Posted on 04/20/2021 11:48:25 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Jim Steinman, the songwriter and producer best known for his grandiose ballads sung by Meat Loaf, Bonnie Tyler, Celine Dion and Air Supply, has died at age 73.
The Connecticut state medical examiner confirmed Steinman's death to Variety, though a cause was not immediately announced.
Steinman was born Nov. 1, 1947, in New York City, but he found his calling while studying at Amherst College in Massachusetts. There, he became involved in musical theater, writing music and lyrics for his 1969 production The Dream Engine, which led to work with Joseph Papp, founder of the New York Shakespeare Festival. His career expanded the following decade. His song "Happy Ending" appeared on Yvonne Elliman's 1973 album, Food of Love; that same year, he wrote music and lyrics for the musical More Than You Deserve, which costarred his future collaborator Marvin Lee Aday, performing under the stage name Meat Loaf.
"[From] the minute he walked in, I was stunned," Steinman recalled in 2003 of Meat Loaf's audition. "I thought he was astonishing. He's just one of those people who walks in and it's the equivalent of an enormous cat pissing on the door. Just stakes territory immediately. Just charismatic and he wasn't the character of Meat Loaf then, he was much more like this enormous inflated farm boy. He wore, like, overalls, he didn't have that much experience singing rock 'n' roll specifically."
That collaboration became pivotal: Steinman went on to write the entirety of Meat Loaf's first album, 1977's Bat Out of Hell, a collection of theatrical hard rock that earned comparisons to Bruce Springsteen. The LP peaked at No. 14 on the Billboard and hit No. 9 in the U.K., spawning FM staples like the title track, "You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)," "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad" and "Paradise by the Dashboard Light."
Meat Loaf recorded Steinman songs on several albums, including three others fully or largely penned by the songwriter: 1981's Dead Ringer, the chart-topping 1993 sequel Bat Out of Hell: Back Into Hell (featuring the hit "I'd Do Anything for Love [But I Won't Do That]") and 2016's Braver Than We Are. Steinman also recorded one solo LP, 1981's Bad for Good, which featured a Top 40 hit, "Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through."
While Steinman also worked on musicals sporadically throughout his career, he continued to churn out hits as a songwriter — finding more ideal vehicles for his dramatic power ballads and rock epics. His writing catalog also includes Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" (1983), Air Supply's "Making Love Out of Nothing at All" (1983) and Celine Dion's "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" (1996).
"I think 'romantic''s the key word," Steinman said in 1978, reflecting on his style. "Instead of being an album of just seven songs — I think of [Bat Out of Hell] as a fairly unified collection of seven visions or dreams … or even adventures. When you start playing the record, it's [like] setting off on a voyage, on a series of adventures through this kingdom, this world. And it just so happens that almost all of the people in the world are teenagers. That's just because I think that's the best kind of world. If you have a world only of teenagers, at least musically for the course of one record, you're bound to get a lot of excitement, a lot of romance, a lot of violence, a lot of chills and fever, a lot of sex. And those are all very good things. A lot of motorcycles.
"It beats Perry Como, doesn't it?"
But al, in my business, it is the one or two it does pi$$ off that gives you the headaches. This conversation is over.
Comparing Meat Loaf to Springsteen is an insult to Mr. Loaf.
“On a hot summer night would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?”
Jim wrote rock opera. Some of it very good, and some of it not so good. RIP. Springsteen did it too with Born To Run, though Springsteen aficionados hate to admit that.
Springsteen was smart enough to tone down the rock opera content in future albums...IMO that rock opera sound is limited.
Yeah, I had it on cassette and I played the hell out of it while cruising around in my father's Chrysler Newport.
Yet another musical icon from my youth dead.
Soon I will only be left with Keith Richards and Willie Nelson. Maybe Bob Dylan.
When he wrote, "let me sleep on it", he wasn't kiddin' around.
Damn! That’s awful news. Wrote one of the greatest rock and roll albums of all time.
Neil Sedaka is still alive. I bet you loved him.
The woman in the video (not Ellen Foley, whom I’d thought it was).
I believe Ellen Foley was the singer, but Karla was the one in the video.
Springsteen sucks.
“Jim wrote rock opera. Some of it very good, and some of it not so good. RIP. Springsteen did it too with Born To Run, though Springsteen aficionados hate to admit that.
“Springsteen was smart enough to tone down the rock opera content in future albums...IMO that rock opera sound is limited.”
Ditto to everything you said. Born to Run was great - but nobody really wanted to hear Born to Run 2 (Born 2 Run?).
That’s why a real Rock & Roll album, which was put out in the same time frame, like Bob Seger’s Night Moves, has held up better than Born To Run IMO.
There’s only so much bombast you can take before it gets real old.
Agree 100%!
Musical and lyrical genius. RIP Jim Steinman. Great great song writer
He wrote some powerful songs that rival Queen in terms of Grandiosity. And I liked them more.
He was the musical giant that many fans don’t know.
Rest In Peace.
RIP! Here in NJ (and maybe elsewhere I don’t know) it is a new tradition to sing “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” at all weddings. The guys and girls sing the different parts and it’s always hilarious and wonderful fun.
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