Nile Rodgers to guest curate David Bowie exhibition
Photographs of Bowie, Rodgers and guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan recording Let's Dance in New York will also feature.
The David Bowie Centre will open within the museum's new East Storehouse in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, in Stratford, east London, on September 13.
Costumes worn during Bowie's Ziggy Stardust period, and those worn by other musicians including Sir Elton John and PJ Harvey, will also be on display.
Rodgers said: 'My creative life with David Bowie provided the greatest success of his incredible career, but our friendship was just as rewarding.
'Our bond was built on a love of the music that had both made and saved our lives.'
Rodgers produced Bowie's single Let's Dance and the 1983 album of the same name, as well as his 1993 album Black Tie White Noise, with the personal correspondence in the exhibition relating to the latter.
Brit Award-winning indie rock band The Last Dinner Party have also curated part of the exhibition, describing Bowie as a 'constant source of inspiration to us'.
Their items include Bowie's elaborate handwritten lyrics for his song Win, and notes and set lists for his 1976 Isolar tour.
The band said: 'David Bowie continues to inspire generations of artists like us to stand up for ourselves.
'It was such a thrill to explore Bowie's archive, and see first hand the process that went into his world-building and how he created a sense of community and belonging for those that felt like outcasts or alienated – something that's really important to us in our work too.'
Access to the David Bowie Centre will be free, with tickets released nearer its opening.
The David Bowie archive, which boasts more than 90,000 items, was acquired by the V&A with the help of the David Bowie Estate, the Blavatnik Family Foundation and Warner Music Group.
The centre will be spread across three zones, which will include curated displays, audio visual installations and quieter study areas, allowing visitors to view the Bowie archive on their own, from musical instruments to stage models.
Small displays will tell the stories behind the singer's albums and also look at his multi-dimensional creative approach, including unrealised projects, collaborations and influences.
The East Storehouse opened at the end of May, and features the Order An Object initiative, allowing visitors to pre-book to see an item from its entire collection.
The V&A will also open the V&A East Museum in spring 2026, in an area named East Bank.
Its main museum is in South Kensington, west London, and it also runs the Young V&A in Bethnal Green, east London.
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Scotsman
6 hours ago
- Scotsman
Nile Rodgers talks kilts, Kazakhstan and why CHIC belong to Glasgow
After a triumphant Glastonbury set the legendary band return to Scotland for more Good Times Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Nile Rodgers is buzzing to be playing Barrowland in Glasgow next month with his band CHIC as the Glasgow venue has a special place in the heart of the 72-year-old musician, songwriter, guitarist and record producer. Fresh from a triumphant Glastonbury performance and gigs elsewhere in the UK, the Netherlands, Ireland and Italy, Rodgers will be strapping on his signature hit-maker Fender Stratocaster with Chic as they lead the audience through a dance-fuelled set of hits such as Dance, Dance, Dance, Everybody Dance, Le Freak, I Want Your Love and Good Times. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Over Zoom from the US Rodgers is his usual smiling self, complete with hat and long locks, straight away telling me how much Chic love playing Barrowland, having played there multiple times. So what is it about Glasgow's legendary venue that gets the icon into the groove every time? Nile Rodgers and Chic perform at Glastonbury festival last month. | Getty Images 'It's the vibe of the Barrowland. It's all about the people. The reason I love coming back is because of the sense of appreciation and fulfillment we get. You can't really compare that to anything else. It's like when we finish a show we're basically done, we're exhausted at the end of our shows, but the crowd there, they're ready to go again, they wish we could do another one. It's insane.' 'We're spent but they're revved up and ready to go and that energy is incredible. I said last time we played there, 'man, you guys are louder than Concorde taking off!' The decibel level was just insane,' Like Barrowland Rodgers' has legendary status, his life and musical trajectory forged through his tough upbringing on New York's Lower East Side. His parents, an interracial couple, were hippies, high-functioning heroin addicts and music lovers and the extraordinarily musically talented young Rodgers became the family bread winner early, landing his first professional jobs as a guitarist in the Sesame Street band when he was 17 or 18 as well as playing in the house band at the famous Harlem Apollo. Having learned to play flute and clarinet in school, among other instruments, he loved jazz, classical music, rock and fully embraced the DJ and club culture of New York in the 1970s. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Chic was born in 1972, co-founded by Rodgers and bassist Bernard Edwards and their disco hits featuring the former's distinctive chop chord chucking style filled the world's dance floors. He also created songs for Sister Sledge, Diana Ross, David Bowie, Madonna, Daft Punk, Beyonce and many more with Chic's Good Times hit illustrating his musical reach by influencing The Sugarhill Gang's breakthrough hip hop single Rapper's Delight, Queen, Blondie, Captain Sensible and Daft Punk and beyond. Nile Rodgers performing with Chic during TRNSMT Festival at Glasgow Green, July 2022 . | Getty Images Given how many times Chic have played in Scotland does Rodgers have any tartan in his wardrobe. 'I do, obviously because I've been there too many times to not. But what was really interesting is that I'm doing a private party and they want me kilted up in their family garb, so I said 'well, whatever, I'm down, you know?'. Will he be donning a kilt? 'That's what they want me to do, so I said OK. Not at the Barrowland but yeah, we're doing a couple of private gigs.