Meat Loaf 74

By RodneyHatfieldJr for Indie

This sucks hard. Meat Loaf, the heavyweight rock superstar loved by millions for his “Bat Out of Hell” album and for such theatrical, dark-hearted anthems as “Paradise By the Dashboard Light,” “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad,” and “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That),” has died. He was 74.


The singer born Marvin Lee Aday died Thursday. No cause or other details were given, but Aday had numerous health scares over the years. A native of Dallas, Aday was the son of a school teacher who raised him on her own after divorcing his alcoholic father, a police officer. Aday was singing and acting in high school and attended Lubbock Christian College and what is now the University of North Texas. 


He was still a teenager when his mother died and when he acquired the nickname Meat Loaf, the alleged origins of which range from his weight to a favorite recipe of his mother’s. He left for Los Angeles after college and was soon fronting the band Meat Loaf Soul. For years, he alternated between music and the stage, recording briefly for Motown, opening for such acts as The Who and the Grateful Dead, and appearing in the Broadway production of “Hair.”


By the mid-1970s, he was playing the lobotomized biker Eddie in the theater and film versions of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” had served as an understudy for his friend John Belushi for the stage production of National Lampoon and had begun working with Steinman on “Bat Out of Hell.” And the rest is musical history.


Horror fans will remember him for his roles in Rocky Horror Picture Show, Fight Club, and Blacktop.


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