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

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Here Levellers, Diggers, Ranters, Muggletonians, the early Quakers and others taking advantage of the collapse of censorship to bid for new kinds of freedom were given centre stage' Times Higher EducationIn .

who drifts in an out of his son's life --and the book-- before succumbing to alcoholism) Nile Rodgers' father figure was a white junkie who worked in the garment district in New York. Lest we forget, Niles Rodgers gave us "Everybody Dance," "Le Freak," "Good Times," "We are Family," "He's the Greatest Dancer," "Upside Down," "I'm Coming Out," "Let's Dance," "China Girl," "Modern Love," "Wild Boys," "Notorious," "Like a Virgin," "Material Girl," "Love Shack," (I'll forgive him that one) and, of course, "Get Lucky. The instability extended to his formal education, as Rodgers was not much interested in school; at one point he managed to dodge going to school for almost three months before getting caught when truant officers arrived at his home. This book is an absolute knockout: exhilarating, warm, and courageous, deeply moving and deeply funny.

Dark-skinned via his dad’s genes in a mostly beige family, an insomniac who says he hasn’t slept through the night since being sent to a state convalescent home for his asthma around the time he was 5 1/2, Rodgers was an outsider among outsiders.

But it’s also that rare thing for a music memoir, arguably at its best when it steers away from the music.And the books I love are also about people’s lives – all of the titles I’ve chosen offer real insights into the personalities behind the music. As co-founder of Chic, he soundtracked the glamorous, decadent days of disco with hits including "Good Times", "Everybody Dance" and "Le Freak". Happily for us, he avoids the boring/repetitive tell-all aspect that is so frequently part of the stories of the famous and addicted.

My rating probably has more to do with my connection to the subject matter, but it was right book at the right time for me. In fact, one of the surprise gifts of “Le Freak” is that a third of it covers Rodgers’s own opening act — a coming-of-age tale every bit as impressive as the musical insights and star-time chronicles that follow. Suffering from acute asthma, he ended up in a convalescent home and overheard the caretaker abusing other kids at night: "I was terrified. The only slight detractions are a touch of post-rehab rationalisation, which means episodes of unrivalled debauchery are occasionally relayed with disappointing sobriety. Personalized advertising may be considered a “sale” or “sharing” of information under California and other state privacy laws, and you may have a right to opt out.For his Chic partner Bernard Edwards with whom they traveled so far together, for Andy Warhol, with whom he shared an emergency room, for his grandmothers Goodie and Lenora, their boyfriends (one of whose was a convicted killer, while another gave him his biggest "high" ever when he tuned his first guitar), for his often not very well behaved siblings, for his mom Beverly, for her boyfriends and lovers, he even has good things to say for (yet another) convicted killer who raped his mother. However, that hasn’t stopped Rodgers from providing one of the most well-thought-out and thorough lists on music books we’ve ever seen, even if he does think the whole idea of writing about music is a little pointless. Keep in mind that anyone can view public collections—they may also appear in recommendations and other places. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. an amazing journey - junkie / beatnik parents, childhood shuttling between New York and LA, early acid experiences with Timothy Leary, part of the Black Panthers .