybody from Screaming Jay Hawkins and Luther Vandross and Betty Wright
15:21to Shirley Bassey.
15:23I mean, I just played with everybody.
15:25Aretha Franklin.
15:27The roster was so big, you can't even remember it.
15:31And this was instrumental in my development because I had to learn how to interpret all of this
15:42different styles of R&B, be it blues, be it Chicago blues, Delta blues, straight up R&B.
15:50Your next choice for this cultural life, a hugely significant choice, is your musical partner, Bernard Edwards.
15:57Yeah.
15:58You know, who you formed Chic with in 1977 and Bernard tragically died in 1996 at the age of just
16:0643.
16:07You became musical partners, of course, as band leaders with Chic.
16:11I want your love.
16:14I want.
16:15And producers with Sister Sledge.
16:18You came to me.
16:21Diana Ross.
16:23Upside down.
16:25Boy, you turned me inside.
16:29You had so many hits.
16:31As songwriters, how did it happen between you and Bernard?
16:34Bernard and I, the very first night we met was probably in about 73.
16:42And we were doing a pickup gig.
16:45You always still took those pickup gigs because that's how you made money.
16:51The first night we met, I said to him, I never want to do a show without you.
16:54And he said, funny, I was thinking the same thing about you.
16:56But Bernard was not a composer.
16:58He was an arranger.
16:59He was a band leader, but he's not a composer.
17:02So I wrote all the songs for this group called the Big Apple Band.
17:08And we were more or less a fusion rock band.
17:12We couldn't get a deal, but every record label loved our music.
17:22Anyway, I come to England on our final New York City tour,
17:26and I get stranded because somebody snatches my suitcase while they're loading the coach to take us to the airport.
17:35I actually happen to have a girlfriend, so I stayed with her over the weekend waiting for the embassy to
17:41open.
17:41In London.
17:42Yeah, in London.
17:43Right.
17:43And she got the day off, and she says, hey, can we go see my favorite band?
17:48I said, of course.
17:49You're the boss.
17:50Let's go.
17:51And we went to see this group called Rocks & Music.
18:15I saw this group wearing couture clothing, dancing around, looking cool.
18:21And I was like, wow, this is like culturally way different than what I've seen in R&B,
18:29even though Brian Ferry is very R&B influenced.
18:34He wanted to be an English gentleman because he was like from Newcastle or something.
18:38Yeah, he was.
18:38But you're saying that idea of presenting yourself is about the clothing, it's about the brand image.
18:44Right.
18:44And that's what you took, and that's how you formed Chic around that idea.
18:49Yeah, I called Bernard.
18:51I said, I've never seen anything like this because in 1973, if you go back and look at R&B
18:56bands,
18:56be it the Jackson 5 or the Ohio Players or the Commodores, they all were dressed in uniforms.
19:02They all look alike and it all matches.
19:05And I'm like going, no, check out Rocks & Music.
19:07It's like, you know, it's like Hugo Boss.
19:10And explain something that you've talked about many times, deep hidden meaning that you need to bury in a lyric.
19:16I came from a very political, culturally rich background that was political, very left-wing.
19:28You know, and I knew that Bernard was from the South and he was very different than me.
19:34But Bernard was very smart, but he didn't have the social awareness.
19:41It wasn't my responsibility to radicalize Bernard.
19:48That's not what our partnership was.
19:49Our partnership was making music together to make people feel good.
19:52So if I do a song called R Freak Out, which is really about LSD or whatever, and I went,
20:00you know,
20:00hey man, what about when you do Acid, man?
20:02You like, and you freak out, man, you have a bad trip.
20:04And he's looking at me like, what are you talking about?
20:06He said, but my kids are doing this new dance called The Freak.
20:09Whoa, light bulb moment.
20:11But it's a perfect example of deep hidden meaning.
20:13Because for me, my initial feeling was, whoa, we can make a record about getting high
20:20and partying and being on LSD.
20:22Bernard didn't understand that.
20:24But then he understood the thing about the dance.
20:27And then we went, wait a minute.
20:29You just combine all those narratives.
20:31It can be about both.
20:32And I could commit intellectually to something that sounds pretty corny.
20:41But because I know that spiritually, for me, it means a little more than that, I'm okay
20:47with it sounding corny.
20:49Oh, I freak out.
20:51Live free, say she.
20:53Freak out.
20:56Oh, I freak out.
20:59Live free, say she.
21:01Freak out.
21:02Let's go back to Ted Dunbar, my jazz teacher.
21:05He had said to me one day, I was doing a gig, a pickup gig, and on the list was
21:12this song
21:13called Sugar Sugar.
21:14And he could tell that I was really upset about the gig that I had to play that night.
21:19You know, it goes, honey, do, do, do, do, do, do.
21:23Oh, sugar, sugar.
21:24And I said, those are the lyrics that I got to sing tonight?
21:28And he says, but I don't understand what your problem is.
21:32He says, now, do you know that Sugar Sugar's been number one for like, I don't know, three,
21:37four weeks now?
21:38And I said, yeah, but what does that got to do with it?
21:41He said, well, wait a minute.
21:43And he grabbed me by the back of the head and he looked me right in my eyes and he
21:46says,
21:48don't you understand that any song that's in the top 40, we got to go back in the old
21:52days.
