Rodgers, who masterminded her breakthrough album Like A Virgin, remembers the sassy 25-year-old with an underground vibe and the impact she had on people
“WHO’S that girl? Who’s that girl? Who’s that girl?”
...was the question on everyone’s lips when head-turner Madonna Louise Ciccone sauntered into a club in the early Eighties.
The one-time Dunkin’ Donuts waitress was simply destined to become the Queen Of Pop.
As Madonna turns 60 this week, SFTW talks to the man who helped assure her iconic status, disco king and producer with the Midas touch Nile Rodgers.
He was called in to mastermind her breakthrough second album, 1984’s Like A Virgin, complete with monster hits Material Girl, Into The Groove and, of course, the risque title track about a virgin “touched for the very first time.”
Rodgers remembers the sassy, sexy 25-year-old with an edgy, underground vibe and the impact she had on people.
“It was amazing being with her,” he says. “Just to think, I would walk into a room in New York City, where I was born, where I knew everybody, with this unknown girl and they’d all go, ‘Who’s that girl with Nile? Who’s that girl?’
By the time Madonna’s song Who’s That Girl hit No1 in the summer of 1987, everyone save perhaps the lost tribes of the Amazon rainforest knew THAT girl.
“She’s so damn interesting,” says Rodgers. “Just like Bowie, she was living art.”
Though he’d achieved global success with Chic... Le Freak, Good Times, I Want Your Love et al... it was as if no one paid him full attention when Madge joined him for a night out.
“I could just hear the noise in the room. I couldn’t help feeling, ‘What am I, chopped liver?’
“But I was never jealous. I was always excited by her because here was this brand new person who exuded an aura of superstardom.”
He likens Madonna’s appeal to that of “magical” Marilyn Monroe. It made perfect sense for her to portray the peroxide blonde screen idol in her Material Girl video.
We’ll come on to how she hooked up with Rodgers to turbo-charge her career but it’s clear she was in thrall to the uber-cool producer.
In interviews at the time, she gushed about the two months in early ’84 spent working with him in New York. We have a really good chemistry. He’s a trained musician and he understands my musicality,” she said.
“He just reads my mind. He’s very sensitive and I think he could work with anyone that’s good.”
As you can tell from that last comment, Madonna already had astonishing self-belief and knew just what and who she wanted.
Like David Bowie, she was living art... so damn interesting’
Nile Rodgers
On another occasion as she bubbled with excitement about the imminent release of Like A Virgin, she enthused: “Nile’s a genius and I wanted to work with a genius on my record.
“He embodies a lot of different styles and I think my music is very close to the black funk sound.
“The stuff he did with Chic, Sister Sledge and Diana Ross is phenomenal. He’s also made a lot of great pop records with David Bowie and Duran Duran.”
Rodgers recalls Madonna’s clarity of purpose, her tireless approach to multiple takes to get a song just right, her sheer drive for perfection and success.
And he remembers her playing him demos of Like A Virgin songs at his New York apartment.
“In a very matter of fact kind of tone, she said, ‘Nile, if you don’t like all these songs, I can’t work with you.’
“And I said, ‘Well Madonna, I don’t like all the songs, but let me tell you this, by the time I get finished with them, I’m gonna love them.’
“It was the right answer, because I didn’t get fired.”
That’s quite a confession by Rodgers, given his CV, but he adds: “I’ve never worked with a person I’ve respected more.”
He was impressed right from day one in Power Station Studio in the Hell’s Kitchen area of Manhattan’s west side. Rodgers was first to arrive “but that never happened again. Madonna wasn’t going to let me be first again, ever.”
Next he explains how Madonna’s label boss at Sire Records (by then part of Warner Bros), Seymour Stein, was, let’s say, economical with the truth when it came to securing his services.
I said if Like A Virgin sells 3m, I want a percentage. It sold 28m
Nile Rodgers
“I was told her first album had sold 375,000 copies but Seymour told me the truth a few months ago in Ibiza. It was more like 200,000.
“I said, ‘What!?’ And he said, “We couldn’t sell that album for nothing. People just gravitated towards the singles.
“They bought Holiday and Everybody as 12-inch records but nobody would touch the album.’
“And I said, ‘So you mean at that first meeting, you guys were lying to me?’ and he replied, ‘Yeah!’ I just said, ‘Wow!’”
In taking the decision to work with the relatively unknown Madonna soon after masterminding David Bowie’s best-selling album, Let’s Dance, Rodgers held all the aces.
“The reason I got such a huge producer royalty was because her first album hadn’t sold that well.”
