Navigating Production Space
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Journal on the Art of Record Production Issue 2 (Oct. 2007) – Mike Alleyne 1 Nile Rodgers: Navigating Production Space Mike Alleyne Department of Recording Industry, Middle Tennessee State University [email protected] as songwriter and musician. The map-illustrated “Why I like working with Nile so much is cover of his 1983 solo debut album, Adventures he does let the artist go through his own In The Land of The Good Groove which he co- thing and if the artist has some quite definite conceptualised symbolises a career cartography ideas, Nile will roll with those and just get involving explorations into uncharted aesthetic them activated.” territory. This crafted cover and its ornate David Bowie (Black Tie, White Noise). lettering also echoes Rodgers’ studio creation of aural worlds in eloquently fabricated spaces. This essay’s title highlights Nile Rodgers’ A distinguishing feature of his work is the ability to inhabit and enhance the sonic spaces foregrounding of organic human creativity, and of several genres in his work with recording making technology support this objective. artists. Given the industry’s usual resistance to Though it might be argued that several other seeing artists or producers beyond particular producers create finished product with an limited stylistic boundaries, his achievement is approximately similar descriptive profile, Nile all the more remarkable. It reveals an ability to Rodgers’ idiosyncratic aesthetic execution negotiate pathways through the recording marks a crucial difference. His use of musical industry’s business and creative obstacles in his space is imbued with a sophisticated sense of production projects. He also refers to the economy focused on the primary rhythmic and organic aspect of record production as “celestial melodic essentials, yet the interaction of these navigation” (Personal interview). This analysis elements also produces artistically unique work. focuses primarily on the aesthetics of Rodgers’ At the risk of turning funk into a Freudian production style, encompassing economic semantic exercise, when considering ideas of realities and ways in which focused creative space in the context of Nile Rodgers, it is both experimentation can produce both artistically useful and necessary to consider several and commercially satisfying results. applicable interpretations of the concept. The Nile Rodgers is one of the few black idea of a free, unoccupied area has relevance to producers to achieve creative and commercial his cross-genre versatility and pioneering success across multiple genres and decades, but impulse. Rodgers’ elusively fluid rhythm guitar the scope of his contributions rarely attracts style replete with accents and textural nuances detailed analysis despite an enduring influence, clearly operates in a realm beyond notation. partly evidenced by significant sampling of his We might also include the capitalistic context work in the digital era. The discussion here of commercial space as an area rented or sold, emphasizes the crosscultural nature of his work, highlighting the producer’s mediatory role selectively connecting his production between art and business. characteristics to his often accompanying roles Journal on the Art of Record Production Issue 2 (Oct. 2007) – Mike Alleyne 2 All of this provides a tangible means of Rodgers’ roots in the 60s rock influenced band, grasping how Nile Rodgers’ production style New World Rising, and his fanaticism for the meets the ears of audiences as both highly music of Jimi Hendrix with whom he actually musical in its formal character and transcendent jammed in Greenwich Village (Easlea 2004: of the medium’s traditional, practical confines. 37).2 Guitar One magazine underscores the Or, as Chic biographer, Daryl Easlea suggests in creative connection, noting that “More than any relation to one particular project, “[T]he whole other black performer with the exception of Jimi trick of the production in the first place was to Hendrix, Rodgers is associated with his guitar” leave so much space” (Easlea 2004: 252). (Gulla 62). Although it is arguably rarely the central focal point for audiences, the guitar’s rhythmic centrality often functions as a spatial Rodgers’ creative history in the studio axis generating momentum and energy for other reveals a remarkably successful artistic sonic elements in his productions. production expansion from dance music to pop/rock, although some of his finest work has barely reached the ears of mass audiences. There’s a great deal that can be learned about Chic & Production Identities Nile Rodgers as a producer from his more Nile Rodgers is probably best known for his marginal, less commercially influential projects. work as a founding member of disco-era As one particular example, his work on Slam, superstars Chic, though his use of his extensive the 1989 album from the Dan Reed Network, musical vocabulary with the group favoured a reinforced aspects of Rodgers production direct commercially appropriate approach. breadth that previous high-profile projects had Chic’s