Behind the scenes

I see you in the morning when you go to school

Posted on by brucehhackett

There’s a weird thing that happens to celebrities when they become famous. They become known nationally or internationally at the moment when fame arrives, and the public has a hard time imagining what these people looked like, or that they even existed, before that point.

Of course, everyone has a childhood. Somewhere, in family photo albums, there is photographic proof of it.

Last year, I stumbled across an article on line that included several photos of rock stars when they were children. I was able to identify a few without looking, but others bore little resemblance to the famous people they would later become.

A few months ago, I assembled a blog with 25 photos of rock stars when they were young, and encouraged readers to see how many they could correctly identify. It got such a positive reaction that I’ve returned to the well for another batch. Here are 20 photos of rock stars in their youth. Jot down your best guesses as to who you think they are, and then scroll down to see how well you did. There’s also a few lines about their early lives and how they ended up becoming famous.

Enjoy!

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ANSWERS:

1 Cat Stevens

Born Steven Demetre Georgiou in 1948 to a Swedish mother and Greek father, and now known as Yusuf Islam, this talented singer-songwriter was the youngest of three children. He was raised in the Soho theater district of London, although following his parents’ divorce, he lived in Sweden with his mother for most of his primary school years. His commercial peak came in 1970-1975 with the albums “Tea For the Tillerman,” “Teaser and the Firecat,” “Catch Bull at Four,” “Foreigner” and “Buddha and the Chocolate Box.”

2 Prince

Born Prince Rogers Nelson in 1958 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to a jazz-singer mother and songwriter father, Prince (along with his younger sister) showed a keen interest in music from an early age. He played sports in high school but his passion was music and dance. He learned piano and guitar and began writing songs in his teens, playing in bands and ultimately being signed to Warner, who released his first LP when he was 20. He became one of the most iconic artists in rock music before his death in 2016 at age 57.

3 Madonna

Born Madonna Louise Ciccone in 1958 to a French-Canadian mother and Italian father, Madonna was raised in Bay City, Michigan, with her five siblings, attending Catholic schools there. She became accomplished in ballet and dance and moved to New York at 20 to pursue a career in dance, but also began singing in bands. By 1983, she released her debut LP and by 1985, she was a major star, beginning a chameleon-like career as a pop culture icon.

4 Elton John

Reginald Kenneth Dwight, born in 1947 in Middlesex, England, was reborn as Elton John in 1967, combining the names of two members of his first band, Bluesology (Elton Dean and Long John Baldry). He learned classical piano at age six and was hooked on rock and roll from his mother’s record collection. He got gigs in pubs at age 16 and teamed up with lyricist Bernie Taupin at age 20, ultimately getting a record contract at 22. He mimicked his flamboyant idol, the late Little Richard, in his stage shows.

5 Johnny Cash

Cash’s parents couldn’t agree whether ok call their son John or Ray, so they settled on J.R. Cash when he was born in 1932 in Kingsland, Arkansas. His family was poor, and Cash’s humble upbringing informed his empathy for the working class which pervaded many of the songs he wrote. He learned guitar at age 12 and had a high-tenor voice which switched to low-baritone when his voice changed. By age 24, Cash was on the country charts with “I Walk the Line” and became one of the biggest stars of his generation.

6 Iggy Pop

James Newell Osterberg Jr., born in 1947 in Muskegon, Michigan, was the only child of loving parents who bought him a drum set and encouraged his interest in music. At age 18, he joined The Psychedelic Stooges, who gave him the name Iggy from having played in another band called The Iguanas. Inspired by the confrontational stage antics of Jim Morrison, Iggy became a shock-rocker and befriended David Bowie. Although he was never a commercial success, Iggy has been praised by critics and his fervent fan base.

7 Paul McCartney

James Paul McCartney, born in 1942 in Liverpool, England, was surrounded by musical influences from a young age. His father Jim played trumpet and gave his son one, but Paul traded it in for a guitar. He learned piano by ear and sang in a church choir. As a lefty, he struggled to play guitar right-handed, instead restringing his guitar to play it left-handed. He began writing songs once he met John Lennon and joined him in forming The Beatles. He is perhaps the most successful musician of the past half-century.

