‘I found the cheapest Strat in all the shops,” says Nile Rodgers, speaking to me from Miami Beach, the very place he went trawling for what would later be regarded as the world’s greatest electric guitar. “I traded in my Gibson Barney Kessel. The guy behind the counter gave me the Strat – and $300 back. It was the real runt of the litter.”
In a nod to the model played by his hero Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock in 1969, Rodgers painted it Olympic white. He then locked himself in his bathroom for three days – “woodshedding” he calls it – until he’d mastered “chucking”, a dazzling new technique that blended off beat strumming with the muting of fretted notes. It’s a style made for the Strat’s rich percussive qualities and slick feel.
Armed with this new instrument, Rodgers set about reinventing music. His unique sound became the gyrating backbone of disco – he knocked
