On 14 March 1983, David Bowie released “Let's Dance” - the first single from the album of the same name. UK #1 for three weeks, Billboard Hot 100 #1 for one. Produced by Nile Rodgers. Lead guitar by Stevie Ray Vaughan, whom Bowie had discovered at the Montreux Jazz Festival in the summer of 1982. The album sold more than 10 million copies - the most commercially successful period in Bowie's career.
How Bowie and Nile Rodgers met
In December 1982 Bowie and Rodgers met at the New York nightclub Continental. Bowie had just ended his RCA contract, signed a new one with EMI America, and had no producer. Rodgers had just wound down Chic and was looking for outside projects.
Bowie's first question to Rodgers: “Can you make me a hit?” Rodgers: “It's the only thing I know”. They shook hands in the club and began recording two weeks later.
Power Station, December 1982 - January 1983
Recording took place at Power Station, 441 West 53rd Street, Manhattan - the same studio where Queen and Bowie had mixed “Under Pressure” a year earlier. The album was cut in 17 days.
The line-up was a blend of Chic's backing band and session jazz players: Omar Hakim (drums, ex-Weather Report), Carmine Rojas (bass), Rob Sabino (keys), Sammy Figueroa (percussion). Backing vocals came from the Simms brothers, Frank and George.
Bowie played no instrument besides vocals. It was a deliberate choice - he wanted a maximally commercial album and didn't trust his instrumental instincts to deliver it.
“David came in with a cassette. On the cassette - a demo of "Let's Dance" played on a 12-string acoustic at folk tempo. I listened and said: "This will be a hit". He didn't believe me. I said - "wait until I turn it into a dance track"”.
- Nile Rodgers, Le Freak memoir, 2011
Stevie Ray Vaughan - a solo in 3 hours
In summer 1982 Bowie was at the Montreux Jazz Festival and heard 27-year-old Texan guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan with his band Double Trouble. Bowie was stunned. After the show he approached Vaughan and asked: “Are you ready to record in New York?” Vaughan agreed.
In January 1983 Vaughan flew to Power Station. He knew no one, played his own 1962 Fender Stratocaster with unusually heavy strings (Vaughan used .013 gauge - twice the thickness of a standard set). The “Let's Dance” solo was cut in a single take, 30 seconds long.
Rodgers said later: “I couldn't believe the sound he pulled out of a Strat. It was the moment the whole album locked into place”.
Anatomy of the sound
- Key: A minor, classic i-VII-VI-VII progression
- BPM: 115
- Length: 4:08 (single edit), 7:37 (album version)
- Rhythm guitar: Nile Rodgers, Fender Stratocaster “The Hitmaker” (1960)
- Solo: Stevie Ray Vaughan, 1962 Fender Stratocaster, one take
- Bass: Carmine Rojas, Fender Jazz Bass
- Drums: Omar Hakim, Gretsch + Paiste cymbals
- Vocals: Bowie, Neumann U87, one master take + double-tracking on the chorus
- Producer: Nile Rodgers + Bowie
- Studio: Power Station, New York
- Single release: 14 March 1983, EMI America
Chart history: a double #1
“Let's Dance” hit #1 in 10 countries simultaneously. UK: three weeks on top. US: one week (22 May 1983), Bowie's first-ever Billboard Hot 100 #1.
In 1983 Bowie held a #1 album and a #1 single on both sides of the Atlantic at the same time. Among British artists, only The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and Elton John had managed that before 1983. The Let's Dance album sold 10.7 million copies - more than every other Bowie album combined to that point.
A small detail: the album cover was shot at Gleason's Gym in Brooklyn with the boxer Michael J. Jensen. Bowie isn't boxing and wasn't posed with the gloves - he stopped in to watch. Photographer Greg Gorman caught the frame by accident.
The Carinda video: Aboriginal protest or exoticism?
“Let's Dance” was shot in Carinda, New South Wales, Australia - a remote village 700 km west of Sydney. Director David Mallet, DP Tony Scragg. Filming - March 1983, three days.
The clip follows a young Aboriginal couple walking through the outback with red shoes that symbolise Western consumerism. Bowie in a white suit stands on a dune and dances. The final shot: the young Aboriginals destroy the red shoes.
The video has always been contested: some read it as a protest against assimilation, others as a white artist's exoticising of Aboriginal culture. In a 2016 Guardian retrospective, one of the two performers - Terry Roberts, 38 at the time of interview - said: “For me, it was a lesson in how Europeans see us. Bowie treated us with respect, but the video is still about how they see us”.
What to listen for next
Nile Rodgers as producer, 1982-1984: “Let's Dance” (1983) → Nile Rodgers and the Chic production method → “Like a Virgin” Madonna (1984). Three albums cut by one hand in two years - all top-5 Billboard.
Bowie's 1980-1983 trilogy: “Ashes to Ashes” (1980) → “Under Pressure” (1981) → “Let's Dance” (1983). Post-punk, pop-irony, mainstream - then back to experiment by 1995.