Meatloaf has passed

[MIKEW-UK]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html

Ralph and Russ were very much involved in starting off Meatloaf's career as a recording artist, producing his first album Stoney and Meatloaf on Rare Earth

[Motown Eddie]

Just heard about Meat Loaf on the news. Rest In Peace & Music Marvin Lee Aday.

[thanxal]

So sad to read this. May He Rest in Peace.

[moe]

Ralph, didn't you have Stoney here on SDF years ago [if my mind serves me]?

RIP..

[mysterysinger]

Stoney & Meatloaf the full album ....

[mysterysinger]

And the Big Pink CD with the bonus tracks - wonder if the promised expanded release will ever happen.

Rest in peace Meatloaf.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cookep...57663243894087

[ralpht]

I think so, Moe. but don't have much memory of the time period.

[ralpht]

I always liked that album cover. We shot that in the Village in New York. Afterwards we would be at a radio station doing an interview on Stoney and Meatloaf. I noticed an empty studio with a grand piano and played the first few bars of a Gospel Rock song I was working on, " Heavy As Jesus". Meat loved it and we would soon bring it into the studio. Ironically in Meat's post Motown years, he would use the song to get his deal with Jim Steinman. When Steinman heard the title he remarked to Meat that he looked as heavy as TWO Jesus's.
So it was a shock to see the sad news first thing this morning. I will always remember Meatloaf with fond memories of what we went through all those years ago. RIP Meat, we had a blast.

[sansradio]

A friend of mine sent his "Dead Ringer [For Love]" video with Cher this morning with no context. Having not seen any news yet at that point, I thought it was just a blissful, random stroll down memory lane. What a shock to learn what had happened an hour later. Rest in power.

[Circa 1824]

Devastating loss of Meatloaf, and now Louie Anderson, also.

:[[

[Levi Stubbs Tears]

Meatloaf was my first real rock idol. The epic Bat out of Hell album was a massive hit downunder even before it broke in overseas markets.

Even my Dad - whose favourite artists were Johnny Mathis & Neil Diamond - loved Meat.

Farewell and thanks for all the memories.

[luckyluckyme]

[QUOTE=mysterysinger;683756]And the Big Pink CD with the bonus tracks - wonder if the promised expanded release will ever happen.

Rest in peace Meatloaf.

Originally Posted by mysterysinger
And the Big Pink CD with the bonus tracks - wonder if the promised expanded release will ever happen.


From 'The Second Disc'

In Memoriam: Meat Loaf [[1947-2022)

.....
Health issues plagued Meat Loaf for the last several years of his life. He had always had a robust touring schedule, but back problems and other issues kept him off the road since 2016. But Meat reported that he was recovering from those issues and made an appearance on the Huckabee show in September where he performed three songs. He even reunited with Stoney, a.k.a. Shaun Murphy, at one of her concerts towards the end of last year. And in December, he announced on Facebook that he was going into the studio in early January to record seven songs for a new album and also participate in a new reality show based around "I'd Do Anything for Love." It is unknown at this time if any sessions for the proposed album happened, although it was reportedly also to include demos and/or vintage, unreleased concert tracks. Also at the time of his passing, Second Disc Records and Real Gone Music were continuing work on an expanded edition of Motown's Stoney and Meatloaf which has been in development for the past four years. It's hoped that the release will come to fruition in 2022 as a tribute to Meat Loaf's enduring legacy.

[ralpht]

Brian McCollum of the Detroit Free Press did a nice piece on Meatloaf. There is a minor error. S&M wanted me to remain as their producer, but Harry Balk wanted Nick Zesses and Dino Fakaris to have a shot at them since they were hot writers at the time. This would be the only time I would disagree with Harry.

See text from Free Press below.

[9A]

Meat Loaf sang for Motown, got start in Detroit before 'Bat Out of Hell' fame

Brian McCollum
Detroit Free Press


Well before the platinum records and packed arenas, Meat Loaf was a striving singer with a stint in Detroit and an obscure Motown release under his belt.

