Meat Loaf was born Marvin Lee Aday in Dallas Texas in 1947. He attended Thomas Jefferson High School in Dallas before moving on to Lubbock Christian College and later North Texas State College. He left North Texas State in 1967 and moved to Los Angeles, California where he played in bands at local clubs before teaming up with Pete Woodman and together forming the backbone of a band they called Meatloaf Soul. After the band had played some minor gigs in Los Angeles they decided to change their name to Popcorn Blizzard and move to the Detroit area where Pete Woodman had connections. They played around Detroit for a couple of years becoming the house band at the city's Grand Ballroom and backing visiting artists such as The Kinks, The Who, The Grateful Dead and Jimi Hendrix. This regional success even enabled them to release a single on the Magenda label the tracks being "Once Upon A Time" backed with "Hello".

The band then chose to change their name to Floating Circus but by the beginning of 1970 the band had split up and Meat had moved back to Los Angeles where he got a job performing in the musical "Hair". He was however soon heading back to Detroit to appear in the same musical when it began a six month run in the “Motor City”

Stoney Murphy, real name Cheryl Murphy, was born in Omaha, Nebraska but moved with her family to Cedar Rapids, Iowa when she was eleven before moving again in her senior year of high school to Detroit. After graduating from Detroit’s Osborn High School, Stoney was keen to develop her singing talent and was about to move to California, where she thought there would be more opportunities, when she was offered the chance to replace a departing member of a local all girl group called “The Lorelies”. Stoney played the local club circuit with “The Lorelies” and subsequently another group called “The Wild Angels” but it was as a member of another all girl bar band called "Feminine Touch" that she was brought to the attention of Dick Sloss manager of the "Wilson Mower Pursuit". The "Wilson Mower Pursuit" were formed in 1967 as a blues band with Dave O'Brien as lead vocalist but towards the end of 1968 Dick Sloss recruited Stoney to be the new lead vocalist for the band. A number of other personnel changes happened around this time and it seems the only thing that stayed the same was the band's name. However the new "Wilson Mower Pursuit", and Stoney in particular as lead vocalist, received positive reviews in the Detroit area and at one time many were tipping them to be the next great success story to come out of Detroit. Meat, who first met Stoney whilst performing on the same concert bill at an Ohio college, was equally impressed with her vocals and later said "one of the best singers I have ever heard in my life - I used to be in awe of that girl. She could sing as well as Streisand and I think Streisand is amazing". He was so impressed that when Armand Coullet, the road manager for Hair, aware of his recent affiliation to the city, asked if he knew of any good singers there he suggested Stoney. By this time Stoney's run with the "Wilson Mower Pursuit" was over, the band had folded and Stoney had been working as a waitress in Detroit. Stoney successfully auditioned for a part in the production and Stoney and Meat were soon performing in the musical at Detroit’s Vest Pocket Theatre.

Though Meat and Stoney had no scenes in the show together their performances attracted plenty of positive press coverage and the record companies. Motown were one of several record companies interested in signing Meat. Ralph Terrana, one of the label’s record producers, suggested that he record a duet album with Stoney. This appealed to both Meat and Stoney and they signed with Motown. From all accounts it seems that the recordings were made on a sort of "production line" basis. Meat and Stoney were asked to come in to the studio and do no more than lay down their vocals as quickly as possible to the songs that they were given by the Motown writing and production team assigned to the album. Stoney would get the vocals sorted out in no time but it appears Meat took longer which did not please Motown. The album, consisting of a weird mix of soul, blues, gospel and rock songs, was eventually completed in the summer of 1971 and released in September of that year on the Rare Earth Label, a progressive subsidiary of Motown. The album was titled "Stoney and Meatloaf" (Meatloaf being shown as one word!).

A single released in advance of the album "What You See Is What You Get" backed with "Lady be Mine" was not a huge hit though it did well enough to enter the US Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart on 22nd May 1971, staying there for six weeks and reaching a high of number 71. The single also reached number 36 on Billboard’s R & B/Soul Singles chart. As can be seen from the scans of the adverts from the music trade papers (click on images for more detailed copies) Stoney and Meat Loaf did at least receive some promotional support from Motown during this period.

Stoney and Meat Loaf article from the UK music paper "Disc and Music Echo" May 22 1971

Review of the single and album from UK music papers

Another track from the album "It Takes All Kinds of People" backed with a song which was not on the album, the Temptations hit "The Way You Do The Things You Do" was released as a follow up single in July 1971. However though it too benefited from full page adverts in the trade press it did not even achieve the modest success of the first single. The trade advertisement for the single "It Takes All Kinds Of People" from Billboard Music Magazine August 7th 1971 appears above. If you want to see the advert in more detail then just click on the image.

