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

Copyright 2011 by Nile Rodgers

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Spiegel & Grau, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

S PIEGEL & G RAU and Design is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Rodgers, Nile.
Le Freak: an upside down story of family, disco, and destiny / Nile Rodgers.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-679-64403-3
1. Rodgers, Nile. 2. GuitaristsUnited StatesBiography. 3. Sound recording executives and producersUnited StatesBiography. I. Title.
ML429.R64A3 2011 781.64092dc22 2011015885

www.spiegelandgrau.com

Jacket design: Evan Gaffney Design
Front photograph: Lynn Goldsmith

v3.1

contents

prologue

The Theory of Relativity

Life isnt about surviving the storm;
its about learning how to dance in the rain.

U NKNOWN

S WEETIE , I NEVER SEE YOU, MY MOTHER SAID. IF WE CONTINUE LIKE this, Ill only see you a couple more times before I die.

It was eight days after 9/11, the morning of my forty-ninth birthday, and like so many people in America at that moment, my mother was thinking about the importance of relationships, especially among family. Her take on it was a bit darker than most, but it was harder to see on September 19, 2001: The rest of the country had finally caught up to Moms gift for morbid melodrama.

The truth is, she was right. I didnt see her enoughthough some people might say I had good reason to never see her again.

But after 9/11, as we all know, everything changed, and I resolved to spend more time with my crazy clan. Not just Mom, but my aunt, uncle, cousins, and the rest of my immediate family, which included the other parental figure who made me what I am, my stepfather, Bobby.

We needed an occasion, of course, and theres nothing quite like Thanksgiving to gather our tribe. Though they had long since separated, Bobby was still very much in Moms life, despite all theyd been through. And in many ways the holiday meal neatly mirrored the mixed makeup of my family. There was the dark meatme and Aunt Mabel and her offspring, a clue that we were direct descendants of slaves from the South; Mom and my brothers are the same beige as the mushroom stuffing. And Bobby was the white meatan unrepentant Jewish junkie from the Bronx. Drugs, crime, and love were the gravy that kept us all together.

A ND SO WAS BORN our annual raucous all-the-trimmings repast at Moms placethe home I bought for her on her fifty-seventh birthdayin that most family friendly of cities, Las Vegas.

Vegas was the perfect place to reunite my parents. It was, after all, Bobbys town, where he passed bad checks, counted cards, played the ponies, drank like the town drunk, and did heroin. In fact, he got down there with such gusto that during the mid-sixties he was barred from entering the entire state of Nevada. And Mom wasnt afraid to go all-in in their no-limit game back then either.

By 2001 things were a little different. But Bobby still loved to gamble (except now he slow-played), still loved to get high (and could do so for days at a clip), and still had that same Lenny Bruce beatnik humor. Mom was just as quick on the draw with her scalding quips. They could still go toe-to-toe.

Thanksgiving Vegas-style made us feel like wed never stopped living together. It was business as usual: fun, laughter, and complete and utter dysfunctionand I dont think wed have it any other way. In fact, it was so successful that our newly minted tradition continued unabated with a twistevery year there would be one major revelation retrieved from the family vault of secrets and brought to the dinner table to be examined like an old heirloom. We kept it going until 2009, when once again, things changed.

T HAT T HANKSGIVING , the family diverged from our annual get-together in Vegas and instead convened at a cousins house in Hemet, Californiacoincidentally, the town where L. Ron Hubbard died and was cremated within twenty-four hours. We had to accommodate my ailing auntand to make things easier for Bobby, who now needed our help getting around. Though we were in a different place, the laughter, feasting, and recycled family stories felt as familiar and welcome as ever. One of the reasons our Turkey Day never gets old is because of the yearly Big Secret. Actually, given how open-minded my family is, the real shock of these secrets is how anyone ever managed to keep them under wraps for so long! After fessing up, wed mercilessly make fun of the secret sharer (which maybe explains why they kept it secret). And that Thanksgiving was no exception.

The next morning we all met at the Marriott Hotel in Riverside, California, for breakfast. In a matter of minutes, the whole joint was caught up in our out-of-control breakfast, with jokes and secrets flying back and forth throughout the rambunctious meal. We might have stayed there for hours, but this morning was different.

Bobby had a very important appointment. And for once, we needed to be there on time.

We all got into our cars. I took the lead. Id memorized the directions. We drove about eleven miles to 22495 Van Buren Boulevard. We met up with the chaplain from the Veterans Administration home in Barstow, California, Bobbys most recent residence. It was now 10 a.m. Despite the early hour, we quickly had the chaplain cracking up as loudly as the rest of us. In Moms haste to get Bobby there, shed forgotten to stop at the VA home to pick up his flag, as the chaplain had instructed. Dont worry, he said. Weve got you covered.

The chaplain told us how lucky he was to know Bobby and meet the rest of his family. He taught me how to have fun again, he said. I can see why youre such a happy familyhe seems to have taught you the same thing, too! We laughed, hugged, and agreed. Then we all started crying.

A three-gun volley went off and the Honor Detail marched away after the bugler blew taps. The sergeant then presented Mom with the flag theyd folded at the end of the ceremony.

At 10:45 a.m. PST on Friday, November 27, 2009, we interred Bobbys ashes at Riverside National Cemetery. Mom and the family had brought his remains from Las Vegas, where she had protected them since Bobbys death about six months earlier, so he could join us for the annual family dinner.

Id wanted all of us to spend a happy Thanksgiving togetherone more time.

part I