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Jan 08, 2018 Nile Rodgers By Christopher Roberts

The late David Bowie, who passed away in 2016, would’ve been 71 today. In honor of his birthday a previously unreleased demo of his 1983 hit “Let’s Dance” has been released as a digital only single. It was recorded on December 19 and 20 at Mountain Studios in Montreux, Switzerland with producer Nile Rodgers and engineer David Richards. Rodgers has newly mixed the demo, which you can listen to below.

Rodgers, who produced Bowie’s 1983 album, also entitled Let’s Dance, visited Bowie at his Switzerland home in late 1982 to listen to early versions of songs intended for the album. Rodgers and Bowie decided to record some demos with a makeshift band put together with the help of Montreux Jazz Festival organizer Claude Nobs. The band featured Turkish born Erdal Kizilcay on bass (he would later work with Bowie again on Labyrinth, The Buddha of Suburbia, and 1.Outside), along with an unidentified drummer and second guitarist. Now Rodgers and Russell Graham have properly mixed the demo at Rodger’s Le Crib Studios in Westport, Connecticut. The original version was Bowie’s second (and last) #1 single in the U.S. and sold around a million copies in America.

Rodgers had this to say about the demo in a press release: “I’ve been blessed with a wonderful career but my creative partnership with David Bowie ranks very, very, very high on the list of my most important and rewarding collaborations. This demo gives you, the fans, a bird’s eye view of the very start of it! I woke up on my first morning in Montreux with David peering over me. He had an acoustic guitar in his hands and exclaimed, ‘Nile, darling, I think this is a HIT!’

“This recording was the first indication of what we could do together as I took his ‘folk song’ and arranged it into something that the entire world would soon be dancing to and seemingly has not stopped dancing to for the last 35 years! It became the blue print not only for Let’s Dance the song but for the entire album as well.

“If you played 2nd guitar or drums let us know who you are! The time we spent mixing it just before Christmas was full of tears as it felt like David was in the room with us. Happy Birthday David, I love you and we all miss you!”

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