*Rod Temperton, the songwriter who penned a number of Michael Jackson’s classic hits, died last week in London following a “brief aggressive battle with cancer,” Warner/Chappell CEO Jon Platt wrote in a statement. He was 66.
“His funeral was private,” Platt added. “He was often referred to as ‘The Invisible Man.’ He was the sole writer of multiple successful songs such as ‘Thriller,’ ‘Off The Wall,’ ‘Rock With You,’ [George Benson’s] ‘Give Me The Night,’ [Michael McDonald’s] ‘Sweet Freedom,’ [Heatwave’s] ‘Always & Forever’ and ‘Boogie Nights’ to name just a few. His family is devastated and request total privacy at this, the saddest of sad times.”
Before working for the King of Pop, Temperton played keyboards and was the primary songwriter for Heatwave, including the group’s hit singles “Boogie Nights” and “Always and Forever.” He performed with Heatwave for two of their albums – 1976’s Too Hot to Handle and 1978’s Central Heating – before moving into the songwriter role full time.
In 1979, Quincy Jones hired Temperton for what would become Michael Jackson’s first solo album in four years, “Off the Wall.” Temperton wrote the title track, as well as “Rock With You” and the closer “Burn This Disco Out.”
Three years later, Jones reunited with Temperton for Jackson’s “Thriller,” including the crafting of its horror movie theme.
“When I wrote ‘Thriller,’ I always envisioned this sort of talking section at the end, and didn’t really know what we were gonna do there,” Temperton said n a BBC Radio 2 interview. “But one thing I’d thought about was to have somebody, a famous voice in the horror genre, to do this vocal. Quincy’s wife knew Vincent Price, so Quincy said to me, ‘How about if we got Vincent Price?’ And I said that’d be amazing if we can get him.”
In addition to his Heatwave and Jackson hits, Temperton also wrote songs for Karen Carpenter, Aretha Franklin, Herbie Hancock, Donna Summer, the Manhattan Transfer. McDonald and James Ingram also sang the Temperton-co-penned “Yah Mo B There.”
In 1989, Temperton, Jones and Lionel Richie’s “The Color Purple” song “Miss Celie’s Blues (Sister)” was nominated for Best Original Song at the Academy Awards, where it lost to Richie’s White Nights theme “Say You, Say Me.”
