Willie Hutch, who has died aged 60, never gained great individual fame. Yet his musical abilities helped artists as different as Michael Jackson and the Chemical Brothers.
In 1970 Motown producer Hal Davis contacted him in the middle of the night to demand help in finishing a song. Motown boss Berry Gordy had told Davis he liked the title but not the song, and Davis needed it finished for a recording session that morning. Hutch stayed up working on the song and presented it to Gordy at 8 am. Gordy ordered Hutch into the studio to arrange the vocals. The song was I'll Be There, and the band was the Jackson 5 with a 12-year-old Michael Jackson on lead vocal. The song topped the US pop and r&b charts, made no 4 in the UK, and became, at the time, Motown's biggest selling single.
Hutch was hired as a Motown writer-producer and for the next 20 years would work with the likes of Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Junior Walker, the Four Tops and Aretha Franklin. "Writing lyrics and setting them to music was a freedom no one could take away from me," said Hutch on what inspired him to write songs. "Writing gave me a freedom to go everywhere I wanted to go."
Hutch was born Willie McKinley Hutchison in Los Angeles, shifting with his mother to Dallas as a small child, where he lived with his two brothers, one sister, grandmother and aunt. He loved gospel, jazz and rhythm and blues, and showed an aptitude for playing instruments and arranging while a student at Booker T Washington high school, Dallas. As a teenager he led his own doo-wop band, the Ambassadors, and began writing songs. He joined the Marines, serving a two-year tour of duty. After settling in Los Angeles, he began his forays into the music business.
Hutch released his debut single in 1964 and in 1965 met photographer Lamonte McLemore, who was forming a vocal quintet called the Versatiles based around two former winners of the Miss Bronze America contest. Signed by popular singer Johnny Rivers - who insisted they change their name to the Fifth Dimension - they cut Hutch's I'll Be Loving You Forever as their debut single. The Fifth Dimension went on to become one of America's most popular groups. Hutch penned several more tracks for the band and co-produced their 1967 album Up, Up And Away. In 1969 he signed to RCA where he released his first solo album, Soul Portrait. Another 16 followed.
Hutch's most enduring work may be the soundtracks he created for two films from the "blaxploitation" era. The Mack (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974) were violent, amoral, low-budget films that catered to black Americans' enthusiasm for ghetto heroes getting one over corrupt white cops and crime syndicates. The Mack's lyrical brutality has ensured its status as the hip-hop generation's favourite film: Hutch's soundtrack was sampled by Biggie Smalls, Lil' Kim, Moby and the Chemical Brothers, who sampled Brother's Gonna Work It Out - so creating a UK rave party anthem - and included the original track on their DJ mix album Brothers Gonna Work It Out. Hutch recently had another track from The Mack featured in Hustle & Flow (2005), a winning film at the Sundance festival.
He continued to work as a Motown producer into the 1990s, although he was never again to enjoy the huge success he found in the early 1970s. Moving back to Dallas in 1994, he continued to record and perform while living comfortably on royalties from old hits and new samples. His manager Anthony Voyce said of Hutch: "I've never met a more generous and caring person."
He is survived by six children.
· Willie McKinley Hutchison, songwriter, musician, producer, born December 6 1944; died September 19 2005