8 Jimmy Page

James Patrick Page, born in 1944 in London, found a Spanish guitar at age 12 and taught himself how to play by listening to records. He dropped out of school at 15, playing in various bands and hanging around recording studios and clubs, networking with artists and producers alike. At only 20, he became a sought-after session guitarist, playing on many hit records by British artists. He later joined The Yardbirds and eventually formed Led Zeppelin, becoming an international guitar hero.

9 Sting

Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, born in 1951 in Northumberland, England, was the eldest of four children. He learned Spanish guitar in high school and, after stints as a bus conductor, tax officer and a teacher, began playing in jazz combos. Because of the black and yellow sweatshirt he often wore, his mates nicknamed him Sting. At age 26, he moved to London and formed The Police with drummer Stewart Copeland and, seven years later, began a successful solo career that is still keeping him busy.

10 David Gilmour

David Jon Gilmour, born in 1946 in Cambridge, England, taught himself to play guitar using a Pete Seeger songbook. At age 11, he met Syd Barrett and Roger Waters at a private boys school, and eventually spent a summer busking with Barrett in France and Spain. Gilmour worked in numerous bands before being asked in 1968 to join Pink Floyd because his friend Barrett was deteriorating due to drug abuse. He became the band’s guitarist and lead singer throughout their 1970s heyday and into the ’80s and ’90s.

11 Carlos Santana

Carlos Humberto Santana, born in 1947 in Jalisco, Mexico, was the oldest of two sons in a family that moved to Tijuana and then San Francisco in the late 1950s. He learned violin at age five and guitar at age eight, and was influenced by blues players like B.B. King and John Lee Hooker, and Gabor Szabo’s jazz guitar stylings. He formed his own band in 1966 and was a featured act at Woodstock in 1969. There are 25 Santana albums and seven Carlos solo LPs in his lengthy discography.

12 Phil Collins

Philip David Charles Collins was born in 1951 in London, the youngest of three children who all prospered in the arts. Phil was given his first drum kit at age five and relentlessly played along to music on TV, radio and records. He dabbled in acting on stage and in films throughout his teen years but returned to music in 1968. He earned a spot as drummer for Genesis in 1970 at age 19 and, upon the departure of frontman Peter Gabriel, became their lead singer. Concurrently, Collins enjoyed a hot solo career as well.

13 George Harrison

Born in 1943 in Liverpool, England, Harrison was the youngest of four children, with a mother who encouraged his love of making music. Even before acquiring his first guitar, he was obsessed with the instrument, listening constantly to everyone from Django Reinhardt to Carl Perkins. At the Liverpool Institute High School for Boys, he met Paul McCartney, and was eventually invited to join The Beatles as lead guitarist during their formative years. He blossomed as a songwriter and as a solo artist in the 1970s.

14 Paul Simon

Paul Frederic Simon was born in 1941 in Newark, New Jersey, and raised in Queens, New York. His father was a bass player and dance bandleader. He met Art Garfunkel in middle school, and the duo sang and performed in the style of the Everly Brothers, even scoring a minor hit while still in high school. He began writing songs, and eventually he and Garfunkel became international stars in the late ’60s. Simon went on to a hugely successful solo career and is regarded as one of the best songwriters in pop music.

15 Cher

Cherilyn Sarkisian, born in 1946 in El Centro, California, to parents of Armenian and German-Cherokee ancestry. As early as fifth grade, she showed a flair for theater arts. Inspired by flamboyant actresses, she took to wearing attention-getting outfits and set her sights on being a famous singer-dancer. She met Sonny Bono and Phil Spector at age 16 and sang vocals on numerous records. Stardom came as the duo Sonny & Cher, and then as a solo artist in career that has now lasted six decades.

