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Rod Temperton Appreciation thread

Interview with John JR Robinson about his work on OTW and specifically Rock With You; ends at approx 8m 43s.

 
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‘My favourite moment is when I finish a song, that is the moment I cherish.’ – Rod Temperton

The Invisible Man tells the remarkable story of how Rod Temperton worked his way up from a Grimsby fish factory to become one of the most successful songwriters of all time.

Born in Cleethorpes in 1949, Temperton embarked on a career in music with the funk band Heatwave, for whom he wrote the international hits ‘Boogie Nights’ and ‘Always and Forever’, before his songwriting talent caught the attention of Michael Jackson’s legendary producer, Quincy Jones.

For Jackson’s Off the Wall album, Temperton penned both the hit ‘Rock with You’ and the album’s title track. Three years later, he started work on what would become the best-selling album of all time – Michael Jackson’s Thriller – writing three songs, including the now legendary title track. And yet despite collaborating with some of music’s biggest stars, including Donna Summer and Michael McDonald, Temperton was famously reclusive and seldom gave interviews. Having enjoyed unprecedented access to the great man for his Sony Award-winning radio documentary on Temperton, Jed Pitman presents the fully updated, definitive story of one of music’s most talented individuals.
 
Agonum said:
“Skegness”. That would be Skäggness in Swedish, that is, a bearded isthmus.

(‘skägg‑’ bearded, ‘‑ness’ [￫ ‘‑näs’] isthmus)
Click to expand...
1 - Skegness (/ˌskɛɡˈnɛs/ skeg-NESS) is seaside town and civil parish in the East Lindsey District of Lincolnshire, England.
The original Skegness was situated farther east at the mouth of The Wash. Its Norse name refers to a headland which sat near the settlement.

2 - The name like many others in the area, relates to the Danes, Skeggi's 'ness' or headland, one of the places where the Vikings landed in the ninth century.
 
zinniabooklover said:
51Sx554vDlL._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg


‘My favourite moment is when I finish a song, that is the moment I cherish.’ – Rod Temperton

The Invisible Man tells the remarkable story of how Rod Temperton worked his way up from a Grimsby fish factory to become one of the most successful songwriters of all time.

Born in Cleethorpes in 1949, Temperton embarked on a career in music with the funk band Heatwave, for whom he wrote the international hits ‘Boogie Nights’ and ‘Always and Forever’, before his songwriting talent caught the attention of Michael Jackson’s legendary producer, Quincy Jones.

For Jackson’s Off the Wall album, Temperton penned both the hit ‘Rock with You’ and the album’s title track. Three years later, he started work on what would become the best-selling album of all time – Michael Jackson’s Thriller – writing three songs, including the now legendary title track. And yet despite collaborating with some of music’s biggest stars, including Donna Summer and Michael McDonald, Temperton was famously reclusive and seldom gave interviews. Having enjoyed unprecedented access to the great man for his Sony Award-winning radio documentary on Temperton, Jed Pitman presents the fully updated, definitive story of one of music’s most talented individuals.
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What is this radio documentary? Intriguing indeed.
 
Agonum said:
What is this radio documentary? Intriguing indeed.
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A BBC 6 Music thing which is sadly no longer available. It was broadcast in 2006 and then repeated in 2016 when Rod died. I'll include this link so you can see the playlist - although you could guess it without seeing it, lol. I don't do radio so I didn't know about it, didn't hear either broadcast.

www.bbc.co.uk

BBC Radio 6 Music - The Invisible Man: The Rod Temperton Story

Another chance to hear a profile of songwriter Rod Temperton, who died in October 2016.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk

"Another chance to hear Paul Gambaccini's 2006 profile the British-born songwriter Rod Temperton, who passed away in October.

The British-born keyboard player and songwriter enjoyed big disco-era success as part of Heatwave before writing hits for American R&B/pop stars including Donna Summer, George Benson, Aretha Franklin, James Ingram, Patti Austin, Herbie Hancock and, most lucratively, Michael Jackson.

Rod Temperton was a gentle-mannered man from Cleethorpes. Outside the music industry, few had heard of him, but everyone knows his songs. Without him the careers of Michael Jackson career, among many others, would have been very different. Rod single-handedly wrote and arranged some of the biggest songs in popular music history including Thriller, Give Me the Night, Boogie Nights, Always and Forever and Off the Wall, and became one of the most successful British songwriters of all time.

This programme charts his remarkable journey from Cleethorpes to Los Angeles, with contributions from Quincy Jones, George Benson and Patti Austin and many more. It was first broadcast on Radio 2 in 2006."
 
zinniabooklover said:
1 - Skegness (/ˌskɛɡˈnɛs/ skeg-NESS) is seaside town and civil parish in the East Lindsey District of Lincolnshire, England.
The original Skegness was situated farther east at the mouth of The Wash. Its Norse name refers to a headland which sat near the settlement.

