Chic – Le Freak

“Le Freak” is a 1978 funk / disco song by American R&B band Chic.This single was released September 21, 1978 with side B “Savoir Faire””

It was the band’s third single and first Billboard Hot 100 and R&B number-one hit song. Along with the tracks “I Want Your Love” and “Chic Cheer”, “Le Freak” scored number one on the disco charts for seven weeks. The single achieved sales of 7 millions and also scored number seven in the UK Singles Chart.

It was New Year’s Eve, 1977, and they were invited to Studio 54, a very popular club in New York City where many celebrities and trendsetters were known to hang out. A singer named Grace Jones wanted Rodgers and Edwards to do some production work for her, and asked them to come down to the club as her guest. When they got there, they were not on the list, and couldn’t convince the doorman that they were the group Chic. All dressed up and nowhere to go on New Year’s Eve, they left and started writing this song as a reply to the doorman. They called it “F–k Off,” but when they decided to record it, Edwards wasn’t comfortable with the cursing, so they tried it as “Freak Off.” That title sounded lame, but when they made the opening lines “aaaahh Freak Out!” instead of “aaaahh F–k Off!”, they came up with a better title: “La Freak.”

They ended up not working for Grace Jones, although Rodgers produced her comeback album in 1986.
Studio 54 is mentioned in the last verse: “Come on down to 54.” A year after Rodgers and Edwards couldn’t get into the club, this was included on an album of dance songs called A Night At Studio 54. They had no trouble getting in at this point.
This was #1 in the US for six weeks. After a while, they stopped distributing it as a single to encourage people to buy the album.

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Chic - Le Freak

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Chic group at the time of the second album:

• Nile Rodgers
• Luci Martin
• Bernard Edwards
• Alfa Andersen
• Tony Thompson

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