Rod Temperton, Cleethorpes-born songwriter, record producer and musician (1949-2016)

Grimsby Cleethorpes and district Civic Society have recently been intermediary in the placement of a blue plaque to celebrate the life of Cleethorpes-born songwriter, record producer and musician, Rod Temperton, famous for penning a number of Michael Jackson’s songs.

Earlier this year, we were contacted by Rod’s widow wishing to put up a blue plaque about her husband, who had died in the autumn of 2016, for the people of Grimsby and Cleethorpes. Our role, which we welcomed, was to locate the address of his birth and find the current owner so that formal contact could be made.

We are pleased to say that the blue plaque is now in place at 261 Grimsby Road – now Spencer Taylor Studios.

Biography

After leaving De Aston School in Market Rasen, Rodney Lynn Temperton he had a short-lived office career in Grimsby’s frozen food industry before becoming a full-time key-board player for several dance bands. A spell in Germany followed before answering an advert in Melody Maker and resulting inclusion in the funk/disco band, Heatwave. 1976’s Boogie Nights was just one of Rod’s compositions from that time and several more hits later, Heatwave became a familiar sound of the 70’s. A connection with Quincy Jones brought about Rod’s writing of songs for Michael Jackson among others, Rock with You, and the title track for Thriller - the title Thriller in itself, having been dreamt up by Rod.

Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Temperton) lists 40 song credits from 1977 to 1995 and also for both music production and arrangements. Despite much of this music accomplishments being familiar to most of us, he was not well-known outside the music business –– hence Paul Gambaccini’s 2006 profile of him The Invisible Man: The Rod Temperton Story.

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