The 1977 overnight success of Marvin Lee Aday was at least a decade in the making. By the time he exploded out of our TV sets as Meat Loaf, he had been in the music business since the mid 60s, and had considerable theatre experience under his belt, in shows like Rocky Horror and Hair.
There was a huge dose of theatre in Meat Loaf’s music. Was he a singer who acts, or an actor who sings? The man himself leaned to the latter, but probably believed it impossible to distinguish one role from the other. He had a bones-deep conviction about the righteous nature of rock and roll as an answer to teenage yearning, and to the haunting dreams that have as their central theme the notion that there must be more than this.
Meat Loaf (don’t call him Meatloaf!) found the perfect partner in writer/producer Jim Steinman. Together, they made Bat Out Of Hell, which broke first in Australia. Its early success here convinced his reluctant record company to back the Bat, producing a global hit that became one of the best-selling records ever.
Meat Loaf has died – he was 74. If Bat Out Of Hell was his only achievement, he would have deserved a lofty place in the great rock and roll museum of feats and fame. Meat Loaf did so much more.