Meat Loaf, who died Thursday at 74, would go on to describe his brief time in Detroit as a happy accident. But it was also a crucial chapter in the saga of the singer-actor raised in Texas as Michael Aday, years before he blossomed into a household name with 1977’s “Bat Out of Hell” and a slew of hit singles.

Meat Loaf, center, in Detroit on Oct. 11, 1970, during his time with the musical "Hair" and prior to his short deal with Motown Records. Pictured at left is William Davidson, businessman who would later own the Palace of Auburn Hills and the Detroit Pistons.
“In a dramatic sense, it was almost like destiny kept bringing him back to Motown,” said Paul Barker, director of development with the Motown Museum.

Barker met with Meat Loaf in October at the Motor City Comic Con, getting a firsthand account of the star’s Detroit days and the road to “Stoney and Meatloaf,” the 1971 Motown release that paired the singer with his “Hair” castmate Shaun Murphy.

Stoney & Meat Loaf, featuring Shaun Murphy, top, and Meat Loaf, briefly recorded for Motown's Rare Earth Records. In 1969, making a gambit for the lucrative rock market, Motown had launched the label Rare Earth Records, signing a flurry of white acts under the direction of veteran music executive Harry Balk.

A year later, Meat Loaf, in his early 20s, was performing in the Detroit production of the counterculture musical “Hair” when he caught the eye of brothers Ralph and Russ Terrana, then working with Balk at Motown.

The rotund singer certainly stood out onstage, as a Free Press story noted in November 1970: “Meat Loaf weighs only slightly less than 300 pounds and has the incredible voice that booms out ‘This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius’ to open the play.”

For the Terrana brothers, there was intriguing potential in Meat Loaf and fellow cast member Shaun "Stoney" Murphy.

“He had radiators for lungs. He had so much power, and so did Stoney,” Ralph Terrana recalled Friday. “That’s why we liked them together.”

Meat Loaf, second from right, with fellow "Hair" cast members in Detroit in 1970.
The sibling producers got the green light from Motown’s Balk: “Oh yeah, they can sing. Go get ‘em.”

“Hair,” playing the Vest Pocket Theater, may have ignited the interest. But it wasn’t Meat Loaf’s first Detroit foray: The California-based singer had already logged time at the Grande Ballroom and other area rock venues with versions of a band that began as Meat Loaf Soul and morphed into incarnations such as Floating Circus and Popcorn Blizzard. The group shared bills with a host of acts, including Grande house band the MC5.

“It was a great scene,” Meat Loaf reflected in a 1994 Free Press interview. “It wasn't the laid-back San Francisco thing. It was high energy, Detroit rock 'n' roll.”

The connections he made during the Grande days proved enduring: In 1976, a year before “Bat Out of Hell,” he was tapped by Detroit’s Ted Nugent for lead vocals on the guitarist’s album “Free-For-All.” Nugent would later tell the Free Press that Meat Loaf had been a galvanizing performer at the Detroit clubs — “this big man going berserk onstage.”

Back at Motown in 1970, the Terrana brothers whipped up a Stoney & Meat Loaf demo for fellow producer Mike Valvano.

“The first time I played the demo to Mike, he said, ‘My God, you’ve got an opera singer,’ ” Ralph Terrana recalled. “I started to get worried about that. I just wanted to do rock ‘n’ roll.”

The Terranas and Valvano forged ahead with Stoney & Meat Loaf, recording the bed tracks with the Funk Brothers at Motown’s Studio A and cutting vocals at Studio B on West Davison.

“If you listen to the song ‘She Waits by the Window,’ at the end he hits this very high, holding note,” Ralph Terrana said. “He was so loud, it came through the control room glass louder than through the control room speakers. We fell off our asses laughing. You’d never heard a note that big.”

The record “Stoney and Meatloaf” — deploying an alternate spelling of the singer’s name — was released in October 1971, notching a hopeful debut at No. 76 in Billboard before fizzling out.

Terrana said the project was vexed in part by another Detroit group: The album’s most promising track, “What You See is What You Get,” was released just before the Dramatics issued a similarly titled R&B single — “Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get” — that became a Top 10 pop hit.