16 Billy Joel

William Martin Joel, born in 1949 in the Bronx, New York, and raised in Oyster Bay, Long Island, was the oldest of two kids. His father Howard was a classical pianist and successful businessman. Joel took piano lessons only reluctantly, and took to boxing for several years. He ultimately resumed music, playing at piano bars and in various bands and as a session pianist. His original songs helped him get signed by Columbia, where he became one of the most successful recording/performing artists of the 1970s and 1980s.

17 Davy Jones

David Thomas Jones was born in 1945 in Manchester, England, the oldest of four children. His short stature made him a natural as a jockey, which he tried but he liked acting more, winning the part of Artful Dodger in “Oliver!” on the London stage. He was signed to a TV acting contract in Hollywood and soon found himself cast as one of The Monkees, hugely popular as a TV comedy and as a pop group. Jones continued acting occasionally and participating in Monkees reunion tours until his death in 2012 at age 66.

18 Kurt Cobain

Kurt Donald Cobain was born in 1967 in Aberdeen, Washington, to a waitress and auto mechanic. His aunt and uncle both played guitar and performed in bands, and encouraged Cobain, who sang and learned piano at a young age, trying to write songs before he had reached age seven. His parents’ divorce when he was nine made him turn inward, writing music and playing guitar incessantly. His band, Nirvana, was the cream of the Seattle grunge rock scene, but depression cut his life short at age 27 in 1994.

19 Steven Tyler

Steven Victor Tallarico, born in 1948 in Manhattan, had a father who played classical piano and was a high school music teacher. Steven liked singing and became vocalist for several bands, adopting the name Steven Tally, then Tyler later on. In 1969, one of his early songwriting attempts was “Dream On,” which became a signature hit of his band Aerosmith five years later. Tyler and Aerosmith endured peaks and valleys and have sold upwards of 70 million albums.

20 Robert Plant

Robert Anthony Plant, born in 1948 in Staffordshire, England, to a working-class family. From a young age, Plant idolized Elvis Presley and wanted nothing more than to be a rock and roll singer. He had a deep passion for blues music, learning to sing along to records by Robert Johnson, Willie Dixon and Skip James. He joined Band of Joy, and was discovered by Jimmy Page, who was looking for a singer for Led Zeppelin. With that band, and in a solo career since 1982, he is regarded as one of the best vocalists in rock history.

It never felt so good, it never felt so right

Posted on by brucehhackett

As the story goes, a Texas woman named Wilma Oday gave birth in 1947 to “nine pounds of ground chuck,” as Wilma’s husband Orvis described the infant’s reddish appearance.

Marvin Lee Aday soon came to be known by his initials “M.L.,” which also stood for Meat Loaf among those who would bully and tease the boy for his large, chubby frame.

That this kid would grow up to become one of the most unlikely rock stars of his generation speaks volumes about how serendipity, perseverance and a phenomenal voice can combine to create one of the best-selling albums in the history of rock and roll.

Meat Loaf died last week at age 74. There’s no official word on the cause of death but it appears to be due to complications from the coronavirus. What a sad ending to a dramatic life.

But I don’t want to dwell on that, because this is a rock music blog, not a medical science forum or political soapbox. Let us focus, if you please, on Meat Loaf’s talents, his accomplishments and his unique story that thrilled many millions of record buyers and concert goers between his dizzying debut LP in 1977 and his passing in 2022.

The man’s name may have been Marvin Aday (which he later changed to Michael), but the entire world knew him as Meat Loaf, which means that, on second reference, I’m supposed to refer to him as Loaf, which seems either awkward or amusing. (The staid New York Times, following its formal newswriting style, would always refer to him as “Mr. Loaf,” which I found hilarious.)

Getting the facts about this guy’s story is a challenge, largely because he relished the opportunity to continually embellish it with fantastic tall tales that contributed to his larger-than-life persona. In most articles published since his death, the authors have conceded that they don’t know for sure which anecdotes are fact and which are fiction.