21:53He said, any song that's in the top 40 is a great composition?
21:58I said, how could you call Sugar Sugar a great composition?
22:02He says, because it speaks to the souls of a million strangers.
22:06And I actually started crying and I said, wow, he just described an artist to me.
22:13I wasn't an artist until he described that because I thought all I really wanted to do
22:19was speak to the souls of some really cool people sitting around a jazz club going, oh,
22:24wow, man, you're the coolest guy in the world.
22:27That's not really what I wanted to do.
22:28So in that moment you embraced popular music and you could see that being, you could still
22:34be an artist and still have massive hit records.
22:36Correct.
22:36As long as the deep hidden meaning meant something to me as an artist, I could easily do something
22:44that to you may sound completely ludicrous.
22:50You had so many hit singles in a very short space of time.
22:53Did that feel like it was coming easily?
22:55Was it a magic moment when everything you touched turned?
22:58Well, because of what you mentioned, the deep hidden meaning.
23:03Like, you know, the very first pop song I ever wrote, when I say pop, meaning that I consciously
23:10said, I am no longer trying to be the smartest guy in the room.
23:15I am no longer trying to be something other than a person who could speak to a million strangers.
23:22Sat down and I wrote really cool jazz chord changes.
23:27I wrote.
23:40Now, that doesn't sound like a pop song until you go, everybody dance.
24:06You worked with Bernard for over 20 years.
24:09He had a huge success, but he died tragically young at the age of 43.
24:13And it was just hours after you performed on stage in Tokyo, in Japan.
24:18I think he had pneumonia when he went on stage.
24:21He died just hours after you came off stage.
24:25I mean, it must be still so painful, Niall.
24:27But what do you remember of that night?
24:29You know, it was so unnecessary.
24:33We didn't have to show that night.
24:35It wasn't like a live show.
24:37I'll never forget the doctor saying, look, you need to go to the hospital.
24:45You need to go home.
24:46And Bernard's words to the doctor were, you think I came all the way over here to let my
24:52boy down?
24:53He insisted upon doing it.
24:55And we got through the show.
24:58We got through the show.
24:59So, you know, when you see the video of the film, of that performance, and there's a part
25:08that we have rehearsed where we introduce all the band members.
25:12If it wasn't for him, I would not be here in Tokyo tonight on funky bass.
25:21Bernard Edwards!
25:33And Bernard says, you know, I said, yeah, well, we got to give him a little break tonight.
25:38He's not feeling so well.
25:39Yeah, I'm a little sick tonight.
25:43I got the Tokyo flu.
25:47But are we still here?
25:49I mean, you can tell everybody is concerned.
25:51And you can see the look on his face.
25:53He's just not quite there.
25:54And then finally, we walked back to our hotel rooms.
25:58I asked him if he wants me to get him anything to eat.
26:02And his final words to me were, no, I'll be okay.
26:06I just need to rest.
26:09That's it.
26:10Last words I ever heard from him.
26:12I just need to rest.
26:14And the next morning, a few hours later, he won't answer his alarm.
26:20I get housekeeping to open his door.
26:23And I find him lying on the couch watching television like this.
26:29I took these two fingers, I took these two fingers, and I put it on his cheek, and it was
26:33the same temperature as the glass table.
26:36And at that point, I was aware that he was gone, and I broke down, and I started crying like
26:44a baby.
26:45I was out of control, and up until then, Bernard had always been the adult in our relationship.
26:57When Bernard passed away, I felt that, wow, thank God, I've been sober for about a year and a half
27:03now, because now I have to step up and be the adult.
27:07I have to do everything right.
27:09It's a huge personal loss for you.
27:12It's a huge artistic loss for the world.
27:15But in a way, you've kept Bernard's name alive in the years since.
27:22You know, you paid tribute to him and his music and your partnership on the stage shows that you still
27:26do.
27:26The chic sound, which you pioneered with Bernard Edwards over 50 years ago, is still being referenced today.
27:34It still sounds fresh, but you still hear it as a direct influence on records in 2024.
27:41Do you hear the influence listening to the radio and hearing contemporary pop songs and think, there's a bit of
27:45me, there's a bit of me?
27:46Of course, of course.
27:48Every composer knows, every composer knows when another composer is being influenced by their music.
27:57There's a ton of them now.
27:58I'm not bothered or anything.
28:01I'm excited.
28:02I am proud.
28:04My music is based on me hearing other people's music.
28:08Almost every record I've ever written, I had heard something, I got inspired, and went home and rewrote it my
28:14way.
28:15And at 72 years old, you're still playing.
28:18I mean, this week alone, you're on three continents of the world, you know, playing four or five gigs, including
28:25one tonight.
28:25I know you've got to rush off to a soundcheck.
28:27What drives you on creatively?
28:32I love playing live.
28:35There's just nothing, nothing as satisfying as playing live.
28:41It's about what my guitar teacher told me, playing to the souls of a million strangers, playing music for people
28:54that I will never, ever meet, that I will probably never meet in my life.
28:59They're going to be singing your songs for decades, centuries probably, to come, Niall Rogers.
29:04Niall, thank you so much indeed for sharing your cultural life with us.
29:07Thank you much. Cheers. I really appreciate this.
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