Westporter Nile Rodgers, Grammy Award-winning musician, composer, arranger, producer, philanthropist, and writer, will receive the Westport Library’s BOOKED for the Evening Award on May 15, it was announced today.
Rodgers, who has sold more than 100 million copies of his recordings, began his career as a session guitarist touring with the Sesame Street band in his teens He went on to the create the groundbreaking funk band Chic with a string of No. 1 hits.
His collaborators over the years have included Diana Ross, David Bowie, Madonna and Michael Jackson. He has composed music for the movies and received the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences New York Chapter Governor’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the Heroes Award.
In 2005, he was honored at the Dance Music Hall of Fame in New York when he was inducted for his many outstanding achievements as a producer, along with former bandmate Bernard Edwards. Rodgers’ bestselling memoir, “Le Freak: An Upside Down Story of Family, Disco and Destiny,” was published in 2011. He is also the subject of the highly rated 2013 BBC documentary “The Hitmaker.”