Rod Temperton

Rodney Lynn Temperton (9 October 1949 – 25 September 2016) was an English musician, songwriter, and record producer.

Temperton was the keyboardist and principal songwriter for the 1970s funk band Heatwave, writing songs including "Star of a Story", " Always and Forever", " Boogie Nights", and " The Groove Line". After he was recruited by record producer Quincy Jones, Temperton wrote three hit songs for Jones' protégé Michael Jackson: " Thriller", " Off the Wall", and " Rock with You". He also wrote songs for George Benson, including " Give Me the Night" and " Love X Love", along with Patti Austin and James Ingram's US number-one single " Baby, Come to Me", among others.

Temperton wrote the soundtrack for the 1986 film '' Running Scared''. In 1991 he won a Grammy Award for Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella for '' Birdland''.

Biography

Early years

Rodney Lynn Temperton was born in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, on 9 October 1949. Interviewed for the BBC Radio 2 documentary ''The Invisible Man: the Rod Temperton Story'', he said that he was a musician from an early age: "My father wasn't the kind of person who would read you a story before you went off to sleep. He used to put a transistor radio in the crib, right on the pillow, and I'd go to sleep listening to Radio Luxembourg, and I think that had an influence.""The Invisible Man: the Rod Temperton story", narrated by Paul Gambaccini, BBC Radio 2, '' BBC Radio'' – British Broadcasting Corporation.

Temperton attended De Aston Grammar School, Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, and he formed a group for the school's music competitions. He was a drummer at this time. "I'd get in the living room with my snare drum and my cymbal and play along to the BBC test card, which was all kinds of music they'd be playing continuously." On leaving school, he started working as a fish filleter for Ross Frozen Foods in Grimsby, Lincolnshire.

Heatwave

Temperton soon became a full-time musician as a keyboard player, and played in several dance bands. This took him to Worms in Germany. In 1974, he answered an advert in '' Melody Maker'' for a keyboardist, placed by Johnnie Wilder Jr., and as a result, became a member of the pop, disco, and funk band: Heatwave, which Wilder was putting together at the time. "He was the first British guy that I had ever met personally. He spoke kind of funny but he had a good sense of humour and he was a very friendly guy. After meeting him and then seeing him play I kind of determined he was a good enough player and entertainer and I just knew he would fit in the group", said Wilder.

Temperton played Wilder tunes he had been composing: "I was very interested because we were doing a lot of cover tunes—we weren't doing a lot of original material." The songs provided material for 1976's '' Too Hot to Handle'', including " Boogie Nights", which broke the band in the United Kingdom and the United States, and the ballad " Always and Forever"; both tracks were million-sellers in the USA.

Despite the slick American sound, Temperton's working surroundings were still far from glamorous. Alan Kirk, a Yorkshire musician with Jimmy James and the Vagabonds who toured with Heatwave in the mid 1970s, remembered: "''Always and Forever'' was written on a Wurlitzer piano at the side of a pile of pungent washing. Sorry to disappoint all the romantics." Producer Barry Blue recalled: "He had a very small flat, so everything had to be done within one room and he had piles of washing, and had the TV on top of the organ. It was a nightmare ..he had trams running outside ..but he made it: he just absorbed himself in the music and Rod seemed to come up with these amazing songs."

In 1977, Heatwave followed up the success of its first album with its second, '' Central Heating'', with Barry Blue again producing and Temperton behind most of the songs. It included " The Groove Line", another international hit single. In 1978, Temperton decided to concentrate on writing, and left Heatwave, though he continued to write for the band.

Songs written for Michael Jackson

Temperton's work attracted the attention of Quincy Jones, and he asked his engineer Bruce Swedien to check out the Heatwave album. "Holy cow! I simply loved Rod's musical feeling. Everything about it—Rod's arrangements, his tunes, his songs—was exceedingly hip", Swedien said, calling Temperton "the most disciplined pop music composer I've ever met. When he comes to the studio, every musical detail is written down or accounted for in Rod's mind. He never stops until he feels confident that the music we're working on is able to stand on its own." In 1979, Jones recruited Temperton to write for '' Off the Wall'', Michael Jackson's first solo album in four years and his first full-fledged solo release for Epic Records. Temperton wrote three songs for the album, including " Rock with You", which was the album's second US no. 1 single.

In the early 1980s, Temperton left Germany and moved to Beverly Hills, California. In 1982, he wrote three songs, including the title track, for Jackson's next LP, '' Thriller'', which became the biggest-selling album of all time in the US, selling 32 million copies. Temperton also wrote the song's spoken-word section for Vincent Price. Of the title " Thriller", Temperton said:

Other songwriting successes

Temperton wrote for other musicians, his hits including disco classic " Stomp!" for The Brothers Johnson; George Benson's " Give Me the Night"; " Baby, Come to Me" for Patti Austin and James Ingram; " Love Is in Control (Finger on the Trigger)" for Donna Summer; and " Yah Mo B There" for James Ingram and Michael McDonald. Temperton also wrote for Herbie Hancock, The Manhattan Transfer, Mica Paris, Rufus and Chaka Khan, Karen Carpenter, and many others.

