Grammy-winning songwriter Jim Steinman has died at the age of 73, his brother has confirmed.
Bill Steinman said his brother died at his home in Connecticut on Monday from kidney failure, having been ill for a long time.
“I miss him a great deal already,” he told Associated Press.
Steinman wrote Meat Loaf’s best-selling Bat Out Of Hell album as well as hits for Celine Dion, Air Supply, and Bonnie Tyler.
He was born in New York City on 1 November, 1947, and started his career in musical theatre, where he wrote and produced operatic the types of rock songs and power ballads that became his stock trade.
He was awarded a Grammy for his work on Celine Dion’s album Falling Into You and was inducted into the Songwriters’ Hall Of Fame in 2012.
Meat Loaf’s album Bat Out Of Hell was released in 1977, with Steinman’s music, and it became one of the best-selling albums of all time.
He also wrote Meat Loaf’s 1993 album Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell and the 2006 follow-up Bat Out Of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose.
The three albums were the inspiration for his rock musical Bat Out Of Hell: The Musical, which premiered in Manchester in 2017.
Speaking at Steinman’s induction to the Songwriters’ Hall Of Fame, Meat Loaf had said: “There is no other songwriter ever like him.
“I can never repay him – he has been such an influence, in fact, the biggest influence on my life, and I learned so much from him that there would be no way I could ever repay Mr Jim Steinman.”