Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman Perform Bat Out Of Hell

Jim Steinman, co-creator of power ballads and orchestral-style rock by such artists as Meat Loaf and Bonnie Tyler, has died. Steinman was a composer, lyricist and record producer whose work with Meat Loaf on the 1977 album Bat Out of Hell catapulted the motorcycle-loving singer to stardom. The Connecticut State Medical Examiner's office confirmed Steinman's death to NPR. He was 73. Steinman's brother told the Associated Press he died of kidney failure.

Steinman fully embraced the epic, operatic-style rock of the 1970s, and once stated, "If you don't go over the top, you can't see what's on the other side." A bio on his website calls him "The Lord of Excess," and notes that the L.A. Times once referred to him as "the Richard Wagner of rock." In addition to Bat Out of Hell and further projects with Meat Loaf, Steinman's credits include Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart," Air Supply's "Making Love Out of Nothing At All" and Celine Dion's "It's All Coming Back To Me Now."

Steinman wrote his first musical while a student at Amherst. His professional career began at the Public Theater in New York. That's where he met Meat Loaf when the singer auditioned for a part in the composer's first musical, More Than You Deserve.