For example, Meat Loaf himself claimed that when he was 16, he was hit in the head with a 12-pound shot put thrown from 50 feet away, and woke up the next morning with a three-octave voice of great power and nuance. True? It’s never been verified, but it makes great copy. In a 2013 interview, he stated he had survived 18 concussions, eight car crashes and a three-story fall. Any proof of this? Nope.

Here’s another: When his mother passed away in 1966 when Loaf was 19, he insisted that his violent, alcoholic father tried to kill him following her funeral, kicking open Loaf’s bedroom door and coming at him with a butcher knife. “I rolled off the bed just as he put that knife right in my mattress,” he had said. “I fought for my life. Apparently I broke three of his ribs and his nose, and left the house barefoot in gym shorts and a T-shirt.” (Note the use of the word “apparently.” Even Loaf isn’t sure what happened.)

What we do know for certain is that Loaf played tackle on his high school football team but also sang in his high school chorus and appeared in drama productions of “The Music Man” and “Where’s Charley?” His passion for and abilities in the arts led him to Los Angeles in the late ’60s, where he shone in rock and soul bands while also appearing in stage productions. His band Floating Circus warmed up for bands like The Who, The Stooges and the Grateful Dead, and concurrently, he appeared in the L.A. cast of “Hair.” Improbably, this led to a contract with Motown, where he was teamed with Shaun “Stoney” Murphy and, as Stoney and Meatloaf, released one album in 1971 that included a single “What You See is What You Get,” which managed to reach #36 on R&B charts (and #74 on the pop charts).

Meat Loaf in 1971

Overall, though, Loaf found his initial experience in the music business to be unsatisfying. He once said his biggest struggle in life was “not being taken seriously in the music industry. They treated me like a circus clown.”

Consequently, he pursued theater arts again by moving to New York and rejoining the cast of “Hair,” this time on Broadway, and also appeared in several other productions alongside future acting stars like Raul Julia, Mary Beth Hurt and Ron Silver. In 1973, Loaf appeared in an L.A.-based production of Richard O’Brien’s notoriously campy “The Rocky Horror Show,” a chaotic but hugely successful mix of science fiction, B horror movies, transvestism and ’50s rock and roll. When the play was made into the film “Rocky Horror Picture Show” in 1975, Loaf was again cast as the deranged Eddie, a small but important role that led to bit parts in more than 50 movies over several decades. Most were forgettable, but his appearances in “Wayne’s World,” “Black Dog,” “Spice World” and “Fight Club” drew good reviews.

Meat Loaf as Eddie in “Rocky Horror Picture Show” in 1975

In 1973, during his time with “Rocky Horror,” Loaf met eccentric songwriter-producer Jim Steinman, who had been working on developing “Neverland,” a futuristic rock version of the Peter Pan story, for which he had written several lengthy, grandiose songs. Steinman worked with Loaf on the set of the stage show “National Lampoon: Lemmings,” where Loaf served as understudy to John Belushi. Hearing and seeing Loaf sing and perform convinced Steinman that the two should collaborate, and with singer Ellen Foley also involved, they set out to create demos of four of his songs: “Bat Out of Hell,” “Paradise By the Dashboard Light,” “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth” and “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad.”

Each of these extravagant, theatrical tracks were presented to, and rejected by, dozens of record companies over the next couple of years. They were told the material didn’t fit any “recognized music industry styles,” a typically myopic view that record executives have adopted in almost every decade of the rock era.

Enter Todd Rundgren, songwriter/singer/producer and still one of the true innovators in rock. “They set up in a rehearsal studio, Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf and (singer) Ellen Foley, just the three of them, and they essentially performed most of what turned out to be the first record for me. I saw the whole presentation as a spoof of Bruce Springsteen, a guy who I thought needed to be spoofed. That’s why I decided to get involved. There was a lot of interesting stuff in there.  Steinman kind of wove this sense of humor into the material in a way that Springsteen didn’t.  I was rolling on the floor laughing at how over-the-top and pretentious it was.  I thought, ‘I’ve got to do this album.’”

