Rod Temperton
English songwriter, producer and musician (1949–2016)
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 several hit songs for Jones' protégé Michael Jackson, including: "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."
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.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Rod Temperton” is english songwriter, producer and musician (1949–2016). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Temperton, English and songwriter, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “english songwriter, producer and musician (1949–2016)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q931723. VIAF identifies the subject as 100232413. The Library of Congress control number is n85151654. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1949, 2016, 1986 and 1991.
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Three-step research path
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This entry incorporates text from “Rod Temperton” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.