Temperton was the keyboardist and main songwriter for the 1970s pop music, disco and funk band Heatwave, writing songs including "Star of a Story", "Always and Forever", "Boogie Nights", and "The Groove Line".
[2] After he was recruited by record producer Quincy Jones, he wrote several successful singles for Michael Jackson, including "Thriller", "Off the Wall", and "Rock with You".
"[7] On leaving school, he started working as a fish filleter for Ross Frozen Foods in Grimsby, Lincolnshire.
Alan Kirk, a Yorkshire musician with Jimmy James and the Vagabonds, who toured with Heatwave in the mid 1970s, remembered: "Always and Forever was written on a Wurlitzer piano at the side of a pile of pungent washing – sorry to disappoint all the romantics."
Producer Barry Blue recalled: "He had a very small flat, so everything had to be done within one room and he had piles of washing, and had the TV on top of the organ.
"[3] In 1977, Heatwave followed up the success of its first album with its second, Central Heating, with Barry Blue again producing, and Temperton behind the majority of the songs.
[10] Temperton's work attracted the attention of Quincy Jones, and he asked his engineer Bruce Swedien to check out the Heatwave album.
[12] In 1982, Temperton wrote three songs, including the title track,[1][2] for Jackson's next LP, Thriller, which became the biggest-selling album of all time in the United States, selling 32 million copies.
Temperton also wrote for Herbie Hancock, The Manhattan Transfer, Mica Paris, Rufus and Chaka Khan, Karen Carpenter and many others.
In 1982, Temperton wrote the music to Someone in the Dark, recorded by Michael Jackson, and produced by Quincy Jones, for the movie E.T.
In 1986, Temperton was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Miss Celie's Blues (Sister)", which he wrote with Quincy Jones and Lionel Richie for The Color Purple film of 1985.
After leaving Heatwave to concentrate on his songwriting, Temperton shunned the celebrity lifestyle and remained a very private man.