Texas Musicians: Meat Loaf

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Well, it turns out they didn’t fix the tire too well. As it’s close to time to replace them, and while I have the money, I’ll go ahead and blow my social security check this month on new tires. Needless to say, the place that “fixed” my tire will NOT be getting my business again! New tires mean another trip! Not to Texas, though (I think the next journey will be along the putting tour, central Ohio to Tennessee), but we can always go there via music! After “who’s that” for a few days, here’s someone you know! Meat Loaf If ever an album epitomized teenage lust and angst in the 1970s, it was Bat Out of Hell. But it wasn’t just for lonely teenage boys overloaded with hormones. That was a dang good album. Although that brought Meat Loaf to the mainstream dinner table as a main course (sorry ), he was hardly an “overnight sensation.” He was a singing actor (or an acting singer), having appeared in a production of Hair. He gained considerable attention playing both doomed delivery boy Eddie and his uncle, Dr. Everett Scott, in the stage production of The Rocky Horror Show. There was something missing from the plot because of one actor playing both roles when it transferred to the cult classic film The Rocky Horror Picture Show; however, Meat Loaf reprised his role as Eddie in the film. While Bat Out of Hell was a runaway success, his albums in the 80s flopped. I guess that’s because music changed from the theatrical, almost operatic music he did to the new wave and techno, and Meat’s music didn’t change with the times. However, in 1993, he scored another major success with a “sequel” to the first album, Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell and the Grammy-winning single “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That).” He was genuinely shocked by the Grammy victory, saying, “I once said I’d win an Oscar before I’d win a Grammy.” None of his acting roles ever got major notice, although he was good in the roles he played. Born Marvin Lee Aday in Dallas, there are a number of stories about how he got the nickname “Meat Loaf,” ranging from being reddish when he was born to his football coach in high school yelling “Get off my foot, you hunk of meat loaf!” at him. Whatever the story, the name stuck…and we got a great performer. Meat Loaf Born Marvin Lee Aday September 27, 1947, Dallas Died January 20, 2022 (COVID-19) (age 74) Here’s “You Took the Words Right Out My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)” from that classic Bat Out of Hell album: