Nile Rodgers on Chic's Rock Hall Snub

Chic have been nominated several times to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame but have yet to be inducted. What are your thoughts on that and do you think you'll get in?

Of course. In my opinion, when we were coming up, it was all rock 'n' roll. In other words, rock 'n' roll was the classification of all of this kind of contemporary pop music and you just figure out what type of rock 'n' roll it was. We weren't doing show music, we weren't doing classical music. We weren't even doing jazz. We were doing this pop thing that was under this broad banner of rock 'n' roll.

We're a funk/R&B band, we're a groove band that other people happened to like and gravitate towards. We were being very opportunistic because we saw that in the discos, they would play music by jazz musicians -- all you had to do was have a great groove. These guys figured out how to get in and so that's what we were. We were these jazz fusion instrumentalists who learned how to write songs.


I love Nile's answer on how Chic defined "Rock 'n' Roll".   This is how I and other define it too, throw in Gospel, Country and a whole lot of other styles, but sadly some people who have no business writing about the Rock Hall don't know what the definition of "Rock and Roll" is.


I must also say that we who believe that Chic and Donna Summer are deserving of the Hall have to give credit to the NomCom for continuing to nominate these two.  Although Chic didn't get in on the ballot this year, they will be back.  But getting in?  Could be tough.  So far, the voters have shown an anti-Disco slant in their balloting.  But someday......