Rod Temperton / Tom Bahler

[Rick Henry]

As we all know Rod Temperton had a big part in making Karen's solo album. He wrote a few of the songs as well as doing the vocal arrangements for most of the songs. For those of you who may not know Rod Temperton is a founding member of the group Heatwave. Heatwave had three huge hits between 1976 -1978 with the classics "Boogie Nights", "Always And Forever" and "The Groove Line". Temperton played keyboard for Heatwave. he was also one of the lead vocalists and he wrote and produced several of the groups songs.

Tom Bahler with his brother hired Karen and Richard to sing produce music for television commercials in 1969 just before A&M signed them on as the Carpenters. Tom also did work on a few of the Carpenters albums including assembling a choir for the "Christmas Portrait" album. In 1978 Tom began dating Karen for a short period.

Now here is the trivia question. Other than both being involved in Karen Carpenter's life how else are Rod Temperton and Tom Bahler connected? Does anyone have the answer to this trivia question?

[makapip]

here's a crazy guess, Richard stayed with Tom at his place after leaving the
rehab facility.

[Rick Henry]

makapip said:

here's a crazy guess, Richard stayed with Tom at his place after leaving the
rehab facility.

Good guess Makapip - but that's not the connection which brings Rod Temperton and Tom Bahler together in a project outside the Carpenter circle.

[YesterdayOnceMore]

Both of these gentlemen worked with Michael Jackson on his album "Off The Wall" - Temperton is credited with composing Rock with You and Off The Wall - Bahler is credited (as composer - is this correct?) for She's Out Of My Life.

Is there more?
Tim

[Rick Henry]

yesterdayoncemore said:

Both of these gentlemen worked with Michael Jackson on his album "Off The Wall" - Temperton is credited with composing Rock with You and Off The Wall - Bahler is credited (as composer - is this correct?) for She's Out Of My Life.

Is there more?
Tim

You are absolutely right Tim. Good job Tim.

[YesterdayOnceMore]

Rick, how did you come up with this bit of trivia? I think this is an excellent, fun thing to do. Let's do more. Perhaps I can find a few things like this - it made me think....and it was great fun trying to find the answer.

Thanks, Tim

[Rick Henry]

I stumbled upon this by accident. Lately, I've been looking up information on Rod Temperton. Firstly because I love the work he did in helping shape Karen's vocals on her solo album. I also love the songs he wrote for Karen. He's a great talent.

But, it goes further. I just love his group Heatwave (maker of the hits "Boogie Nights", "Always And Forever" and "The Groove Line") The group has a great funky, R&B, disco sound with hints of jazz. A lot of Heatwave's music reminds me of what is heard on Karen's solo album.

I've also been doing many searches on Rod Temperton because I would like to interview him someday. He's been even more elusive than Palma. It took me almost a year to find Palma. I've been searching for Rod for over a year now and one of these days (fingers crossed) I will find him and we'll get another great insiders story on the making of Karen's solo album.