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Meatloaf (real name Marvin Lee Aday), began his show business career with small parts in Broadway theatrical productions. Playing Eddie in the film version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, he also featured as vocalist on Ted Nugent's 'Free For All' (1976) album.He met Jim Steinman while working with The National Lampoon Roadshow, and the duo composed a grandiose rock opera together. Eventually signing to Epic in 1978, 'Bat Out Of Hell' was released the same year and after initial indifference interest was generated following extensive touring with Cheap Trick. The album sold in excess of five million copies and stayed in the UK charts for an incredible 395 weeks. After a three-year gap 'Dead Ringer' (1981), mainly composed by Steinman, became a UK Number 1, with the title song providing a Top 5 hit single. Interest in the US had already started to wane, and the duo went their separate ways, Meatloaf's career beginning a gradual decline.
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Bat out of Hell (The LP)
Meat Loaf and friend/songwriter Jim Steinman started Bat out of Hell in 1972, but did not get serious about it until the end of 1974. The two-year gap in the production was due to controversy surrounding his son born in Afton, Wyoming. Meat Loaf decided to leave theatre, and concentrate exclusively on music. Then, the National Lampoon Show opened on Broadway, and it needed an understudy for John Belushi, a close friend of Meat Loaf since 1972. It was at the Lampoon Show that Meat Loaf met Ellen Foley, the co-star who sang "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" with him on the album Bat out of Hell.
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| Meatloaf On Countdown |
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Meat Loaf and Steinman formed the band The Neverland Express to tour in support of Bat out of Hell. Their first gig was opening for Cheap Trick in Chicago. He gained national exposure as musical guest on Saturday Night Live on March 25, 1978. Guest host Christopher Lee introduced him by saying, "And now ladies and gentlemen I would like you to meet Loaf. (pauses, looks dumbfounded) I beg your pardon, what? (he listens to the director's aside) Oh! Why...why I'm sorry, yes, of course...ah... Ladies and gentlemen, Meat Loaf!" The huge success of the album caused a rift to open up between Meat Loaf and Steinman: the group, named after Meat Loaf for ease of labeling, seemed to Steinman to sideline his work as creator, and Steinman started to resent the attention that his partner was getting.
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| Meatloaf On Countdown |
During a show in Ottawa, Meat Loaf fell off the stage and broke his leg. He toured with the broken leg, performing from a wheel chair. During this time, Meat Loaf began heavy use of cocaine, had a nervous breakdown and threatened to commit suicide by jumping off the ledge of a building in New York. Then, in December 1978, he went to Woodstock to work with Steinman. It was at the Bearsville studio that Meat Loaf met his future wife, Leslie G. Edmonds; they were married within a month. Leslie had a daughter from a previous marriage, Pearl, who has since followed in her stepfather's footsteps to become a singer. In the middle of recording his second album, Bad for Good, Meat Loaf lost the ability to sing; it is unclear as to the exact cause - the tour was a punishing one, and the vocals are energy intense. However, his doctors said that physically he was fine and that his problem was psychological. Nevertheless, Steinman decided to keep recording Bad for Good without Meat Loaf.
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Bat out of Hell has sold over 40 million copies worldwide, making it one of the highest selling albums of all time. In the UK alone, its 2.1 million sales put it in 38th place. Despite peaking at #9 and spending only two weeks in the top ten in 1981, it has now clocked up 474 weeks on the UK album chart, a figure bettered by only by Rumours by Fleetwood Mac - 478 weeks. In Australia, it knocked the Bee Gees off the number #1 spot and went on to become the biggest-selling Australian album of all time. Bat out of Hell is also one of only two albums that has never exited the Top 200 in the UK charts; this makes it the longest stay in any music chart in the world, although the published chart contains just 75 positions [extract from lyricsfreak.com]
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(Interview from ClassicRockMagazine.com , Issue 173, 2012)
Meat Loaf: When I first met Jim [in 1973] he was sharing an apartment on 102nd Street with I don't know how many people. His bed was in the kitchen - it's headboard was the refrigerator
Jim Steinman: Meat was the most mesmerising thing I'd ever seen He was much bigger than he is now, fucking huge. His eyes went into his head when he sang, like he was transfixed.
Meat Loaf: We knew we were gonna make a record together.
