"Rock With You" sorta live

An enjoyable rarity.

Here's Michael Jackson actually singing (as opposed to lip-synching) "Rock With You" on a Diana Ross TV special.

This video shows two things:

1) Michael Jackson was a great pop singer even without studio help.

2) It is extraordinarily difficult to dance and sing at the same time. The only time he misses notes is when a dance move interrupts them. This is why dance-y pop stars seldom sing live on TV or in concert.

Further reading: Britain's Guardian newspaper has a great appreciation of the song's composer, Rod Temperton.

In addition to "Rock With You," Temperton composed three more all-time great slick light-funk classics "Off The Wall," "Thriller," and "Boogie Nights," which he saved for his own band, Heatwave. Temperton also wrote the wedding slow-dance classic "Always And Forever."

The tenor of his discography makes his biography quite surprising. Temperton was born-and-raised in Cleethorpes, a small, English village facing the North Sea.

Furthermore, he doesn't exactly look like a man who walks up to women in clubs and suggests rocking with them.