'Thriller' Songwriter Rod Temperton Passes Away After Cancer Battle

Rod Temperton, a musician and songwriter responsible for penning some of Michael Jackson's best-known hits, has died following a struggle with an "aggressive cancer".

As News Corp reports, Temperton's representative at Warner/Chappell Music, Jon Platt, broke the news that the 66-year-old had passed away sometime last week from the disease.

Born in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, in 1949, Temperton got his start as a professional musician in the early 1970s, first forming a soul cover band called Sundown Carousel with guitarist friend Bernd Springer before signing on as a member with well-known funk/disco outfit Heatwave.

Manning keyboards for the group, Temperton was instrumental in shaping their hits Boogie Nights and Always & Forever, remaining with the band for four years before departing to concentrate on his songwriting in 1978. He was consequently picked up the following year by producer Quincy Jones — a renowned collaborator of Jackson's — and ultimately contributed three songs to MJ's debut solo LP Off The Wall, including #1-charting single Rock With You.

He contributed a further three songs to 1982's Thriller, including its iconic title track. Four years later, in 1986, he earned an Oscar nomination (with co-writers Quincy Jones and Lionel Richie) for Miss Celie's Blues (from 1985's The Color Purple), as well as providing the score and a handful of original soundtrack songs for Running Scared, starring Gregory Hines and Billy Crystal.

Over the course of his decades in the business, he also wrote for artists including Jones himself, Herbie Hancock, Patti Austin, George Benson, Aretha Franklin and many more.