Best known in conjunction with his enormously successful collaborations with singer
Meat Loaf, producer and composer
Jim Steinman rose to the top of the pop charts on the strength of his distinctively operatic artistic vision. A native of New York City trained as a classical pianist, he first surfaced during the mid-'70s with the off-Broadway musical
More Than You Deserve; among its cast was Houston-born
Marvin Lee Aday, aka
Meat Loaf. The two men reunited a few years later for a tour with
the National Lampoon Road Show, after which
Steinman began composing a musical update of the Peter Pan story titled
Never Land. Many of the songs he wrote for the project were then instead incorporated into
Meat Loaf's 1978 LP
Bat Out of Hell, a teen rock opera that spawned three Top 40 singles -- "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad," "Paradise by the Dashboard Light," and "You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth" -- on its way to becoming one of the best-selling albums of the decade.
A
Bat Out of Hell sequel was planned, but in 1981
Steinman issued his own solo debut,
Bad for Good. After
Meat Loaf released his own follow-up,
Dead Ringer, rumors began flying, and it was reported that the singer had been unable to record the songs that ultimately comprised the
Steinman album due to physical and emotional problems. Eventually, the producer filed suit against
Meat Loaf and his label, Epic, and he soon began working with
Bonnie Tyler, writing and producing her massive 1983 hit "Total Eclipse of the Heart." A year later,
Steinman collaborated with
Barbra Streisand on her
Emotion LP, and also worked with
Billy Squier on
Signs of Life. However, he kept a relatively low profile throughout the remainder of the decade, raising more than a few eyebrows in 1987 when he agreed to produce the album
Floodland for British goth rockers
Sisters of Mercy; a sequel,
Vision Thing, followed in 1990. Meanwhile,
Original Sin, ostensibly
Steinman's second solo effort but issued under the name of the one-off project
Pandora's Box, was released in 1989. Finally, in 1993,
Steinman and
Meat Loaf reunited for the best-selling
Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell.
–
Jason Ankeny, Rovi