Film work

In 1979, Temperton and Barry Blue co-wrote the song "Keep Tomorrow For Me". Heatwave performed it on the soundtrack for the movie '' Escape to Athena''.

In 1982, Temperton wrote the music to " Someone in the Dark", recorded by Michael Jackson, and produced by Quincy Jones, for the movie '' E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial'', with lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman.

In 1986, Temperton was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song for " Miss Celie's Blues (Sister)", which he wrote with Quincy Jones and Lionel Richie for the film '' The Color Purple''. (Richie won the award for " Say You, Say Me", from '' White Nights''.) He was also nominated for Best Original Score, along with the 11 other composers, including Jones, who worked on ''The Color Purple's'' soundtrack.

Later in 1986, the buddy cop film '' Running Scared'' was released, featuring five new songs by Temperton, including " Sweet Freedom", performed by Michael McDonald, and " Man Size Love", performed by Klymaxx. Temperton also wrote the film's score.

Personal life and death

After leaving Heatwave to concentrate on his songwriting, Temperton shunned the celebrity lifestyle and remained a very private man. Due to his low profile, Temperton was nicknamed "The Invisible Man". He died in London on 25 September 2016, at the age of 66, after "a brief aggressive battle with cancer" as described by Jon Platt of Warner/Chappell music publishing. His death would be announced a week later on 5 October 2016, with his private funeral having already taken place. Gilles Peterson, a BBC radio presenter, paid tribute to Temperton on Twitter: "Apart from Lennon and McCartney no one from the UK has written more gold plated songs than Sir Rod Temperton... a huge loss. RIP."

Temperton is survived by his wife Kathy. They had homes in Los Angeles, the south of France, Fiji, Switzerland and Kent in southeast England.

Songwriting credits

Production credits

* The '' Running Scared'' soundtrack album, 1986 (with Dick Rudolph and Bruce Swedien)
* "We Belong to Love" by Jeffrey Osborne from '' Emotional'', 1986
* '' Kiss of Life'' by Siedah Garrett, 1988 (with Dick Rudolph)
* '' Back on the Block'' by Quincy Jones, 1989 (associate producer)
* "Givin' In to Love" by Patti Austin, from ''Carry On'', 1991
* "You Put a Move on My Heart", "We Were Made for Love", "Two in a Million", and "Love Keeps Coming Back" by Mica Paris, from '' Whisper a Prayer'', 1993
* "We Are the Future", from ''We Are the Future: You Are the Answer'', 2004 (with Sunny Levine)

Arranging

* ''Back on the Block'', with Andrae Crouch, Quincy Jones, Quincy Jones III, and Bill Summers; ''Wee B. Dooinit'', with Siedah Garrett, Jones, Mark Kibble, and Ian Prince; ''Birdland'' (winner of the 1991 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement), with Jerry Hey, Jones, and Prince; ''Tomorrow (A Better You, Better Me)'', with Hey and Jones; ''The Secret Garden'', with Garrett, Hey, and Jones, from '' Back on the Block'', 1989
* ''You Put a Move on My Heart'', with John Clayton; ''Rock with You'', with Jones, Jones III, and Greg Phillinganes; ''Stomp'', with Hey and Jones; ''Heaven's Girl'', with Hey, Jones, and R. Kelly; and ''Slow Jams'', with Clayton, Hey, and Phillinganes, from '' Q's Jook Joint'', 1995
* ''Lovelines'', ''If We Try'' and ''My Body Keeps Changing My Mind'', from solo album by Karen Carpenter recorded in 1979–1980, released in 1996.

References

External links

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Six Million Steps – Rod Temperton Special radio show from March 2008

Six Million Steps – Rod Temperton Special REMIXED radio show from October 2016

Irreverent website info

"The Yorkshire Post" article (2006)

"Rod Temperton, songwriting giant behind Thriller and Off the Wall, dies"
6 October 2016, Death-Notices.co.uk,

"The Invisible Man" documentary

{{DEFAULTSORT:Temperton, Rod
1949 births
2016 deaths
British disco musicians
Deaths from cancer in England
English expatriates in Germany
English expatriate musicians in the United States
English funk musicians
English pop keyboardists
English pop pianists
English pop singers
English record producers
English rhythm and blues musicians
English male songwriters
English soul musicians
Grammy Award winners
Heatwave (band) members
Musicians from Lincolnshire
People educated at De Aston School
People from Cleethorpes