Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

shoulder. I was doing lots of acid. I saw myself as a
rock superstar.” Chic, according to legend, was
inspired to add female singers Norma Jean Wright
and Luci Martin to the band’s then unsuccessful
lineup by noticing the models on the covers of Roxy
Music sleeves.
Since the mid-seventies, Rodgers had envied the
career path of his old acquaintance Carlos Alomar.
“My whole life I’ve been following Alomar,” he said.
“All the things I wanted to do, he got there first. He
had the Apollo job, the Bowie job …” When the
Bowie collaboration began, the Chic leader figured
he would finally have a chance to demonstrate that
he could make a real New Wave record for a mostly
white audience. As they worked through the winter,
recording the demos Bowie had written in
Switzerland during his extended hiatus (as well as
Iggy Pop’s “China Girl”), it became clear that it was
now both David Bowie and Nile Rodgers’s turn to
cross over with something that not only combined the
best of both genres but, like Station to Station,
created something new entirely, a sort of future-funk
blues that felt both modern and classic at the same
time. The sound that Rodgers and Bowie hit upon in
the winter of ’82, holed up in the Power Station,
would also be used to create Rodgers-produced
soulful New Wave hits for Madonna (“Like a Virgin,”
“Material Girl”), Duran Duran (“The Reflex,” “Wild
Boys,” “Notorious”), INXS (“Original Sin”), the
Thompson Twins (“Lay Your Hands on Me”), the B-
52s (“Roam”) and even Mick Jagger (She’s the