As a songwriter, guitarist and producer Nile Rodgers helped shape nearly 40 years (and still going) of music history, so when he says David Bowie changed the direction of his life it is a big statement.

Whether or not you think you know one of Rodgers’ many hits, rest assured you do.

The 63-year-old has worked with more of music’s biggest names than it is even possible to list, from Chic’s Le Freak to Sugarhill Gang’s Rapper’s Delight, Madonna’s Like a Virgin, Duran Duran’s The Reflex, Get Lucky with Pharrell and Daft Punk, Sister Sledge We Are Family and on and on and on.

It was Rodgers that produced Brixton-born, Bromley-raised Bowie’s biggest selling album Let’s Dance.

Rodgers considered Bowie a good friend and was ‘heartbroken’ when he heard about his death earlier this year.

He told us: “I knew he had health problems but I didn’t know the extent of it. David had really become a New Yorker so he was really close by me.

“Look at all the people that worked on his records, they were all my friends. A lot of them were people I introduced to him.

“Tony Visconti (who worked with Bowie from 1969 right up to this year’s final album, Blackstar) used to be my next door neighbour.”

Disco legend Rodgers said it was doubly shocking because he had recently come through a five year battle with cancer himself.

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Though he is careful to never give advice, he said his friends looked to him as a kind of ‘cancer guru’.

“On some level, I do feel like I have been a comforting blanket to some of my friends in the music business suffering with cancer.

“You always feel like ‘man, maybe that one phone call…’.

“I’m smart enough to know that him talking to me wouldn’t have made any difference but there is a moment of guilt, especially with someone that you are so close to that they really changed your life.

“My life was one way before I met Bowie and another way after.

“That’s huge. I have had mega success in my business since I was 19-years-old, so to have a life before Bowie and a life after Bowie - even though I had already done Diana Ross and would go on to do Madonna and the B52s and Duran Duran and Peter Gabriel - still Bowie was that line.

“That was the line that came from ‘disco sucks’ to ‘the guy who made David Bowie and INXS and Madonna’. Now I had become a viable rock and roll producer.”

Rodgers has an illustrious history of working with British artists, many of whom he remains close to, so it seemed like a natural choice to bring his latest venture to these shores.

Fold Festival started life at the Montreaux Jazz Festival in 2012 and this year transfers to London at Fulham Palace from June 24 to 26.

Rodgers said: “It was a bit of an accidental brainchild. It started in Montreaux, Switzerland, when they wanted to honour me.

“I hate being honoured! You honour people when it is the end of their careers – come on dudes, give me a break.

“I said let me honour the music that got me to the point where you want to honour me. I did this huge concert – I did 11 hours of continuous music.”

Among the performers at the inaugural Fold Festival were Mark Ronson, Felix da House Cat, Grace Jones, Alison Moyet, Johnny Marr and Chic.

And in Rodgers’ own words, they ‘smoked it’.

He said: “Quincy Jones is a good friend of mine.

“One thing I would say is he doesn’t have a long attention span.

“Quincy Jones sat on my stage for six hours. Anybody in the music business knows that was a breakthrough.”

Rodgers repeated the feat again a year later with Pharrell, Keith Urban, Beck and Chaka Khan among the line-up and this year is bringing a cast which includes Beck again, Alison Moyet, Labrinth, John Newman and Angie Stone.

He said: “It is all people I love. It is all people I either have a direct relationship with or that I would like to have a direct relationship with because I just like what they do.

“I have tried to mix disparate elements together because I believe the concert-goers will like them too.”

Being in the middle of London, the show will not go on for 11 hours, but is instead spread over three eclectic nights.

Rodgers said: “The one thing I try to do is be respectful. My life is about respect, it is just how I was raised.

“I know I am in a residential area. I want to try to bring something to the people that they think is cool but at a certain hour, it’s like ‘ok, most people don’t want a rock festival going on’.”

He added: “I have noticed that in London some of my best shows have taken place right in the middle of town – at Hyde Park, I’ve been there at least four times and it has always been awesome. Huge crowds, they have a good time, and people get to go home and sleep in their nice warm beds.

“Even though I know that we’re starting on the exact same day as Glasto, people watch it on TV if they can’t make it there. I think people will love to have an alternative festival where they can go home every night.”

Nile Rodgers' Fold Festival is at Fulham Palace from June 24 to 26. Go to foldfestival.com