The details of Stoney & Meat Loaf’s departure from Motown are “kind of a mystery,” Terrana said.

“Harry wanted a different [production] team,” he recalled. “Stoney and Meat Loaf weren’t happy. I was kind of hurt. Then it all gets really vague. And it wasn’t too long afterward that they started squeezing Harry out because Motown was closing up [in Detroit].”

Cover of the 1971 album "Stoney and Meatloaf," featuring singers Shaun Murphy and Meat Loaf and released by Motown's Rare Earth Records.

Stoney & Meat Loaf may have been short-lived, but Stoney and Meat Loaf went on to big things. Murphy remained with Motown as a solo act for two years before becoming a fixture with Bob Seger, working as a backing singer in the studio and on the road, up through Seger’s latest tour in 2019. Now a Nashville resident, she also served a lengthy tenure with the band Little Feat.

As for Meat Loaf, the post-Motown legend looms large. He carried on with stage work — including the Broadway production of “Hair” — and landed a part in 1975’s “Rocky Horror Picture Show” before making the epic “Bat Out of Hell” with collaborator Jim Steinman and becoming one of the globe’s hottest rock acts. He continued to record and tour through the decades, playing a final Detroit show at Motor City Casino in 2015.

“Meat Loaf’s Detroit story was almost accidental, like chance,” said the Motown Museum's Barker. “In a weird way, those Detroit roots touched both of his careers, both musically and theater-wise.”

Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com.

[Circa 1824]

If memory serves correctly, Meatloaf’s young daughter was on the cover of People magazine as she was in Diana’s wedding pic in Switzerland.

[mysterysinger]

[QUOTE=luckyluckyme;683920]

And the Big Pink CD with the bonus tracks - wonder if the promised expanded release will ever happen.

Rest in peace Meatloaf.

Originally Posted by mysterysinger
And the Big Pink CD with the bonus tracks - wonder if the promised expanded release will ever happen.


From 'The Second Disc'

In Memoriam: Meat Loaf [[1947-2022)

.....
Health issues plagued Meat Loaf for the last several years of his life. He had always had a robust touring schedule, but back problems and other issues kept him off the road since 2016. But Meat reported that he was recovering from those issues and made an appearance on the Huckabee show in September where he performed three songs. He even reunited with Stoney, a.k.a. Shaun Murphy, at one of her concerts towards the end of last year. And in December, he announced on Facebook that he was going into the studio in early January to record seven songs for a new album and also participate in a new reality show based around "I'd Do Anything for Love." It is unknown at this time if any sessions for the proposed album happened, although it was reportedly also to include demos and/or vintage, unreleased concert tracks. Also at the time of his passing, Second Disc Records and Real Gone Music were continuing work on an expanded edition of Motown's Stoney and Meatloaf which has been in development for the past four years. It's hoped that the release will come to fruition in 2022 as a tribute to Meat Loaf's enduring legacy.

Thanks for that info.

[bob_olhsson]

Shaun posted on Facebook that he had moved to Nashville and the two of them had been planning on doing an album.

[ralpht]

It was always my dream to bring them back into the studio. Sort of a Stoney and Meatloaf reunion. I had five songs that would have worked. Not to be now.

[bob_olhsson]

Around 1980 I went to work for the group Quicksilver Messenger Service. One of the things I learned was that the whole rock venue, FM radio scene was controlled by a small group of publicists. I suspect the lack of that connection was why our top-40 connections couldn't break our rock artists. Make no mistake, our artists and records were great by any measure.

[ralpht]

Phil Jones and the sales department were geniuses at promoting R&B, but a little out of their league with Rock and Roll.

[bob_olhsson]

It wasn't just R&B, they were geniuses at top-40 radio.

It's just rock was breaking on FM and in completely different live venues from the world both Berry Gordy and Harry Balk had come from. This was why Stevie Wonder told me he was holding out for finding a different manager. He had been touring with the Beatles and Stones in Europe but not in the U.S.