| CHIC,
was
disco's greatest band; and,
working in a heavily producer-dominated
field, they were most definitely a
band. By the time Chic appeared in
the late '70s, disco was already
slipping into the excess that eventually
caused its downfall. Chic bucked the
trend by stripping disco's sound down to
its basic elements; their funky, stylish
grooves had an organic sense of
interplay that was missing from many of
their overproduced competitors. Chic's
sound was anchored by the scratchy,
James Brown-style rhythm guitar of Nile
Rodgers and the indelible, widely
imitated (sometimes outright stolen)
bass lines of Bernard Edwards; as
producers, they used keyboard and string
embellishments economically, which kept
the emphasis on rhythm. Chic's
distinctive approach not only resulted
in some of the finest dance singles of
their time, but also helped create a
template for urban funk, dance-pop, and
even hip-hop in the post-disco era. Not
coincidentally, Rodgers and Edwards
wound up as two of the most successful
producers of the '80s.
Rodgers and Edwards first met in
1970, when both were jazz-trained
musicians fresh out of high school.
Edwards had attended New York's High
School for the Performing Arts and was
working in a Bronx post office at the
time, while Rodgers' early career also
included stints in the folk group New
World Rising and the Apollo Theater
house orchestra. Around 1972, Rodgers
and Edwards formed a jazz-rock fusion
group called the Big Apple Band. This
outfit moonlighted as a backup band,
touring behind smooth soul vocal group
New York City in the wake of their 1973
hit "I'm Doin' Fine Now." After New York
City broke up, the Big Apple Band hit
the road with Carol Douglas for a few
months, and Rodgers and Edwards decided
to make a go of it on their own toward
the end of 1976. At first they switched
their aspirations from fusion to new
wave, briefly performing as Allah & the
Knife Wielding Punks, but quickly
settled into dance music. They enlisted
onetime LaBelle drummer Tony Thompson
and female vocalists Norma Jean Wright
and Alfa Anderson, and changed their
name to Chic in summer 1977 so as to
avoid confusion with Walter Murphy & the
Big Apple Band (who'd just hit big with
"A Fifth of Beethoven").
Augmented in the studio by
keyboardists Raymond Jones and Rob
Sabino, Chic recorded the demo single
"Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah,
Yowsah)" and shopped it around to
several major record companies, all of
which declined it. The small Buddah
label finally released it as a 12" in
late 1977, and as its club popularity
exploded, Atlantic stepped in, signed
the group, and re-released the single on
a wider basis. "Dance, Dance, Dance" hit
the Top Ten, peaking at number six, and
made Chic one of the hottest new groups
in disco. Chic scrambled to put together
their self-titled first album, which
spawned a minor follow-up hit,
"Everybody Dance," in early 1978. At
this point, Wright left to try her hand
at a solo career (with assistance from
Rodgers and Edwards), and was replaced
by Luci Martin. It was a good time to
come onboard; "Le Freak," the first
single from sophomore album C'est Chic,
was an out-of-the-box smash, spending
five weeks on top of the charts toward
the end of 1978 and selling over
four-million copies (which made it the
biggest-selling single in Atlantic's
history). Follow-up "I Want Your Love"
reached number seven, cementing the
group's new star status, and C'est Chic
became one of the rare disco albums to
go platinum.
1979's Risqué was another solidly
constructed LP that also went platinum,
partly on the strength of Chic's second
number one pop hit, "Good Times." "Good
Times" may not have equaled the
blockbuster sales figures of "Le Freak,"
but it was the band's most imitated
track: Queen's number one hit "Another
One Bites the Dust" was a clear rewrite,
and the Sugarhill Gang lifted the
instrumental backing track wholesale for
the first commercial rap single,
"Rapper's Delight," marking the first of
many times that Chic grooves would be
recycled into hip-hop records. Also in
1979, Rodgers and Edwards took on their
first major outside production
assignment, producing and writing the
Sister Sledge smashes "We Are Family"
and the oft-sampled "He's the Greatest
Dancer." This success, in turn, landed
them the chance to work with Diana Ross
on 1980's Diana album, and they wrote
and produced "Upside Down," her first
number one hit in years, as well as "I'm
Coming Out."
The disco fad was fading rapidly by
that point, however, and 1980's Real
People failed to go gold despite another
solid performance by the band. Changing
tastes put an end to Chic's heyday, as
Rodgers and Edwards' outside production
work soon grew far more lucrative, even
despite aborted projects with Aretha
Franklin and Johnny Mathis. Several more
Chic LPs followed in the early '80s,
with diminishing creative and commercial
returns, and Rodgers and Edwards
disbanded the group after completing the
lackluster Believer in 1983. Later that
year, both recorded solo LPs that sank
without a trace. Hungry for acceptance
and respect in the rock mainstream
(especially after accusations that
they had ripped off Queen instead of
the other way around), both Rodgers and
Edwards sought out high-profile
production and session work over the
rest of the decade. Rodgers produced
blockbuster albums like David Bowie's
Let's Dance, Madonna's Like a Virgin,
and Mick Jagger's She's the Boss.
Edwards wasn't as prolific as a
producer, but did join the one-off
supergroup the Power Station along with
Tony Thompson as well as Robert Palmer
and members of avowed Chic fans Duran
Duran; he later produced Palmer's
commercial breakthrough, Riptide.
Edwards also worked with Rod Stewart
(Out of Order), Jody Watley, and Tina
Turner, while Rodgers' other credits
include the Thompson Twins, the Vaughan
Brothers, INXS, and the B-52's' comeback
Cosmic Thing.
Rodgers and Edwards re-formed Chic in
1992 with new vocalists Sylver Logan
Sharp and Jenn Thomas, and an assortment
of session drummers in Thompson's place;
they toured and released a new album,
Chic-ism. In 1996, the reconstituted
Chic embarked on a tour of Japan; sadly,
on April 18, Edwards passed away in his
Tokyo hotel room due to a severe bout of
pneumonia. Rodgers continued to tour
occasionally with a version of Chic,
and, in 1999, his Sumthing Else label
issued a recording of Edwards' final
performance with the band, Live at the
Budokan. |
