Nile Rodgers

Nile Rodgers

Nile Rodgers has praised Avicii as one of his "favourite songwriting collaborators".

The Chic guitarist has been working with the chart-topping Swedish remixer-and-producer on tracks for his debut album 'TRUE' - which comes out in September - and he has nothing but respect for Avicii's talents in the studio.

Nile told BANG Showbiz: "Avicii and I started writing together months ago and he's become one of my favourite songwriting collaborators. A lot of people criticise Avicii and I find it weird."

Nile, 60, claims some people have been surprised that he wanted to work with Avicii, because the 23-year-old producer is 37 years younger than him.

The acclaimed songwriter - who features on a song with Adam Lambert and Avicii - finds it puzzling that anyone would care about age in music because he wrote many of his biggest hits when he was in his 20s.

Nile explained: "A lot of people have said to me, 'How could I work with a guy so young?' And I say, 'How old do you think I was when I wrote 'I'm Coming Out' and 'Upside Down' and 'Everybody Dance' and 'We Are Family' and 'Good Times' and 'Dance Dance Dance'?

"Some of the most intellectual stuff I've ever written like the first Chic song 'Everybody Dance', I was 24-years-old. Avicii is 23. Maybe he's cooler than me, I don't know."

Meanwhile, Nile and his band Chic played a "this your life" set of the musician's greatest hits at the Indig02 in London on Saturday night (27.07.13).

The concert featured tracks recorded by the legendary disco group and numerous acts that Nile has written for and worked with.

After opening with 'Everybody Dance' and 'Dance, Dance, Dance, the band performed a medley of 'Upside Down', 'I'm Coming Out', 'We Are Family' and 'He's The Greatest Dancer' - which was introduced by Nile as the "point in the set where we play tracks we did for other artists... we're going to start with a song we did for Diana Ross, then another song we did for Diana Ross and then one we did for Sister Sledge - and we're going to keep going until we take it to the top floor".

At one point Nile took time out from playing to soak up the incredible atmosphere, saying: "Tonight's like this is your life Nile Rodgers in song. This is amazing."

Other highlights included 'Lost In Music', 'I Want Your Love', a rendition of Madonna's 'Like A Virgin', a version of Duran Duran's 'Notorious' - which Nile revealed had been recorded during "one hot summer" in London - and David Bowie's 'Let's Dance'.

At one point, Nile teased he was going to play Daft Punk's 'Get Lucky', saying "here's a track I wrote for a French artist ... it's not Daft Punk - but it was a great track. If you know it sing it," before launching into 'Spacer' which he produced for Shelia B. Devotion.

The band ended the show with their disco classic 'Good Times' - which broke into 'Rapper's Delight', the 1979 hip-hop track that sampled the song's bass line - joined by a number of fans dancing on stage with them.