Jim Steinman: We used to do all our practice in a hotel room. I'd written most of the piano parts without a piano. A lot of them had been pinched from some of my previous pieces, the rest I just put down.
Meat Loaf: We were just a duo, voice and piano. We were doing songs like Bat Out Of Hell, and most of the others, in fact.
Jim Steinman: We thought we had enough material, so that's when we started making rounds of the record companies. That was a true disaster. A medley of the most brutal rejections you could imagine.
Meat Loaf: We didn't do demo tapes, we'd do it live. People would just look at us: "What are you dang?"
Jim Steinman: Producers hated it too We'd go to producers and they'd say: "You can't do this on a record - it's theatre music. No one's gonna buy it." The only person who believed in it was Todd Rundgren. Either he believed in it or he didn't care.
Todd Rundgren (producer/guitarist): When I heard the record, I rolled on the floor laughing. It was so out there. I said: "I've got to do this."
Jim Steinman: Todd essentially bankrolled it. Bearsville, which is Todd's label, were going to put it out. But then Warners, who owned Bearsville, rejected it.
Todd Rundgren: For about four months. we didn't know whether it would come out or not. Then we found this little label called Cleveland International
Steve Popovich (owner of Cleveland Records): It was the day and age of the wimpy-lookmg Peter-Frampton-types. Then here comes Meat Loaf. This huge guy with an amazing voice.
Todd Rundgren: Steinman was highly influenced by Bruce Springsteen - the theatrical nature of the material, the suburban teenage angst. Every Springsteen song was about that.
Jim Steinman: The title song is the least understood element of the album. "Bat Out Of Hell" is about obsession. Anyone who's obsessed is funny. But it's also a noble sentiment.
Todd Rundgren: Somebody suggested we make Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad sound like an Eagles song, cos the Eagles were enjoying a string of hit singles.
Meat Loaf: Todd mixed the record in one night. He started at six o'clock and finished about four o'clock in the morning.
Jim Steinman: I didn't want it just to be a bunch of songs, I wanted to be a cinematic experience
Meat Loaf: Overproduced? Bullshit. I was at Motown, so I know what 'overproduced' really means
Jim Steinman: This was the days of disco, of Saturday Night Fever, of John Travolta in his white suit, pointing to the heavens. we had a huge, fat Meat Loaf about to collapse...
Todd Rundgren: I don't think it got any good critical notices.
Jim Steinman: It was a big success overseas long before America. It took about a year to get big in America.
Todd Rundgren: The success was a complete shock to all of us. Nobody came into that record with any expectations. We were fortunate to get it done at all.
Jim Steinman: How many did it sell? It all depends on which accountant you talk to.
THE FACTS:Release Date: October, 1977
Label: Cleveland International/Epic
Highest Chart Position: UK #9, US #14, Aust #1
Personel: Meat Loaf (Vocals), Jim Steinman (Keyboards, percusion), Todd Rundgren (Guitar, Keyboards), Kasim Sulton (Bass), Edgar Winter (Sax), Max Weinberg (Drums), Ellen Foley (backing Vocals)
Rolling Stone Review: "Swell...but entirely mannered and derivative...The principals have some growing up to do"
This bootleg recording was more than likely sourced from his Wembley Arena gig, which was performed on the 13th December, 1993 in London. As stipulated on the generic Grapefruit cover, the recording is only part one of the concert, and the full concert has been released in full previously under the above title.
(See meatloafsingles2 for the full concert listing)
The post consists of MP3 (320kps) ripped from CD and includes both the generic Grapefruit artwork along with the covers for the Wembley Arena release (as shown below). I have also chosen to include a live recording of "Heaven Can Wait" taken from a 1993 single, as a bonus track. The sound recording for this concert is listed as an audience recording on meatloafsingles2, but I would go as far to say that it is soundboard quality.
Please ensure you have drunk plenty of fluids before you listen to this bootleg, and stop playing it altogether, if you feel faint....LOL
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Track Listing01 - I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)
02 - You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth
03 - All Reved Up With No Place To Go
04 - Rock And Roll Dreams Come Through
05 - Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad
06 - Out Of The Frying Pan (And Into The Fire)
07 - Life Is A Lemon And I Want My Money Back
08 - Heaven Can Wait (Bonus Track)
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Meatloaf Link (150Mb) New Link 29/02/2016
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Awesome Bootleg and set list thanks so much for sharing, any idea where we can find the second disc?
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