麻豆约拍

Over four programmes in an intimate conversation with music aficionado Vicki Wickham, Nile Rodgers reveals his all-time favourite playlists: including his musical influences & inspirations, plus the songs that have made his career, as well as simply music that he loves.

The conversation takes place in Le Crib, Nile's home studio in Westport, Connecticut.

Programme 1: Nile reflects on his childhood in New York and his early musical influences.

Born to parents who were both heroin addicts and beatniks - times were hard, but music especially jazz played an important role in the family home. His mother gave birth to him when she was only 14 years old, and he was quite a weak child health-wise and had to attend a special hospital school. The upside of which was that from an early age he was educated with other children much older and he developed fast, becoming a prolific reader, and then turned his hand to music. He was shipped off to California to live with his paternal grandmother who hoped to save him from the beatnik life style of his parents; she sent him to Catholic school which he hated and he proudly set the record for playing truant in extraordinary ways. While learning classical clarinet and playing in the school orchestra, he also developed a fondness for cinema and roller skating. An amazing coincidence led him at age 15 to a party in the Hollywood Hills with Timothy Leary present, and Nile's first acid trip with accompanying hippy soundtrack! Despatched back to his mother's care in New York, he soon became a runaway and session musician in the clubs in Greenwich Village. This was where he first met Bernard Edwards and a friendship and music partnership began in the Big Apple Band, which would lead to the formation of the Chic Organization.