Rolling Stone Meat Loaf Remembers Jim Steinman: ‘He Was the Centerpiece of My Life’
In an emotional, two-day interview, Meat Loaf looks back at the ups and downs of his five-decade saga with the writer of his biggest hits. “We belonged heart and soul to each other,” he says. “We didn’t
know each other. We Michael Putland/Getty Images
Jim Steinman was such a titanic figure in Meat Loaf’s life, that sharing their saga in a single phone call to Rolling Stone after Steinman’s death simply was not possible. It took two long calls across two days to get it across, and at the end of the first one, Meat Loaf broke down and sobbed uncontrollably over the loss of his friend. “Oh my God!” he moaned. “I haven’t cried until now. It just hit me. Oh my God! It’s horrible!”
Jim Steinman, Bat Out of Hell songwriter, dies at 73
Lena Hall and Bradley Dean in Bat Out of Hell in New York, Aug. 1, 2019. Emon Hassan/The New York Times.
by Neil Genzlinger
(NYT NEWS SERVICE)
.- Jim Steinman, who wrote all the songs on Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loafs operatic, teenage-angst-filled 1977 debut album, which remains one of the most successful records of all time, died Monday in Danbury, Connecticut. He was 73.
His longtime manager, David Sonenberg, announced the death. He said that Steinman had a stroke four years ago and that his health had recently been declining.
Steinman had a wide-ranging resume that included writing Bonnie Tylers 1983 No. 1 hit Total Eclipse of the Heart and serving as Andrew Lloyd Webbers lyricist on Whistle Down the Wind (1996). But his career-defining achievement was Bat Out of Hell, a record that no major label wanted but that has now sold tens of millions of copies.
Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc
Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman during Meat Loaf in Studio Recording Bat Out of Hell II in Los Angeles.
Few behind-the-scenes figures in 20th century popular music have been unquestionably the greatest in their particular lane but if you were a powerhouse pop or rock vocalist of the 70s, 80s or 90s looking for a co-pilot for a grandiose and gloriously overwrought megaballad, you went Jim Steinman or you went home.
Rising to fame in the late 70s alongside Texan theater-rocker Meat Loaf as co-creators of the eventually Diamond-certified
Bat Out of Hell set, Steinman was simply without peer when it came to producing (and often co-penning) top 40-ready singles and best-selling albums on a Wagnerian scale. His soundscapes were bombastic, his lyrics were preposterous, and his songs were quite simply unforgettable anthems of heartbreak and perseverance and lord knows what else that have soundtracked countless film montages and every karaoke night wort
The brilliant songwriter for Meat Loaf, Céline Dion and Bonnie Tyler, who has died aged 73, reminded us that pop music should involve fantasy and a sense of the ridiculous
Rolling Stone Eric Church on Why Music Is Going to Save Us
The country-music rebel on his wildly ambitious triple album, needing to get back on the road, and why you can’t go half-Meat Loaf
By Joe Pugliese
Ever since he got booted off the Rascal Flatts tour in 2006 for playing too long, Eric Church has been country music’s middle finger, upending the way things are done in Nashville with both his albums and his live show. His new record
Heart & Soul is a wildly ambitious
triple album one titled
&, and one
Soul that he wrote and recorded in the mountains of North Carolina with longtime producer Jay Joyce and an army of trusted songwriters. Instead of a studio, he commandeered a restaurant and challenged himself to write and record a song a day.