Nile Rodgers and Chic brought the “maximum funkocity” to NRP’s Tiny Desk, delivering a half-hour set of classics from both the Chic catalogue and songs co-written by Rodgers himself.
The set opened with Chic’s “Le Freak,” and from there went on to feature Diana Ross’ “I’m Coming Out, Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family,” Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” (all co-written by Rodgers), Chic’s own “Good Times” interpolated with the Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight,” and concluded with the David Bowie/Rodgers collabo “Let’s Dance.”
(Before “Get Lucky,” Chic also threw in a brief nod to “Soul Glo,” the Coming to America faux-commercial that earned its own Rolling Stone oral history.)
Coincidentally on Thursday, the latest installment of Daft Punk’s “Memory Tapes” retrospective of Random Access Memories focused on Rodgers reminiscing about “Get Lucky”; the previous episode spotlighted Pharrell Williams’ remembrance of the track:
Rodgers talked about how Daft Punk first popped up on his radar when the dance duo told him that their 1996 LP Homework was “quietly dedicated” to late Chic bassist Bernard Edwards, who died earlier that year; the album artwork also featured a nod to Chic with that band’s “Stage Fright” single.
“Fast-forward 15, 20 years later, they’re in New York. [Daft Punk] came to my house, we had a really good time, we had a meeting where they told me about the concept of Random Access Memories, they said something to me that blew me away: They said they wanted to do an album as if the internet never existed,” Rodgers said.
When it came time to record “Get Lucky,” Daft Punk specifically requested that Rodgers dust off his plexiglass guitar, as the instrument replicated the sound of Chic’s hit singles; the Memory Tapes also reveals footage of Rodgers rocking out in the studio to the “Get Lucky” backing track.
Rodgers also talked about his emotional experience at Glastonbury, where upon the end of Chic’s set, the audience serenaded him with “Get Lucky.” “Certainly the mot rewarding, to have been involved in a project that was so monumental to my life,” Rodgers added. Thanks to “Get Lucky,” Rodgers won his first-ever Grammy Awards (three in total for Random Access Memories), and opened the doorway for him to collaborate with the likes of Charli XCX, Burna Boy, Beyonce and K-pop acts.
Back at the Tiny Desk, despite the small crowd of NPR co-workers, Rodgers added some audience participation to the performance during Chic’s take on Diana Ross’ “I’m Coming Out,” telling those in the room watching to sing the chorus on his cue. “We’re in Washington, D.C. You people are supposed to be reasonably intelligent, you know what the word ‘Sing’ means, right?” Rodgers said. “So you should instinctively know what to do.”
Rodgers, one of Rolling Stone’s 250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time, most recently reunited with Duran Duran on “Black Moonlight” from the band’s Halloween-inspired new album Danse Macabre.