Meat Loaf: the 'Bat Out of Hell'
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Meat Loaf: the 'Bat Out of Hell'
Hard-living and hard-rocking, the US singer known as Meat Loaf whose death was announced on Friday, took music into wild and operatic places to become one of the biggest-selling artists of all time.
Born Marvin Lee Aday on September 27, 1947, the early years in Texas were rough.
"I've forgiven my father for trying to kill me with a butcher's knife," he once told The Telegraph.
Bullying at school over his weight -- the nickname Meat Loaf came early -- was followed by the devastating loss of his mother to cancer while he was still a teenager.
He told Classic Rock magazine that he grabbed her body at the funeral, screaming: "You can't have her!"
Not long after he was on his way to New York, looking for ways to channel the angst and histrionics into performance.
There, he teamed up with composer and playwright Jim Steinman who provided the wild, theatrical backing music to accompany Meat Loaf's bellowing voice.
- Bat Out of Hell -
It took years to convince music industry professionals, until they scored a meeting with legendary producer Todd Rundgren, who found their extended motorcycle rock operas hilarious.
He teamed them with musicians from Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, and "Bat Out of Hell" was finally born in 1977.
Initially, it failed to ignite, until relentless touring and some landmark TV appearances -- most notably on Britain's "Old Grey Whistle Test", triggered a frenzy.
The album would eventually sell some 43 million copies worldwide.
Some of the stories have a ring of performance about them, not least the claim that a shot-put blow to the head at school instantly improved his singing.
But the energy and passion on stage were undeniable.
- 'Anything for Love' -
"There were fights, mutinies, drugs and over-indulgence at every stop," wrote Louder Sound of that infamous first tour.
"Meat pushed himself so hard physically every night that he required oxygen to revive him."
There were broken bones, piles of cocaine and nervous breakdowns -- and that was only the first album.
"He's a tortured guy," Karla Devito, his backing singer, told Louder Sound in 2016. "There's no doubt about that."
More albums followed, never quite recapturing that early energy but still generating huge sales, particularly in Britain.
Then in 1993 he became a global mega-star, thanks to the eight-minute opus "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)" which topped the charts in 28 countries and won him a Grammy Award.
Meat Loaf had always sought acting work, and before his music career took off, he had parts on Broadway with "Hair" and in the original cast of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", as well as its film adaptation.
He would often dip back into acting -- the statement about his death said he appeared in 65 movies.
Most memorable was his role as Bob, a man with huge breasts, in "Fight Club".
He continued to release albums and tour regularly, though a string of health scares often led to time off and speculation he would retire.
The singer had collapsed onstage at least three times since 2003, including once in Canada in 2016 after suffering from dehydration while singing "I'd Do Anything For Love".
R.Cornelis--JdB
