Meat Loaf

Marvin Lee Aday, who legally changed his name to Michael Lee Aday and performed under the stage name Meat Loaf, was born on September 27, 1947, in Dallas, Texas, and died on January 20, 2022. He built a career spanning Broadway performance, film acting, and recording, becoming one of the best-selling music artists in history.

Aday acquired his nickname through two accounts from his youth. His father, upon seeing the newborn's red complexion, reportedly told hospital staff the infant looked like nine pounds of ground chuck, prompting staff to write "Meat" on the crib. Years later, after his weight reached 240 pounds at a height of five feet two inches, seventh-grade classmates began calling him Meat Loaf. A separate incident involving a football coach whose foot Aday stepped on produced a similar epithet. His parents were Wilma Artie, a schoolteacher and member of the Vo-di-o-do Girls gospel music quartet, and Orvis Wesley Aday, a former police officer who later sold a homemade cough remedy. His father had been medically discharged from the U.S. Army during World War II after being wounded by mortar shell fragments, and subsequently struggled with prolonged episodes of alcohol consumption. Aday graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in Dallas in 1965, having appeared in school productions of Where's Charley? and The Music Man, and played defensive tackle on the football team. He attended Lubbock Christian College before transferring to North Texas State University.

In 1967, following his mother's death from cancer and a violent confrontation with his father, Aday used money his mother left him to rent an apartment in Dallas before eventually flying to Los Angeles. There he formed his first band, Meat Loaf Soul, whose debut performance took place in 1968 at the Cave in Huntington Beach, California, opening for Van Morrison's band Them and Question Mark and the Mysterians. The band underwent multiple lineup and name changes, performing as Popcorn Blizzard and later Floating Circus, opening for acts including the Who, the Fugs, the Stooges, MC5, the Grateful Dead, and the Grease Band. Floating Circus released a single, "Once Upon a Time," backed with "Hello."

Aday then joined the Los Angeles production of Hair, which led to an invitation from Motown in Detroit. There he recorded with fellow Hair performer Shaun "Stoney" Murphy, producing the 1971 album Stoney & Meatloaf. The album's single "What You See Is What You Get" reached number 36 on the Best Selling Soul Singles chart and number 71 on the Billboard Hot 100. He and Murphy toured with Jake Wade and the Soul Searchers, opening for artists including Richie Havens, the Who, Bob Seger, Alice Cooper, and Rare Earth. Aday departed Motown after the label replaced his and Murphy's vocals on a song he favored, "Who Is the Leader of the People?", with vocals by Edwin Starr.

His Broadway career ran from 1968 to 1976. After rejoining the cast of Hair at a Broadway theater, he auditioned for the Public Theater's production of More Than You Deserve, where he met composer Jim Steinman. He was cast as Rabbit, a soldier who detonates his fellow troops so they can return home; the cast also included Ron Silver and Fred Gwynne. In the summer of 1973, between the show's workshop production in April and its full run from November 1973 through January 1974, Aday appeared in a Shakespeare in the Park production of As You Like It alongside Raul Julia and Mary Beth Hurt. In late 1973, he was cast in the original L.A. Roxy production of The Rocky Horror Show, playing both Eddie and Dr. Scott. That dual casting carried over to his Broadway appearance in The Rocky Horror Show, and he also appeared on Broadway in Rockabye Hamlet. His film work included reprising the role of Eddie, though not Dr. Scott, in the 1975 film The Rocky Horror Picture Show; he later noted that the decision to cast Jonathan Adams as Dr. Scott made the film less effective than the stage production. Additional film roles included the bus driver in Spice World in 1997 and Robert Paulson in Fight Club in 1999, among more than 50 film and television appearances across his career.

Aday and Steinman began developing Bat Out of Hell during this same period. The 1977 album remained on the charts for over nine years and continues to sell an estimated 200,000 copies annually as of 2016. Two follow-up albums completed the trilogy: Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell in 1993 and Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose in 2006. Combined sales across the trilogy surpassed 100 million records worldwide. The song "I'd Do Anything for Love" earned him the Grammy Award for Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance. In 1994, he received the Brit Award in the United Kingdom for best-selling album and single. His popularity was particularly strong in Europe, and in 2006 he ranked 23rd for total weeks spent on the UK charts. VH1 ranked him 96th on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock.