Le Freak: An Upside Down Story of Family, Disco and Destiny

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He's interesting too on how Chic were a deliberately fabricated construct like Kiss, like Roxy Music and -go on, admit it- one of the many incarnations of The Band or The Clash decked out in cobbled together Americana and rockers' pomp.

But since even B-list celebrities titillate, it says a lot for Rodgers’s tolerant bohemian upbringing and charming way with a story that the narrative pull of “Le Freak” remains unvoyeuristic. This is an intelligent, thoughtful book free of the egomania that you'd expect from a man with his extraordinary CV. It's a fascinating story and a surprisingly gripping read, and I found myself singing some of those songs to myself as he described their creation.

I was lucky enough to catch a question/answer session with Nile Rodgers earlier this year, and his fun, humble, and engrossing personality made me decide to read his book. As a producer, he had plenty more, most prominently with Diana Ross, David Bowie, Madonna and the B-52s, whom he portrays with the sharp eye and tolerance for foible that make his love for his family so believable — the regal Ross nervous about her D.

Rodgers holding court in a stall of a Studio 54 ladies’ room where he’d share his blow and his sexual apparatus with visiting lovelies.In addition to his band Chic, he's written songs for and produced records for a Who's Who of the music world, over the past 4 decades.

He sneaks transgressive messages into smash radio singles, flourishes in improbable collaborations, and trades the spotlight for behind-the-scenes influence, reporting on pop music from the vantage of a prankish infiltrator. Too bad that by ending with Edwards’s death during a 1996 Chic reunion in Japan, Rodgers fails to provide a final act — a full picture of a life that slowed down but continued with sobriety, and included his so-far successful battle with aggressive prostate cancer. Rodgers has worked with Madonna, Bowie, Diana Ross and scores of other legends, as well as making history with his own hits as part of Chic. Rodgers, best known as the founder of Chic who went on to produce landmark albums for Madonna and David Bowie, was raised by downtown heroin junkies in the 1950s and ’60s, and it's fascinating to see how profoundly his worldview was shaped by the ups and downs of this experience.Rodgers's mother fell pregnant with him at 13, the first time she had sex, and after she split from his father she took up with Bobby, a white bohemian junkie.