“I was asleep. He walked into my bedroom and said, ‘Darling, I think this is a hit.’” Nile Rodgers says David Bowie wrote his 1983 funk hit featuring Stevie Ray Vaughan on a 12-string acoustic strung with only six strings

['Phil Weller'] Latest from Guitar Player 2025-09-17 12:28:55

David Bowie performs a warmup show for his Let's Dance Serious Moonlight tour, at Forest National, Brussels, May 18, 1983. David Bowie’s monster hit “Let’s Dance” is a perfect example. By the time producer/guitarist Nile Rodgers was finished with it, the tune had turned into a funk-rock powerhouse . By the 1980s he was working with another powerhouse in the form of Rodgers — as well as a then-unknown electric guitar player named Stevie Ray Vaughan — for his 1983 album, Let’s Dance. David Bowie’s Biggest Hit: Nile Rodgers Breaks Down ‘Let’s Dance’ - YouTube Watch On“I count the song off, and we do the little dominant pyramid thing [referring to the song's intro].