A much more complete treatment can be seen in the Chic article at Wikipedia.
Chic (often capitalised as CHIC) is an American disco/funk band that was formed in 1976 by guitarist Nile Rodgers and bassist Bernard Edwards. They are best known for their commercially successful disco songs, including "Dance Dance Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)" (1977), "Everybody Dance" (1977), "Le Freak" (1978), "I Want Your Love" (1978), "Good Times" (1979), and "My Forbidden Lover" (1979).
History[]
Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards met in 1970. In 1977 Edwards and Rodgers they invited drummer Tony Thompson to join their band, and with various female singers fronting the band, had several years of increasing success. In 1979 the song "Good Times" became one of the most important and influential songs of the era. The track formed the backbone of Grandmaster Flash's "Adventures on the Wheels of Steel" and the Sugarhill Gang's breakthrough hip-hop single, "Rapper's Delight", and has been endlessly sampled since by many dance and hip hop acts. It was the inspiration behind the Queen hit "Another one bites the dust". In the 1980s, the band struggled to obtain airplay and sales, and they eventually disbanded.
At the same time, Edwards and Rodgers composed, arranged, performed, and produced many influential disco and R&B records for both established artists and one-hit wonders, including Sister Sledge, Sheila and B. Devotion, Diana Ross, and Debbie Harry. Rodgers and Edwards separately produced records for a wide variety of artists. Rodgers was largely responsible for the breakthrough success of Madonna in 1984 with her Like a Virgin album.
Thompson worked with the super group Power Station on its 1985 hit LP as well as Power Station lead singer Robert Palmer's solo smash Riptide that same year (both of which Edwards produced).
After a 1992 birthday party where Rodgers, Edwards, Paul Shaffer and Anton Fig played old Chic hits to rapturous response, Rodgers and Edwards organized a reunion of the old band. They recorded new material — a single, "Chic Mystique" and subsequent album Chic-ism, both of which charted — and played live all over the world, to great audience and critical acclaim.
In 1996 Rodgers was honored as the "Top Producer In the World" in Billboard Magazine, and was named a JT Super Producer. That year, he performed with Bernard Edwards, Sister Sledge, Steve Winwood, Simon Le Bon and Slash in a series of commemorative concerts in Japan which provided a career retrospective. Unfortunately, his longtime musical partner Edwards, died of pneumonia at age 43 during the trip on April 18 His final performance was recorded and released (after a long delay) as "Chic Live At The Budokkan". Chic continued to tour with new musicians.
Thompson died of kidney cancer on November 12 2003 at age 48.
References[]
- "Everybody Dance: Chic and the Politics of Disco", book by Daryl Easlea, Helter Skelter Publishing (24 Oct 2004), ISBN 1-900924-56-0 [1]
External links[]
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