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Unfortunately Rodgers and Chic won't have any time to hang about in Scotland this time round as it's straight on to the next gig. 'This tour, almost every show is in a different city the next day. Typically, because of my charity work, I don't like to travel by private aircraft because that same money I could be spending on the kids in my programme, but it's the only way to do this tour because we're in one city and the next day in another country and the following day another. It's crazy. This is going to be the most cities that we've hit in one summer in my entire career,' he says. It's a schedule which is remarkable given that Rogers is now 72 years old. 'Yes, thank you for bringing that up,' he says and laughs, then I tell him he's in great company as Herbie Hancock, now 85, was in Scotland tearing up the Edinburgh Festival in 2022. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'Yeah, he's a great friend of mine. I just saw him a couple of weeks ago,' says Rodgers. Both men have achieved legendary status that sees them revered across the whole music industry with their influence felt far and wide and down the generations. How does that feel? 'It's amazing but I don't think of it like that,' says Rodgers. 'I'm just doing my job. 'But as a composer, as a creator, as a producer, an orchestrator and arranger, whatever you want to call me, guitar player, to be able to create and have that creation become meaningful to other people's lives, that's an extraordinary feeling.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'I don't know how to explain it. Well… near the end of the first leg of this tour, at the last show, I said 'I want to do this for the rest of my life until I can't do it any more'. You know, that's just how I feel. I love the feeling that we're giving back because the crowd seems to be SO appreciative. My god, the last few shows we just did in South America were over the top!' Having been on the road for decades Rodgers has played 'every country in the world', some of them multiple times, but last year's visit to Kazakhstan made an impression. Nile Rodgers at the 2025 Songwriters Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony in New York. Rodgers was inducted in 2016. | Getty Images for Songwriters Hal 'Before we went I kept thinking to myself the only thing I know about Kazakhstan is the character Sascha Baron Cohen plays in Borat and that horrible song he sings all the time, and I get to Kazakhstan and people were awesome. We had so much fun. I couldn't believe the way that the vibe felt walking down the street. I didn't seem to look peculiar to people, even though I know that I don't typically dress like your average Kazakhstani but man, we had so much fun. 'And we were making a joke, me and the girls in my band, and I said you know, for the last couple of years of Prince's life he always played Le Freak, stuck it in the middle of a song, and I said we're going to stick in Jungle Love, and we started doing the dance and the client who brought us in jumped right in with us and started doing the Jungle Love dance. It was incredible. We were in Kazakhstan and he knew exactly where we were coming from culturally, and I thought to myself, that's the beauty of music and that's really what the world is. People are beautiful. Government's pretty much stink,' he laughs, 'but people are awesome.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Rodgers agrees that the beauty of music is that it transcends politics. 'When I go to a country that's supposed to be awful, the promoters say 'oh you don't want to go for a walk out there' and I hear 'Nile, ha ha, take off', because I love meeting people. I love other cultures and I'm fascinated.' He traces his love of travel right back to his early years when he had no money but explored anyway. 'When I was a kid it was very common for people like myself who were very poor to do what we call hostelling, and you go to these very, very inexpensive little, you can't even call them hotels, they were just little rooms, rooming houses set up for basically teenagers to go around and explore the world. I don't even know what's happened to that,' he says. No, hostels are still very much a thing, I tell him. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'Oh, OK. I guess I'm not a teenager anymore! I'm 72 years old and I can actually stay in a real hotel. But that was like the thing. So meeting new people and going to different countries was a normal thing. I remember my girlfriend turned me on to this and there was no such thing as stranger danger. I never heard a bad story, like now it seems that's all we hear. And I know mathematically that there are no more bad people now than there were then, so I just take it as mostly people are good, and every now and then you meet jerks, but most of the time people are really cool.' With the extensive touring, producing, writing and charity work that Rodgers is involved in, is he ever able to go and watch other musicians play? 'Rarely. I love to, but it's rare. I saw Esperanza Spalding and Adam Lambert at the Polar awards [The 2025 Polar Music Prize ceremony in Stockholm last month], and that was great, that was cool and fun, but that's not my normal life. 'My normal life is I'm going from one place to the next. I rarely have leisure time because I'm working on other projects. Doing live gigs is not my life, that's just one small part of it.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad With Barrowland ready and waiting does Rodgers have the playlist ready for the gig, and is it a set or does it change? 'It changes all the time because we have an idea of the amount of time that we have on stage. As a person, I'm very cognisant of other artists and I never go over time. Chic is incredibly prompt. We're like a machine. And what's really interesting is that we're not a machine, we're a completely live band. Almost every band you see has click tracks and secret backing tracks and stuff like that, and believe me I know, because I know almost every band out there, but we're completely live. 