Rod Temperton (The Invisible Man)

IMO this guy was an absolute genius, not a name that was really ever mentioned as one of musics greatest unless to repeat that he was the man who wrote "Thriller". Sadly he smoked himself to death and died in 2016.

I bought a Heatwave album (Candles) in 1980 and realised that Rod T was the guy who had written a lot of stuff on the MJ Off The Wall album which I also bought. I then went on to buy The Dude - Quincy Jones, Blam - The Brothers Johnson and George Benson - Give Me The Night.

I bought the book The Invisible Man by Jed Pitman before Christmas and it details the great lengths he went to to make the perfect track often working late into the night.

Wikipedia lists all the stuff he is credited with which is quite a roll call.

If you are not familiar with his sound/style this track really has it all IMO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ceAaG5hpOM

Ai No Corrida....said to translate to Don't Run Away, a Corrida being a bull. I was always under the impression that Rod T wrote this. It was included in a Quincy Jones album (The Dude) for which he wrote 3 tracks and co-wrote another but no, he did not write Ai No Corrida but Chas Jankel (The Blockheads)

Yah Mo Be There which to me has a very similar vibe to Ai No C was written by Rod T, James Ingram (vocalist) and Quincy Jones.

Rod T must have earned a fortune from royalties given how prolific he was with Thriller being the icing on the cake! He was always referred to as "the former fish factory worker from Grimsby" Yes he did work there but as trainee computer programmer and in his spare time wrote songs and played drums in a band.