Sat 5/20 @ 7:30PM
Meat Loaf may not be the most current or newsy performer now, but his explosive emergence on the national scene 40 years ago is inextricably tied to Cleveland. The late Steve Popovich left his job at CBS Records in New York to return to Cleveland and launch Cleveland International Records specifically to release Meat Loaf’s 1977 debut album Bat Out of Hell.
The album had been rejected by almost every label, but Steve believed in it and he worked it tirelessly for months on end, long after a larger label would have left it for dead. Within a year, it was platinum. Since then it’s become one of the biggest-selling records of all time, every song on it a well-known radio classic. It was also the center of a lawsuit against SONY (CBS) that Steve pursued prior to his death in 2011, asserting that the label had been cheating him out of royalties on CD sales for decades.
Although he never had a hit that size again, Meat Loaf has plugged along periodically releasing another album in the epic, bombastic style he became known for. Another, Braver Than We Are, is in the pipeline for this year, and he’s hit the road again. He’ll be back in the town that launched him to play at the Hard Rock Rocksino. The show was postponed from Wed 3/30. Tickets are $57.50-$99.50.