Jim Steinman

James Richard Steinman (November 1, 1947 – April 19, 2021) was an American composer, lyricist and record producer. He also worked as an arranger, pianist, and singer. His work included songs in the adult contemporary, rock, dance, pop, musical theater, and film score genres. He wrote albums for Bonnie Tyler and Meat Loaf, including Bat Out of Hell (one of the best-selling albums in history), and also wrote and produced Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell and Tyler's Faster Than the Speed of Night.

His most successful chart singles include Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart", Air Supply's "Making Love Out of Nothing at All", Meat Loaf's "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)", the Sisters of Mercy's "This Corrosion" and "More", Barry Manilow's "Read 'Em and Weep", Take That's "Never Forget", Celine Dion's cover of "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" (originally released by Steinman's project Pandora's Box) and Boyzone's "No Matter What". Steinman's only solo album, Bad for Good, was released in 1981.

Steinman's work also extended to musical theater, where he began his career. He was credited with the book, music, and lyrics for Bat Out of Hell: The Musical, lyrics for Whistle Down the Wind, and music for Tanz der Vampire.

Early life

Steinman was born November 1, 1947, in Hewlett Harbor, New York, the son of Eleanor, a teacher of Latin, and Louis Steinman, who owned a steel distribution warehouse. He was of Jewish ancestry.

Steinman graduated from George W. Hewlett High School in 1965. In 1963, during his sophomore year at Hewlett High School, Steinman won Newsday's January essay contest on American History for his essay on what he believed were the three greatest American inventions. Steinman received his bachelor's degree from Amherst College in 1969.

Career

1960s

In March 1968, Steinman contributed music for an Amherst College adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's A Man's a Man. In May 1968, he directed an Amherst production of Michael McClure's The Beard. Over the summer of 1968, he contributed music for an adaptation of Brecht's Baal by the Island Theater Workshop on Martha's Vineyard.

As a senior at Amherst College in Massachusetts, Steinman wrote the book, music and lyrics for The Dream Engine (April 1969), a musical that was used to fulfil the requirements for an independent study course in his senior year. Steinman himself played Baal while an audition call went out to fellow students for the remaining roles of the production. Barry Keating (serving as the co-creator and director) also played the role of the Historian/Narrator and worked extensively with Steinman to compile the book for the production, often shouting lines from the audience and sourcing heavily from their earlier work with Brechtian form and tropes. The play was presented at the Amherst campus's "Kirby Theater" in April 1969 and transferred to nearby Holyoke for a small handful of performances, infamously drawing the attention of local authorities for its ensemble-wide display of nudity in the finale (an element that was begrudgingly muted for the off-campus performances).

The Dream Engine, set in a satirical-dystopian 1969, is the story of a young boy named Baal who, along with his rebel fellows, does not accept the restraints and limits of their society. Baal is the leader of a self-assembled group of wild boys called The Tribe, whose mortal enemies are Max and Emily, the parents of the Girl, a young woman with whom Baal has fallen in love. Several motifs, lyrics, and monologues from this show appear in songs Steinman later released. For example, the lyrics "turn around bright eyes" from "Total Eclipse of the Heart" can be heard in the song titled "The Formation of the Tribe". This was originally a reference to the blast flash of nuclear explosions, and the full riff of the original Dream Engine composition that can be heard in the musical break of the Bonnie Tyler recording, including symbolic musical "blasts" to punctuate each phrase. Multiple esoteric references to "silver" and "gold" also occur first, throughout the book, and appear in numerous later Steinman works, and the full monologue that was later recorded to open "You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)" is delivered in a love scene between Baal and The Girl.

Steinman said in an interview that Joseph Papp, founder of the New York Shakespeare Festival, saw the play and was so impressed he signed it up during intermission. He wanted to bring it to New York (either Broadway or Central Park), but balked when his Amherst faculty advisor explained to Papp that, contrary to Papp's published claim, Steinman was never threatened with "near-expulsion" from the college. Nonetheless, Steinman worked under Papp after his years at Amherst College.

