Early years

Rodney Lynn Temperton was born in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire,^[2] on 9 October 1949.^[5] 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."^[2][3]

Temperton attended De Aston Grammar School, Market Rasen, Lincolnshire,^[6] 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."^[7] On leaving school, he started working as a fish filleter for Ross Frozen Foods in Grimsby, Lincolnshire.^[5]

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,^[2] placed by Johnnie Wilder Jr., and as a result, became a member of the pop, disco, and funk band: Heatwave,^[2] 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.^[3]

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 – I was really interested." The songs provided material for 1976's Too Hot to Handle including "Boogie Nights",^[2] 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.^[8][9]

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."^[3]

In 1977, Heatwave followed up the success of its first album with its second, Central Heating, with Barry Blue again producing, and Temperton behind the majority of the songs. It included "The Groove Line",^[2] another international hit single. In 1978, Temperton decided to concentrate on writing, and left Heatwave,^[2] though he continued to write for the band.^[10]

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", recalled Swedien, also 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."^[11] In 1979, Temperton was recruited by Quincy Jones^[2] to write for what became Michael Jackson's first solo album in four years, and his first full-fledged solo release for Epic Records, titled Off the Wall. Temperton wrote three songs for the album,^[2] including "Rock with You",^[2] which became the second US number 1 single from the album.^[5]

In the early 1980s, Temperton left Germany and moved to Beverly Hills, California.^[12] In 1982, Temperton wrote three songs, including the title track,^[1][2] for Jackson's next LP, Thriller, which became the biggest-selling album of all time in the United States, selling 32 million copies.^[2] Temperton also wrote the spoken word section of the song for the actor Vincent Price.^[13] On coming up with the title "Thriller",^[2] Temperton once said:

I went back to the hotel, wrote two or three hundred titles and came up with Midnight Man. The next morning, I woke up and I just said this word. Something in my head just said, 'This is the title'. You could visualise it at the top of the Billboard charts. You could see the merchandising for this one word, how it jumped off the page as 'Thriller'.^[14]

Other songwriting successes

Temperton wrote successfully for other musicians, his hits including disco classic "Stomp!" for The Brothers Johnson;^[2] George Benson's "Give Me the Night";^[2] "Baby, Come to Me"^[2] for Patti Austin and James Ingram; "Love Is in Control (Finger on the Trigger)" for Donna Summer;^[2] 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,^[2] and many others.^[13]

Film work

In 1979, Temperton co-wrote the song "Keep Tomorrow For Me", with Barry Blue. The song was performed by Heatwave for the movie Escape To Athena soundtrack and served as the movie's closing theme.

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 Color Purple film of 1985. (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.^[2]

Later in 1986, the buddy-cop action-comedy Running Scared was released, featuring five new songs written by Temperton, including "Sweet Freedom",^[2] performed by Michael McDonald; and "Man Size Love", performed by Klymaxx.^[15] Temperton also composed the film's score.