Meatloaf: A Journey Through the Years

Marvin Lee Aday or as he is better known Meatloaf was born in Dallas, Texas in 1947 (or 1951 he has claimed both years as his birth year) to a family of Gospel singers. Meatloaf attended Thomas Jefferson High School and moved to Los Angeles in 1967 at the age of 20 and formed a group known as Popcorn Blizzard. The band performed as an opening act for some famous people such as The Who, The Stooges, and Ted Nugent. The Popcorn Blizzard sold 5,000 albums. Meatloaf continued to perform with the Popcorn Blizzard until he got a role in a West Coast Production of "Hair" the musical.

In 1975 he performed as "Eddie" in The Rocky Picture Horror Show" and in 1976, Meatloaf did vocals for one side of Ted Nugent's record Free-For-All. The album that catapulted Meatloaf in to stardom was his 1977 collaboration with Jim Steinman called "Bat Out of Hell". Meatloaf had three hit songs from this album, "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad", "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights" and "You Took The Words Right Out of My Mouth." In 1981 when Steinman released his own solo debut "Bad for Good" which was to be a sequel to Bat Out of Hell and Meatloaf released his own sequel, "Dead Ringer" a lot of rumors where flying and Steinman sued Meatloaf and Epic Records to make sure none of his songs where on the album. Meatloaf never had any huge hits in the eighties however he did release some albums. In 1983, he released "Midnight at the Lost and Found", in 1984, there was "Bad Attitude" and in 1986 Meatloaf released "Blind Before I Stopped". All of them failed and Meatloaf declared bankruptcy and began rehabilitation for physical and psychological problems.