1970s

In 1971, Steinman provided music for a puppet show titled Ubu. The show, put on by puppeteer and filmmaker Demian, was an adaptation of Ubu on the Hill, an 1888 play by Alfred Jarry. In 1972, Steinman worked with college friend Barry Keating on a musical titled Rhinegold at the Mercer Arts Center, based on Richard Wagner's opera Das Rheingold. Steinman wrote the music and Keating wrote the lyrics. In 1972, Bette Midler sang a demo of the Steinman song "Heaven Can Wait". Midler's career was at an early stage at the time; she went on to far greater fame, making that demo a collector's item.

In 1973, Steinman's song "Happy Ending" appeared on the album Food of Love, sung by Yvonne Elliman. This was the first commercially released recording of a song written by Steinman. That same year, Steinman wrote music and lyrics for a musical titled More Than You Deserve (1973). One of the actors cast in this show was Marvin Lee Aday, who went by the nickname Meat Loaf, with whom Steinman later collaborated. In 1973, a single of the song "More Than You Deserve", from the musical sharing that name, was released. Reid Whitelaw was the producer and Norman Bergen was the arranger, with Meat Loaf was the lead singer. A cover of this single also appears on the 1981 album Dead Ringer.

In 1975, while working for Joseph Papp at the New York Shakespeare Festival, Steinman contributed music and lyrics to Thomas Babe's Kid Champion, which starred Christopher Walken. In 1976, there was a minor one-month run of a musical titled The Confidence Man. It was based loosely on the novel by the same title by Herman Melville. The book and lyrics were written by Ray Errol Fox, the music by Steinman. Ray Fox described the 1976 production as "a capsule version of the show". In 1986, a more elaborate production of the show with added songs was held at Queens College in New York City. It was directed by Susan Einhorn and performed by Queen's College students. Orchestrations were by Steven Margoshes, a frequent Steinman collaborator. One song from The Confidence Man, "Milady", was recorded by Barry Manilow, but never released. The melody of that song later appeared in Tanz der Vampire as the melody of "Für Sarah" (for Sarah). Some music from this show later appeared in the hit song "Making Love Out of Nothing at All", and in the score of the film A Small Circle of Friends. A cast album of the songs from The Confidence Man, produced by Jeff Olmstead, was released in 2003. A cabaret show featuring songs from The Confidence Man was presented in 1977 at the Manhattan Theatre Club, where Steinman had previously written music for another cabaret show titled Bloodshot Wine.

Since 1974, Steinman had been working on a musical entitled Neverland (its only performances were during a 1977 workshop at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.) Adapted largely from the Steinman/Keating source material developed for the Dream Engine, it also loosely sourced material from Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie. Steinman and Meat Loaf, who were touring with The National Lampoon Show, felt that three songs were "exceptional" and Steinman began to develop them as part of a seven-song set they wanted to record as an album. The three songs were "Bat Out of Hell", "Heaven Can Wait" and "The Formation of the Pack", which was retitled "All Revved Up With No Place to Go". The show also contained Steinman's "Bolero" (a.k.a. "Great Bolero's of Fire") which was later used at many live shows featuring Steinman's work. Steinman originally wanted Kim Milford to sing the album Bat Out of Hell, but later changed his mind.

Steinman and Meat Loaf had immense difficulty finding a record company willing to sign them. According to Meat Loaf's autobiography, the band spent most of 1975, and two-and-a-half years, auditioning Bat Out of Hell and being rejected. CBS executive Clive Davis even claimed that Steinman knew nothing about writing, or rock music in general. Recording started in 1976 in Bearsville, near Woodstock. After numerous further rejections, the album was released by Cleveland International Records in October 1977. The album was an immediate success in Australia and the United Kingdom, and later in the United States. Reports vary as to how many copies of the album have been sold, but in 2007, Cleveland International Records founder Steve Popovich said that it was around 40 million copies. The highest-charting song from the album was "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad", which reached No. 11 on the Billboard Charts.