THE FIRST SONG THAT MEANT SOMETHING TO ME PERSONALLY
"Blue Suede Shoes", Elvis (1956)
When I was very young, there was a lot of music at home, mostly jazz. I was walking around singing and pretending I was in bands from a very young age. But the first song that was really personal to me was "Blue Suede Shoes". When I was five, my grandma gave me a pair of blue suede shoes, along with the record. I would dance around the front room in my shoes, listening to it, pretending I was Elvis.
WHEN I WAS PLAYING SCHOOL MUSICALS
Porgy and Bess, George Gershwin (1935)
I used to play flute and clarinet at school, and although I wasn't thinking about making a living or getting a pay cheque, I already knew I was going to play music all my life. That was probably the happiest time of my life. Gershwin had a mega influence on me and the music from Porgy and Bess was especially powerful. Not just "Summertime", but songs such as "I Loves You Porgy" and "There's a Boat Dat's Leavin' Soon For New York". I liked the more sophisticated stuff, because I could play.
WHEN I TOOK ACID WITH TIMOTHY LEARY
The End, the Doors (1967)
When I was about 15 and living in LA, I got turned on to what people call the hippie scene, although they called themselves "freaks". The freaks invited us to a party at their house and gave us acid. Timothy Leary was there and I heard "The End" by the Doors, which had just come out and sounded amazing to me. I was tripping in this house for a day and half and they just kept playing this song over and over. I'd never heard of the Doors before but the freaks turned me on to them, Love and the Monkees.
WHEN WE WERE STARTING CHIC
"Hijack", Herbie Mann (1975)
"Hi-Jack" changed a lot of things for us when we starting Chic. I had always known Herbie Mann as a jazz flautist. He wasn't a virtuoso like Eric Dolphy or Yusef Lateef, he was more of a commercial jazz player. So when he came up with "Hijack", with a chorus that went: "I'm going to steal your love", and everyone would groove to it in the clubs, I thought, wow, we could do this. Not only could I groove, but I was a good musician. Seeing Roxy Music live in London was equally important, as they showed me how you could create a completely immersive experience. I called my partner, Bernard Edwards, in New York after the show and said: "Man, I got the concept for our new band."
HIP-HOP'S BIG BANG
"Rapper's Delight", Sugarhill Gang (1979)
Hip-hop's big bang was "Rapper's Delight", which was based on a sample of our record "Good Times". It was the first time I heard a record sample another record in that way, a musical collage, where the person who puts the collage together gets all the hoopla, rather than the people who created the original art. We'd seen this cut-and-paste approach in art, but not in music. We ended up suing them and reaching a settlement. Chic are now one of the most sampled groups ever.
THE LAST GREAT SONG I HEARD
"Otis", Jay-Z and Kanye West (2011)
The last great song I heard was Kanye West and Jay-Z's recent single "Otis", from their collaboration album Watch the Throne. I heard it on the way to the studio yesterday. It samples Otis Redding's "Try a Little Tenderness", so I think it's cool that they give that recognition to him in the title of the song.