records with their highly polished not emphasized. Based on his body of production are also arguably more inherently productions up to that point, this is an album musical in performance and arrangement than with instances of atypical colour and character, most other disco era recordings, perhaps as exemplified by the foregrounding of acoustic partially explaining their longevity. Typically, guitar on a track like “Lover”.1 Nonetheless, in the apparent simplicity of melodic and rhythmic totality, Slam also represents consolidation of intent in Rodgers productions masks a deeper the bridges between funk and rock with high underlying creative alchemy. Without production values which also underscore conveying any sense of ironic incompatibility, Rodgers’ multi-genre versatility. He simply he expresses a passion for the harmonic describes this album as “brilliant” (Personal complexity of jazz while being similarly interview). attracted to the fundamental kinetics of funk (Personal interview). Unlike most of his successful black contemporaries, Rodgers’ reputation as one of The utility of Chic’s sound is clearly the world’s most in-demand freelance producers reflected in the albums of Italian-American (working with David Bowie, Jeff Beck, Mick group Change (Harley 1993: 215). Change’s Jagger, Duran Duran, and Madonna among calculated replication of Chic’s aural contours many others) transcends R&B, and remains even extended to using several of the band’s highly credible in the pop/rock world. In background vocalists (including Luther retrospect, this is not especially surprising given Vandross and Fonzi Thornton), but the 2 In an incidental, but rather ironic twist, one of 1 This album was co-produced with Dan Reed, but it is a Hendrix’s percussionists at Woodstock, Jerry Velez, is decidedly funkier than the group’s major label debut now a member of Chic’s touring band. Chic also released in 1988, thereby suggesting the impact of covered Hendrix’s “Stone Free” on its Live At The Rodgers’ rhythmic and spatial approaches. Budokan album (1999). Journal on the Art of Record Production Issue 2 (Oct. 2007) – Mike Alleyne 3 emergence of Change in 1980 on the edge of the The relevance of these two authoritative post-disco era demonstrated that the glossy descriptions is clearly demonstrated in Rodgers’ production and stylistic mechanics of Chic work on the Carly Simon track, “Why”, commercially survived even through imitative recorded for the Soup For One soundtrack articulation. Furthermore, the recording of many album in 1982 when Chic was on the verge of Change backing tracks in Italy by Italian dissolution and transitioning towards digital musicians indicated that transatlantic space was technologies. The instrumental accents (many of no obstacle to accurate sonic cloning, although which employ reggae phrasing) are underpinned closer inspection suggests that Change lacked by programmed drums, and yet the bass, rhythm the funky fluidity which Rodgers’ guitar and guitar, piano and synthesizers suspended above production styles contributed to the distinction the digitally percussive framework interactively of the Chic identity. Notably, one account also cohere, creating sparseness where clutter might suggests that Rodgers was initially approached otherwise exist. The clarity of execution to produce Change, but declined due to other achieves an holistic effect that functions in commitments requiring the skills of the Chic commercial terms. Organization production team (Easlea 2004: The fusion of this pragmatic approach is also 174). skillfully displayed in the opening seconds of Nile Rodgers operates as a highly involved, the frequently recycled 1979 Chic hit, “Good hands-on producer whose musical awareness Times”, which also demonstrates a conscious heavily informs his production consciousness. utilisation of spatial dimension. Discussing the Discussing the critical relationships of song song’s memorable introductory piano flourish in structure and groove to his work, Rodgers a radio interview, Rodgers described it this way: emphasizes that: “It’s a gigantic glissando starting at the “the bass and the bass drum are an integral lower portion of the keyboard and going as part of the foundation of my compositions far as you can in that couple of seconds. And and arrangements. The stronger that then we have the women’s bathroom at the foundation, the more artistic freedom you Power Station, our famous studio that we have. If the bottom is strong – if the recorded in, as the big echo chamber. We foundation is solid – it will support a larger fed the signal into the ladies bathroom. It structure, so it’s almost like a law of was very reflective in there. It’s all tiles and physics” (Massey 2000: 175). stuff like that, so it makes this swirly sound that’s bouncing back and forth. So it’s a cool So the spatial potentialities central addressed thing. It’s a subtle technique that winds up here are themselves an integral part of Nile becoming this grand, big statement” Rodgers’ own perception of his work with an (Rodgers BBC interview). instinctual response to where space should be occupied or left vacant.