He told Stein and other Warner Bros execs: “I can guarantee you that I will sell three million albums with this girl, guarantee you!
“They looked at me and started laughing. They said, ‘Three million albums? Her album’s been out a year and she’s only sold 375,000 . . . ’ and she hadn’t even sold that!”
I guess you can play tough if you’ve just scored massive hits with David Bowie and Diana Ross (Upside Down, I’m Coming Out).
“I said, ‘Here’s the deal,” continues Rodgers. “I don’t want any money now, but if I go over the three million mark, you gotta pay me a high percentage.
“They were like, ‘Sure! You sell three million we’ll be jumping up and down. We’ll take the bet.’
“The Like A Virgin album has sold 28million. I bet they wish they could redo that deal!”
The key to Rodgers’ success is his ability to leave his ego at the studio door, unconcerned that his artists have their names in lights. He calls it the “Chic mystique”, that elusive sprinkling of magic dust he conjured up with chief collaborator, Chic bassist, the late great Bernard Edwards.
Their breakthrough outside of the disco band defined by Rodgers’ slinky rhythm guitar and Edwards’ addictive basslines was Sister Sledge’s 1979 great We Are Family which added the hits He’s The Greatest Dancer and Lost In Music to the iconic title track.
Rodgers says: “I defined my philosophy when we did the Sister Sledge album.
“I remember saying something to Bernard one day and he was looking at me like I was crazy. “I said, ‘Well Bernard, did you ever see the movie Ben-Hur?’ I grew up in movie theatres and I said there’s a line in there from the centurion who comes down and tells the galley slaves, ‘You row to serve this ship, row well and live’.
“So that’s what I do, I row well to live. I live to serve the ship and I don’t live to serve myself because then I would just do a Chic record.
“Like I said to Madonna when we were arguing over which single was going to come first, Material Girl or Like a Virgin, ‘If you say it’s Like A Virgin, then you win because when the record comes out, it’s by MADONNA... produced by Nile Rodgers.”
Disco was supposed to be dead when her debut arrived packed with songs primed for the dancefloor. If she was yet to find her true voice, there’s no doubting the hooks that draw you in and don’t let go. Michael Jackson had a chart rival.
KEY TRACKS: Lucky Star, Holiday, Borderline.
★★★★
Enlisting Nile Rodgers was a master stroke and the artist herself was getting into her stride. Her career-defining songs and videos combined sex appeal and female empowerment and turned Madonna into a superstar.
KEY TRACKS: Like A Virgin, Material Girl, Angel, Dress You Up.
★★★★★
With two more years of experience, Madonna was at her confident, credible and provocative best. Papa Don’t Preach bottled up her don’t mess with me attitude while the Latino-influenced La Isla Bonita expanded her sonic horizons. Also room for a ballad!
KEY TRACKS: Papa Don’t Preach, Live To Tell.
★★★★★
If her greatest hits is called Immaculate Collection, this album is an immaculate conception. Beautifully and thoughtfully crafted, it’s filled with the religious references that the not-so-good Catholic girl likes to play with.
KEY TRACKS: Like A Prayer, Express Yourself, Oh Father.
★★★★★
Madonna creates a warm, inviting vibe in following up the more detached tones of Erotica. The soft-focus cover, the album title and an Isley Brothers cover reinforce her seductive ambitions. Bjork’s an interesting choice of co-writer on the title track.
KEY TRACKS: Secret, Bedtime Story.
★★★★
With techno guru William Orbit her chief collaborator, this is a dramatic attempt to keep up with the times. No stranger to dance music, it finds Madonna employing precision in her delivery on a long, strong, electronic album.
KEY TRACKS: Ray Of Light, Frozen, The Power Of Good-Bye.
★★★★★
After the cool electro came an album that allowed rock, country and folk into the mix along with the familiar dance pop. It’s the forays into unusual territories lurking towards the end of the album that prove the most rewarding.
KEY TRACKS: Music, What It Feels Like For A Girl, Don’t Tell Me.
★★★★
A full-on exploration of Madonna’s disco roots given a contemporary sheen by English electro producer Stuart Price. The excellent Hung Up employs a clever sample of ABBA’s Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight).
KEY TRACKS: Hung Up, Sorry, I Love New York.
★★★★
A sprawling affair with nods to her storied career. It’s a valiant, mostly enjoyable stab at remaining relevant, including hook-ups with Nicki Minaj and the late Avicii. She even namechecked hit songs Holiday and Into The Groove on Veni Vidi Vici.
KEY TRACKS: Living For Love, Unapolgetic Bitch.
★★★★
