TL:DR – The Good Times chords for the chorus, according to Nile Rodgers himself when he plays it live, are Em7, E7sus4, Em11 at the seventh fret, and A13 at the fifth fret. That Em11 is an A7sus4 at the fifth fret on the original recording. The verses are Em7 and Asus4, A.
Number 24 in my Classic Chords series was Good Times by Chic; I decided to revisit that lesson with a video version.
Nile Rodgers uses four fairly straightforward chords as the building blocks of the classic dance tune “Good Times” by CHIC and made famous over the last forty years by endless sampling and recycling of the track.
The chords are Em7, E7sus4, Em11, and A13.
Straightforward as they seem, the first three played at the seventh fret and the last one at the fifth fret.
The Nile Style is to pick out clusters of three strings to funk across in his trademark percussive style, he rarely strums all the strings at once, so at any one time, three of the strings are sounding, usually staccato, and three are muted. Much of the sound is down to his right-hand rhythm but also the muting with the left hand lifting off the strings. Nile also throws in a few grace notes and additional tones to those chords, so see them as the basic four and build on them to jazz up the funk. That’s the choruses, he simplifies and drops back for the verses: Em7 and Asus4 roughly speaking.
I’ve recorded myself playing just the four building blocks without embellishment. And, on a Fender Telecaster rather than his signature Strat, sorry about that…
If you enjoyed this Classic Chord, check out the series, which includes the proper chords for Tom Sawyer by Rush, The Rolling Stones’ Brown Sugar, Times Like These from Foo Fighters and many more.