Singer, songwriter, and actor Meat Loaf—the stage name of Dallas-born Marvin Lee Aday—had sold 80 million records worldwide by the time he died in January 2022. ∙ He developed his powerful, theatrical vocal style performing in the casts of such classic rock musicals as Hair and The Rocky Horror Show. ∙ Playwright Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf began writing songs together in 1974 while they toured with National Lampoon: Lemmings. ∙ Written by Steinman and produced by Todd Rundgren, Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf’s sprawlingly ambitious 1977 debut album, has been certified 14-times Platinum. ∙ “Paradise By the Dashboard Light”—one of the longest 45 singles ever pressed, at eight-and-a-half minutes—peaked at No. 39 when released in 1977 and is now considered a rock classic. ∙ In 1993, Meat Loaf and Steinman released the quintuple-Platinum Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell, which featured the Grammy-winning single “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That).” ∙ His 2000 autobiography, To Hell and Back, was made into a TV movie, with W. Earl Brown in the title role.