'But we're very prompt. I have my stage manager saying 'OK, you've got five minutes, three minutes, two minutes, you've got to be on stage'. We're very, very, very cognisant of the other acts, and because we're live, we're not locked to a clock, so we have to be aware of how much time we're on stage because sometimes I'll talk and just go off the rails and start telling stories and that's not really what we're there for. We're there to play music. But sometimes you can't help it. The vibe is so great. And because I've been to all these countries so many times I have nothing but great memories that sometimes I want to share, so I tell them.' And will he be playing his trademark white Fender Stratocaster with the maple fingerboard? Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'Of course. It's the only guitar I play. If I break a string the audience has to wait for me to change the string.' Does he not have a spare, or other guitars? 'I have tons of them, but I only play that one.' Nile Rodgers performing with Chic at TRNSMT Festival, Glasgow, 2022. | Getty Images Looking back over his lengthy career, of what is Rodgers most proud, some of the hits, his influence on other musicians, his longevity, his success, his charity work? 'That's really high on my list,' he says, referring to his We Are Family Foundation, set up in 2008 and which has funded schools in Malawi, Mali, Nepal and Nicaragua, created a diversity and tolerance curriculum that was sent to every elementary school in the US and is dedicated to create programmes that 'promote cultural diversity while nurturing and mentoring the vision, talents and ideas of young people who are positively changing the world'. 'What we're doing now, it's beyond anything I ever thought we could accomplish and now I know we gotta be doing SO much more because the people in my life now, and just what's going on in America now, it drives me to work in other situations and it opens my mind to developing programmes in other countries because now I really see that… God, you know, there's so much going on in the world that really governments don't address, and we really deal with young people who are addressing those problems and actually making a change. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'And when I was a kid, that's what my life was like. It was not only discovering the problem or becoming aware of the problem but it was actually working on the problem, helping to mend the problem, trying to fix it. On a previous occasion Rodgers told me how when he was a child he had fallen behind a sofa pushed against a wall in the family home and was stuck there for hours, unnoticed. What would he say to that child now, a scared little boy who has no idea how his life will unfold? 'It's going to be amazing.' He pauses and thinks back. 'I thought I was dying. I couldn't breathe. I had asthma. I can't believe that you know that story. Yeah, I fell behind the sofa, and I was a skinny, skinny, skinny little kid and had really bad asthma, and who'd ever have thought that I'd go on to make music for a living? 'Actually I thought that then, believe it or not, but I never would have imagined that it would get to this level, that I'd do songs and video games and theatre and pop records and classical records and jazz records, I mean just anything that artistically comes my way that I'm interested in. It's amazing.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Which just leaves time to wish him all the best for the Barrowland gig and the rest of the tour. 'Thank you. I hope I'll see you all at the show.'
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South Wales Guardian
11 hours ago
- South Wales Guardian
Nile Rodgers to guest-curate display at new David Bowie Centre
London's V&A Museum, which is behind the new David Bowie Centre, said Rodgers has also selected a bespoke Peter Hall suit worn by Bowie during the Serious Moonlight tour for the Let's Dance album. Photographs of Bowie, Rodgers and guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan recording Let's Dance in New York will also feature. The David Bowie Centre will open within the museum's new East Storehouse in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, in Stratford, east London, on September 13, where it will host items including costumes worn during the singer's Ziggy Stardust period. Rodgers said: 'My creative life with David Bowie provided the greatest success of his incredible career, but our friendship was just as rewarding. 'Our bond was built on a love of the music that had both made and saved our lives.' Rodgers produced Bowie's single Let's Dance and the 1983 album of the same name, as well as his 1993 album Black Tie White Noise, with the personal correspondence in the exhibition relating to the latter. Brit Award-winning indie rock band The Last Dinner Party have also curated part of the exhibition, describing Bowie as a 'constant source of inspiration to us'. Their items include Bowie's elaborate handwritten lyrics for his song Win, and notes and set lists for his 1976 Isolar tour. The band said: 'David Bowie continues to inspire generations of artists like us to stand up for ourselves. 'It was such a thrill to explore Bowie's archive, and see first hand the process that went into his world-building and how he created a sense of community and belonging for those that felt like outcasts or alienated – something that's really important to us in our work too.' Access to the David Bowie Centre will be free, with tickets released nearer its opening. The David Bowie archive, which boasts more than 90,000 items, was acquired by the V&A with the help of the David Bowie Estate, the Blavatnik Family Foundation and Warner Music Group. The centre will be spread across three zones, which will include curated displays, audio visual installations and quieter study areas, allowing visitors to view the Bowie archive on their own, from musical instruments to stage models. Small displays will tell the stories behind the singer's albums and also look at his multi-dimensional creative approach, including unrealised projects, collaborations and influences. The East Storehouse opened at the end of May, and features the Order An Object initiative, allowing visitors to pre-book to see an item from its entire collection. The V&A will also open the V&A East Museum in spring 2026, in an area named East Bank. Its main museum is in South Kensington, west London, and it also runs the Young V&A in Bethnal Green, east London.
