AS the man behind Chic’s Le Freak, I Want Your Love, and Everybody Dance, Madonna's Like A Virgin, David Bowie’s Let’s Dance and Daft Punk's Get Lucky, Nile Rodgers knows a thing or two about what makes a hit record.

But he claims to have secretly made not one, but ten, with the late DJ Avicii after they formed a close friendship.

Nile and Avicii, real name Tim Bergling, collaborated on 2013 song Lay Me Down, but Nile has now revealed they held a series of sessions in which they recorded an album’s-worth of content shortly before the Swede’s sudden death in April, aged 28.

Taking over my Bizarre column for the first time, Nile explained: “Between Avicii and me, there’s at least ten, at least.

“We laughed all the time. I used to say, ‘You put Tim and I in a room and we can do the entire Top 20 in, like, two or three weeks’.

“I’ve just been contacted about putting out my stuff, but I’ve got to see how it is because I was very close to Tim and the music we didn’t put out was extraordinary. He was blown away, as was I.

“But, because of what I know, which I will not talk about, I want to make sure that whatever work I do would be to the benefit of the people Tim would want that project to benefit.”

It isn’t the only collection of tunes Nile has his mind on, though, as his band Chic have today released their album It’s About Time — appropriately titled as it’s their first in 26 years.

And as the most well-connected man in showbiz, he revealed he has an eye-watering 13,847 numbers in his phone book, so it’s no surprise he managed to get all-star collaborators including Lady Gaga, Craig David, Emeli Sande and Stefflon Don on board for the record. Nile explained: “Most of the time I make other people’s records, so what I did with this was a lot of those other people made my record with me.

“Then, as the album starts to get to a certain place, you start to see those people slowly disappear then it becomes more of my base unit, my people.

“Then there’s this happy ending like, ‘Hey we’re rolling in the same town together’.”

And while it has taken a quarter of a century to make this album, Nile teased a second one will follow early next year, featuring the likes of Haim and Debbie Harry.

He turned 66 last week, but there’s certainly no stopping him.