Jim Steinman, the songwriter, textist, producer and multi-instrumentalist who wrote all the songs on Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell and Bat Out of Hell II: Back in Hell, died, TMZ and Rolling Stone report. No cause of death has been revealed. Steinman was 73 years old.
Jim Steinman was born in New York in 1947. He grew up on Long Island, graduating from George W. Hewlett High School in 1965 before attending Amherst College and graduating in ’69. As a senior at Amherst, Steinman created and acted in musical theater production The engine of dreams, which he is said to have called “a three-hour rock epic with tons of nudity.”
Among viewers The engine of dreams was Joseph Papp, the founder of the Public Theater, who worked with Steinman to adapt the musical into a show called Nowhere, which finally premiered in 1977. Through his connection to the Public Theater, Steinman came to work with Meat Loaf, which appeared in Steinman’s 1973 production More than you deserve.
In 1975, Steinman left the theater world to focus on making music with Meat Loaf. Two years later, their collaboration was made in a spectacular way with the debut of Meat Loaf Bat Out of Hell, which would become one of the best-selling albums of all time. Steinman and Meat Loaf spent years before reuniting for the 1993 hit Bat Out of Hell II: Back in Hell, with the most iconic song of Meat Loaf “I would do anything for love (but I will not do that)”. Lou Reed is thought to have called the album “the future of rock.”
Beyond his work with Meat Loaf, Jim Steinman has written hits for Bonnie Tyler (“Total Eclipse of the Heart”), Céline Dion (“Everything Returns to Me Now”), the Mercy Sisters (“More”) and others. He also released the solo album Bad for good in 1981.
Steinman was nominated for four Grammy Awards, participating in the 1997 Grammy Award for Album of the Year for his work on Céline Dion Falling in love with you. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2012 and the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2016.
One of the final achievements in Jim Steinman’s life was change Bat Out of Hell in a stage show. Bat Out of Hell: The Musical premiered in Manchester, England in February 2017 and ran in several locations over the next few years. “It was meant to be a musical,” Meat Loaf said New York Times. “I turned it into a rock show. Jimmy turned him over and made a musical. That’s what he wanted it to be. ”