Nile Rodgers

The man who had already relaunched Bowie once

In 1983 Nile Rodgers had produced “Let’s Dance” and turned David Bowie into a global star. Ten years later, the two men met again in a very different situation: Bowie was coming out of Tin Machine, a band that had not convinced anyone, and was looking to return under his own name.

They crossed paths again in New York after a Tin Machine concert, in 1991. A first collaboration served as a test: “Real Cool World”, recorded for the soundtrack of the animated film “Cool World”. Then the project became a whole album.

Montreux, New York, Los Angeles

“Black Tie White Noise” was recorded from April to November 1992, alternating between three cities. The sessions were split between Mountain Studios in Montreux and the Hit Factory in New York, with additional work at 38 Fresh in Los Angeles.

The choice of Montreux was no accident for Bowie: he had known the studio since “Lodger” in 1979, had improvised “Under Pressure” there with Queen in 1981, and had lived thirteen years up on the Riviera. For him it was a familiar workplace, out of sight.

The album came out on 5 April 1993. It was his eighteenth, and the one that marked his return as a solo artist.

Neither of them wanted a “Let’s Dance II”

Both men took care to say so at the time: this was not about redoing 1983. Rodgers described a Bowie far calmer than in the “Let’s Dance” days, more philosophical, and in a frame of mind where his music was genuinely making him happy.

The record bears the mark of it: more experimental, shot through with brass and saxophone, it is not chasing a hit. Years later, Rodgers would express a certain dissatisfaction with it, a sign that the freedom taken in Montreux and New York had led him away from what he did most effectively.

Then four times on stage, across thirty years

Nile Rodgers’s link with Montreux does not stop at the mixing desk. He came back as a musician, at the Auditorium Stravinski: on 17 July 2004, 14 July 2005 and 30 June 2006, three summers in a row.

Then, after a long absence, a return on 15 July 2023 under the name Nile Rodgers & Chic, this time with the band that had made his name, at over seventy years old.