About a year ago, I stumbled onto Nile Rodgers’ Twitter account. Yes, that Nile Rodgers. I can’t remember how it happened. I remember him talking about how he was recently struck with cancer. He was in treatment, after surgery, and spoke about his doctor-prescribed daily walking therapy. The part that interested me is the way he narrated his daily walks. They were spotted with “we did this here” and “that was recorded there”. Of course, these references were always about some of my favorite soundtrack-to-your-life artists.

Of course I knew of Chic, Nile’s band along with Bernard Edwards and Tony Thompson and the ladies. I remembered roller skating to them on Friday nights and dancing to them in my room as a young teenager. I knew of Nile’s far-reaching producing efforts (Madonna, Duran Duran, Diana Ross, David Bowie, Sister Sledge) and of course Bernard and Tony’s crucial contributions in Power Station but it wasn’t until reading his daily blog, and seeing wonderful vintage photos, that I realized how extensive Nile’s musical reach was into the fabric of the soundtrack of my life.

Last year when I was going to spend a long weekend in New York I thought “How wonderful would it be to run into Mr. Rodgers on one of his daily walks?” We had batted a tweet back and forth, about what I can’t remember, but he did start following me and I always appreciated that. The accidental meet up never occurred, unfortunately. Probably because I was way downtown in Chelsea and not waking up until the afternoon and I think Nile is up on the Upper East Side somewhere. And judging by the pictures he took of him bundled up from the cold on his daily walk, it seemed he started pretty early in the morning. No worries.

Tonight, I saw Nile post a tweet to Miss Jody Watley (swoon) about loving to play on her new album. I noticed he accidentally made a typo (@ jodywatley instead of @jodywatley) and I realized she wouldn’t get the message. I retweeted his tweet, correcting it so it would show up in her feed. This is what he sent back to me:

What a helluva guy. Maybe one of these days I’ll be in New York and accidentally run into Mr. Nile Rodgers and I would love to shake his hand. Shake his hand and say “Thank you, sir”, thank for all the wonderful music you have given to me.

You can read Nile’s Planet C blog here and his homepage here. You can also purchase his autobiography, Le Freak, (which I haven’t started reading yet) here.

Be well.

Today on their website Duran Duran announced an all-encompassing repackaging of Arcadia’s 1985 So Red The Rose, arguably the best Duran Duran album never made. Nick Rhodes had hinted towards this release several months ago and I was eager to see if it would come to see the light.

History: Arcadia was one of the DD splinter groups in 1985, at the height of their fame, being comprised of Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes and Roger Taylor. The other remaining DD members joined up with Robert Palmer and Tony Thompson to form Power Station.

This re-release includes the original album as-is and all 20 remixes of the five released singles from the album, plus the soundtrack-only rarity “Say The Word”. Also included is the über-rare long form version of “Rose Arcana”. The shorter (0:51) version, according to legend, ended up on the original lease due to length of tape and vinyl allowed to be released at that time. I don’t know if that is necessarily true, but it does make for good folklore. Also included are all five videos and making-of documentaries for each video.

This project would also mark the last use of graphic designer Malcolm Garrett of Assorted Images for any of their packaging or branding related efforts.

Just for kicks, here’s video of 80s stalwart Max Headroom giving Simon and Nick a hard time:

From the Duran Duran press release, the complete track listing for the re-release is below:

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