Rundgren added guitar parts and brought in his bandmates from Utopia, plus Edgar Winter on sax, and even Roy Bittan and Max Weinberg, pianist and drummer with The E Street Band. Rundgren brought an intensity and “Wall of Sound” richness to the production, befitting the bombastic nature of the material.

“Bat Out of Hell” wasn’t well received in the US upon its release. Critics found it overly operatic and ostentatious, and radio program directors didn’t quite know what to make of it. Some DJs embraced it from the beginning, like the great Kid Leo on Cleveland’s dominant WMMS-FM, but it was slow to get any sort of national attention. Intense, persistent marketing efforts by Steve Popovich of Epic Record’s Cleveland International label eventually paid off, and once Meat Loaf and company performed on “Saturday Night Live” in March 1978, the floodgates opened. Suddenly, there was praise. As critic Stephen Erlewine put it, “It’s epic, gothic, and silly, and it’s appealing because of all of this. Steinman is a composer without peer, simply because nobody else wants to make mini-epics like this. It may elevate adolescent passion to operatic dimensions, but it’s hard not to marvel at the skill behind this grandly pompous yet irresistible album.”

“Bat Out of Hell” now ranks third on the list of all-time most successful albums, with more than 45 million albums sold. It still sells something like 200,000 units a year.

Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf in 1978

Meat Loaf and his ensemble toured relentlessly as momentum continued to build, which took its toll on the star, who was diagnosed with a chronic heart condition made worse by his frenetic delivery on stage. He was advised to step away from performing for a while, but he eventually resumed recording, with and without Steinman on hand to write songs for him.

Four Meat Loaf LPs in the 1980s — “Dead Ringer” (1981), “Midnight at the Lost and Found” (1983), “Bad Attitude” (1984) and especially “Blind Before I Stop” (1986) — stiffed pretty badly in the US, although they always seemed to find an appreciative audience in Britain. It wasn’t until Loaf and Steinman reunited fully in 1993 and had the audacity to release “Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell” that they were able to pull off one of rock’s greatest comebacks. The album matched the first one’s grandiosity, reaching #1 in a dozen countries, and its lead single, “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That),” also topped the charts around the world.

Loaf’s 1995 follow-up, “Welcome to the Neighborhood,” did respectably, as did the single, “I’d Lie For You (And That’s the Truth).” But by 2006, it was clear he’d gone to the well one time too many. He and Steinman had had a series of legal disputes that delayed production of “Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster is Loose,” and it showed. Critics pounced, calling it “overblown and frequently ridiculous.” The fact that it’s the only Meat Loaf LP unavailable on Spotify says all you need to know.

Throughout the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s, Loaf seesawed between suffering poor-health episodes (heart attack, shattered leg, exhaustion/collapse) and following a physical therapy regimen that permitted periodic returns to touring. You’ve got to give him credit for staying in the game for as long as he did.

Many people, including my wife, regard the original “Bat Out of Hell” album as life-changing, an absolute classic of teenage angst and bravado, and I’m inclined to agree. I’m crazy about the title song, and the funny sex romp of “Paradise” never fails to liven up a party. Without question, it has earned its place in the pantheon of pivotal rock and roll music. Not bad for a guy who Foley once described this way: “Growing up in a bumfuck Texas town, he might have become a serial killer or the guy who shot up the local 7-Eleven. But the first time I saw him, he walked in with this incredible bravado and confidence, like in his mind he was already fully formed. He had this will that allowed him to do what he had to do to survive and exorcise a lot of his demons through music. But there’s a lot of sadness and anger, which is pretty much at the core of what he does.”

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I’ve assembled a Meat Loaf playlist on Spotify that features songs from throughout his career, many of which, admittedly, I didn’t know until I took a deep dive into his catalog over the past seven days. Naturally, my list emphasizes the “Bat Out of Hell” material, but also includes early tracks like his “Rocky Horror” moment, “Hot Patootie – Bless My Soul,” and other worthy tracks from his later years.