Rod Temperton Net Worth

What was Rod Temperton’s Net Worth?

Rod Temperton was an English musician, songwriter, and record producer who had a net worth of $125 million. Rod Temperton served as the keyboardist and main songwriter for the 1970s funk band Heatwave, and he also wrote the hit songs “Rock with You,” “Off the Wall,” and “Thriller” for Michael Jackson. Among his many other credits, Temperton penned songs for George Benson and Patti Austin and contributed to the soundtracks for the 1985 film “The Color Purple” and the 1986 film “Running Scared.”

Early Life and Education

Rod Temperton was born on October 9, 1949 in Cleethorpes, England. As a youth, he attended De Aston School in Market Rasen, where he formed a music group for school talent shows. At the time, Temperton played the drums. After leaving school, he worked as a fish filleter in Grimsby before becoming a keyboard player in various dance bands.

Heatwave

In 1974, Temperton answered an ad in the weekly music magazine Melody Maker looking for a keyboardist. As a result, he became a member of the funk band Heatwave, which was being assembled by singer Johnnie Wilder Jr. The original lineup also included vocalist Keith Wilder, bassist Mario Mantese, drummer Ernest Berger, and guitarist Eric Johns. In mid-1976, Heatwave released its debut album, “Too Hot to Handle,” which spawned the hit singles “Boogie Nights” and “Always and Forever.” The band released its second album, “Central Heating,” in 1977; it launched the hit single “The Groove Line.” Although Temperton left the Heatwave lineup in 1978, he continued to write and arrange for the band on the albums “Hot Property” (1979) and “Candles” (1980).

Michael Jackson Hits

Impressed by Temperton’s work with Heatwave, record producer Quincy Jones recruited Temperton to write for Michael Jackson’s 1979 album “Off the Wall.” He penned three songs for the album, including the hit singles “Rock with You” and the title track. Temperton went on to write three more songs for Jackson’s next album, “Thriller,” which came out in late 1982. One of the songs was the title track.

“Thriller” is the best-selling album of all time, with sales estimated at 65-100 million copies worldwide. Rod originally wanted to call the song “Midnight Man.” Here’s how he came up with the name “Thriller”:

“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 visualize 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’.“

Frank Micelotta/Getty Images

Other Songwriting Credits

Temperton wrote or co-wrote a number of other hit songs during his career. Two of the biggest were “Stomp!,” by the Brothers Johnson, and “Give Me the Night,” by George Benson; both were released in 1980 and topped the Hot Soul Singles chart. Temperton went on to write for such artists as Quincy Jones, Patti Austin, Bob James, Herbie Hancock, and Donna Summer. In early 1983, he had a number-one hit in the US with the single “Baby, Come to Me,” a love duet sung by Patti Austin and James Ingram. A couple of years later, he co-wrote the song “Miss Celie’s Blues” for Steven Spielberg’s 1985 film adaptation of “The Color Purple,” and also co-composed the film’s score. Temperton earned Academy Award nominations for both the song and the score. Continuing with soundtracks, he co-wrote and co-produced the soundtrack for the 1986 action comedy film “Running Scared,” including its score and its singles “Sweet Freedom,” by Michael McDonald, and “Man Size Love,” by Klymaxx.

Other Production and Arranging Credits

Among his other production credits, Temperton served as a producer on Siedah Garrett’s debut solo album “Kiss of Life,” which was released in 1988 on Quincy Jones’s label Qwest Records. The following year, he helped arrange Jones’s version of the Weather Report track “Birdland,” which appeared on Jones’s album “Back on the Block.” For the song, Temperton shared the Grammy Award for Best Arrangement on an Instrumental. He later produced four tracks on Mica Paris’s 1993 album “Whisper a Prayer.”

Personal Life and Death

A deeply private person, Temperton stayed out of the spotlight for most of his career and earned the moniker the ‘Invisible Man’ because of it. He was married to Kathy, with whom he had multiple homes around the world, including in France and Fiji.

On September 25, 2016, Temperton passed away from cancer in London, England. He had a private funeral before the news was publicly announced over a week later.