Nile Rodgers’ mother dies of Alzheimer’s complications in Las Vegas

Beverly Ann Goodman, the mother of Nile Rodgers, the music icon who was a founding member of Chic, has died.

Rodgers announced his mother’s death on Twitter, saying she had passed away around 6 a.m. Dec. 27.

“I breathed some of my 1st breaths with her and she breathed some of her last with me,” he wrote. “My brothers and I will contact everyone soon. Today I’m numb.”

A few days earlier, on Dec. 23, Rodgers had tweeted a two-year-old video of himself and his mother and wrote, “the saddest part of this COVID holiday is not being able to visit my mom. She’s always happy and entertaining, even (with) late-stage Alzheimer’s.”

Goodman, 82, died in Las Vegas from complications of late-stage Alzheimer’s disease, according to Nile Rodgers. She had lived in Las Vegas since 1995, having moved here to be closer to family.

“She will forever be remembered for her style, wit, intellectualism, selfless generosity and an insatiable love of music,” Rodgers wrote in an obituary for his mother.

Goodman was born in Jersey City, N.J., and raised, mostly in New York City, by Fredrick and Alice Goodman. She was the youngest of three children — along with her late brother, Fredrick Jr., and late sister, Mabel — and the family lived in New Jersey, New York City, Los Angeles and Las Vegas at various times.

Goodman worked as an IBM keypunch operator earlier in her life, Rodgers wrote in her obituary, but “her life was filled with more adventures than Jules Verne could ever catalog.”

In a July 2019 BBC.com interview, Rodgers recalled that his mother gave birth to him when she was only 14 and that she was a “hip, black ‘it girl’ ” in Greenwich Village during the ’50s and ’60s who knew, and associated with, hip celebrities of that era.

In 1959, Goodman married Robert “Bobby” Glanzrock Sr., whom she later divorced. They later reconciled and remarried.

“Beverly and Bobby were both opinionated, fascinating, funny and very loving,” Rodgers wrote, and they and their family exemplified a song Nile Rodgers later co-wrote for Sister Sledge: “We Are Family.”

Unlike her son — a musician, composer, arranger and producer who has won multiple Grammy awards and has been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame — Goodman didn’t sing in public. But in the BBC interview, Rodgers recalled that when he took his mother to a shopping mall to celebrate her birthday, “every time we passed any kind of shop that was playing music, she would start to sing.

“Anything that was old, she knew perfectly. So a Frank Sinatra song would come on, or Diana Ross or Barbra Streisand. My mom just nailed it. It was incredible.”

“I’ve never really heard my mother sing aloud in my life until she developed Alzheimer’s,” Rodgers told the BBC. “She’s developed perfect pitch, which is incredible. When my mom and I go walking down the street, she’s all of a sudden got a real singer’s voice, and she’s hitting the notes perfectly.”

Her singing on that trip even prompted applause from other shoppers who “thought she was busking or something,” Rodgers said.

Rodgers also told BBC.com that he was his mother’s guardian, and that he had become “more involved in her life than I have been since I was 14 years old.

“It’s really strange because we, right now, seemingly have the best relationship we’ve ever had in our lives.”

Surviving are five sons, Nile, Graham, Anthony, Robert and Dax, and her grandchildren.

Because of COVID restrictions, a memorial service will be held later. Donations in Goodman’s honor may be made to the Alzheimer’s Association (alz.org) or We Are Family Foundation (wearefamilyfoundation.org).

Contact John Przybys at jprzybys@reviewjournal.com. Follow @JJPrzybys on Twitter.