2 - The name like many others in the area, relates to the Danes, Skeggi's 'ness' or headland, one of the places where the Vikings landed in the ninth century.
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Nice. So, a Dane named Skeg (Beard), how original!

A pronunciation more faithful to the name’s root would probably be sjég-ness /ˈɧɛgˌnɛs/, then, I recon.
 
Agonum said:
A pronunciation more faithful to the name’s root would probably be sjég-ness /ˈɧɛgˌnɛs/, then, I recon.
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Dunno, mate. I took the first one from Wiki, the second one was off the local district council webpage. Can't vouch for the accuracy. You know me, don't understand that IPA thing. I only included it bc it is something you understand, lol.
 
zinniabooklover said:
Dunno, mate. I took the first one from Wiki, the second one was off the local district council webpage. Can't vouch for the accuracy. You know me, don't understand that IPA thing. I only included it bc it is something you understand, lol.
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So you failed to notice that I tried my best to write it “your way”, too? For heaven’s sake…
 
Agonum said:
So you failed to notice that I tried my best to write it “your way”, too? For heaven’s sake…
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oh no, I did notice that. I also liked the Skaggness although it does look like the name you'd find on a can of beer, lol.
 
Article from the Daily Express.

www.express.co.uk

Rod Temperton was the opposite of invisible to remarkable artists

HE WAS dubbed The Invisible Man for his tendency to shun the limelight, despite his phenomenal success writing some of the most successful hits of all time, including Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
www.express.co.uk www.express.co.uk

"It is telling that on Jackson’s death in June 2009, several Post-it notes were found stuck to the King of Pop’s mirror.
Most of them were uplifting statements, but one simply said: “Call Temperton”.


"It was Bruce Swedien, Quincy Jones’ engineer, who was asked by Jones to study the Heatwave album in detail before approaching Temperton with the Jackson invitation. “Holy cow!” enthused Swedien to Gambaccini about his study of the album’s orchestration. “I simply loved Rod’s musical feeling, everything about it."
 
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Agonum said:
Ah, you’re just being stubborn now.
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Er, no, mate. I really don't understand this stuff. As I said before, I have a very sloppy, layperson's interest in linguistics which really doesn't amount to, well, anything, really. Bc it is all so horribly technical and so it's not for me. I like the way Kate Bush sings the 'r' in 'greedy' and that's about as far as it goes. :)

Agonum said:
I embedded an audio file!
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Mm, but you see I wouldn't know that. Was that the blue hyperlink? No offence but I wouldn't have clicked on it even if I had realised. My interest in linguistics is very, very low key.

Plus, I'm much more interested in Skaggness, the heavy metal band. Metal is not my jam but I quite like this band already, lol.

Funnily enough, I was just reading a book review today about a book called - The Norse Myths That Shape The Way We Think.

Agonum said:
Here I was thinking that I was beginning to make pedagogical progress. 😡
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Sadly, no.
 
fivethingsseenandheard.com

The Invisible Man: The Story of Rod Temperton – Five Things I Saw & Heard This Week

fivethingsseenandheard.com fivethingsseenandheard.com

…The Invisible Man: The Story of Rod Temperton, the “Thriller” Songwriter, partly because it’s such an unlikely story, partly because he wrote “Always and Forever”. From Heatwave to Hollywood, he ended up as Britain’s third most successful songwriter. Jed Pitman on Thriller: “Temperton wrote three songs for the record, including the title track which began life as a song called “Starlight” but [Quincy] Jones asked Temperton to come up with new lyrics to fit the tougher theme that was emerging from other tracks around it. Rod knew he wanted one word because that fitted in with the song He said about writing lyrics that the meaning of them didn’t necessarily matter, the lyrics to him would disappear into the melody of the song. The lyrics themselves were all about how many syllables they were for each word to fit lyrically and melodically with the song structure. He’s effectively using the words as another musical instrument rather than sending a message. He wrote about 300 words down and then he wrote the word ‘Thriller’ and that was it, he stopped and went, ‘Wow, I can see it on top of the Billboard charts, I can see the merchandising, I can see everything – Thriller by Michael Jackson.’”
(emphasis added)
 
zinniabooklover said:
[…] he ended up as Britain’s third most successful songwriter. […]
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How would one go about to reach this statement. Is it purely a matter of sales? I have a hard time seeing how he could be ahead of Paul McCartney, John Lennon, the Gibb brothers, Elton John… Who is number one? And two?
 
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