I Think He Made It

Normally, I love January, but this one can go right to heck. I mean, starting with Betty White on New Year's Eve, look at how many bright stars we have lost! Sidney Poitier, Ronnie Spector, Fred Parris of the Five Satins, Yvette Mimieux, Bob Saget, Louie Anderson, and now, Meat Loaf.

I think back to 1977 and the day when Gerry Thompson, the local Columbia/Epic Records promotion guy, stopped at the radio station to deliver the latest batch of new records, one of which was "Paradise By The Dashboard Light," by someone or some group named Meat Loaf. Gerry was quick to tell us that it was one performer, and that record company employees had been asked to address him as "Mr. Loaf," which seemed a bit formal to me. I latched onto a copy of the "Bat Out Of Hell" album, took it home, and liked it a lot, never figuring it for a hit of any sort.

Shows what I know.  The record, which was the brilliant result of the work of co-producers Jim Steinman (who died last April) and the great Todd Rundgren, went on to sell 43 million copies. It's been certified 14 times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.

Even Loaf's names have stories behind them. He was born Marvin Lee Aday in Texas (1947), but changed "Marvin" to "Michael" because, as a child, he was too husky to fit into Levi's, and the jeans company had a radio commercial that taunted him: "Poor fat Marvin can't wear Levi's."

His father called him "Meat" because he was "born the color of ground beef, " and the rest of his stage name was appended at age 13 when, "I stepped on a [football] coach's foot, and he screamed, 'Get off my foot, you hunk of meat loaf!' "

We all have our fond memories, don't we?

"Paradise" never became a huge hit single, although it's still a popular cut for DJs who need 7 minutes and 55 seconds* to run down the hall to shake hands with the governor.  But Loaf's first hit, a Steinman song, paid tribute to Elvis.

The King had had a hit with "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You" in 1956, but Steinman wrote a song about a guy who yes, wanted and needed someone, but was not willing to dot the final "i" and say, "I love you." Steinman called it "Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad."

Give a listen to "Paradise By The Dashboard Light," and appreciate that Mr. Loaf brought theatrical performance to rock and both of those arts were the better for it. By the way, the baseball play-by-play on the record was recorded by Phil Rizzuto, the former shortstop and announcer for the damn Yankees. Phil would later claim that he had no idea that his words were being spliced into a ribald tale of teen longing. Steinman said that was not so, and Phil just wanted to deflect criticism for being the first guy to holler "Holy Cow,I think he's gonna make it!" on a record.

* A record which, by the way, was actually 8 minutes and 29 seconds long, but the prevailing wisdom was that no radio station would play a record that long, so "Let's tell 'em it's less than 8 minutes! Yeah, that's the ticket!"

I miss the 70s.