To promote the album Stoney and Meat Loaf went out on the road with a local Detroit band called Jake Wade and the Soul Searchers supporting a number of popular bands such as Bob Seger, Alice Cooper, B.B. King, and Rare Earth. Meat, being in awe of Stoney's voice, seemed to be very aware of his comparative vocal shortcomings. "The band knew Stoney could sing but they didn't think I was too hot. And they were right. Compared to Stoney, no. Compared to Aretha Franklin and all the other people they backed up, no". However Meat made up for this by throwing himself into what would later become his trademark crazy theatrical stage antics. "Stoney was ripping and I was yelling and screaming, and then, when we'd got them going I jumped off the stage and got into the middle of the audience with a mike, as far as I could get. Stoney's singing and I'm rocking and running from side to side. I got these people completely nuts. We stormed. This was one cooking live band. Stoney was so great and combined with my crazy theatrical antics it was like this wild element that just blew into town". It would seem though that Stoney left most of the antics to Meat. Certainly that would appear to be the case based on what could be perceived as a slightly less than complimentary comment that Meat was to make some years later, "When we went out live she never moved, she stood in one place and sang. I had to do all the moving".

In his autobiography "To Hell and Back" Meat tells the story of Stoney and himself returning to the studio to record the song "Who is the Leader of the People". Meat thought this song was great but Motown subsequently decided that they didn't want Stoney and Meat Loaf putting out this track as a single preferring to give it to established artist Edwin Starr who had just had a huge hit with "War". Meat admits to being furious with this treatment and storming into Motown head Barry Gordy's office full of people to complain in dramatic style - but to no avail. Motown simply replaced Stoney and Meat Loaf's lead vocals with Edwin's. According to Meat the original background vocals done by Stoney and Meat Loaf were left on the track and can be heard on the Edwin Starr single. You can check this out for yourself by going to the audio section and downloading Edwin Starr's version.

Though the first single was reasonably successful, it appears that the sales of the follow up single and album convinced Motown that this partnership was not going to be the success that they wanted. In fact according to Ralph Terrana, producer on the album, Motown bosses had for some time been pressurising him to "drop" Meat Loaf and concentrate on developing Stoney as a solo artist. This pressure was initially resisted but the incident between Terry Gordy and Meat was probably the final straw in the relationship between Meat and Motown and the record company released Meat. Stoney was kept under contract but moved out to California where Motown were at that time relocating their main operations. Early in 1973 Motown released a single from her entitled "Let Me Come Down Easy". A sample of this track is available in the audio section However this single was not a success and with Motown apparently in organisational disarray Stoney ran out of patience with them and left to join Bob Seger's band as a backing singer.

This might have been the end of the Stoney and Meat Loaf story. However Motown subsequently tried to "cash in" on Meat Loaf's "Bat Out of Hell" album success by re-releasing in the late seventies a number of the album tracks. They also included on this re-release album the "Who is the Leader of the People" track. However on this version the lead vocals are supplied by Meat Loaf only. If you listen to Edwin Starr's version you will notice that there are a lot more lyrics to each verse which appear to be missing from Meat's version. I therefore suspect Motown removed Stoney's part of the lead vocals. They also managed to unearth two Meat Loaf solo tracks (or perhaps again they removed Stoney's vocals?) that were presumably considered not good enough to make the original album and a Meat Loaf only version/edit of "Kiss Me Again" one of the original album tracks. This time around they also emphasised the Meat Loaf half of the partnership; the re-release album being titled "Meatloaf - Featuring Stoney and Meatloaf".

Details of the tracks on the original and re-release albums can be found on the Track Listings Page

The re-released album, being nothing like "Bat Out of Hell", was not a success. Those who bought it on the strength of that album were probably disappointed. However enough copies were sold to make the re-release album even today not particularly difficult to find at on line vinyl record stores.

Review of the re-released album from UK music papers 1979

How good these songs actually are though is of course a matter of opinion. Some of the songs, not surprisingly, are now a little dated but over the years I have come to appreciate them though admittedly in some cases it has been a rather slow process. Meat himself, when Bat Out Of Hell was riding high, referring to the Stoney and Meatloaf album said "My original dream was to make a record, so I made one I didn't like, just for the chance to record. It was junk!" Perhaps his opinion of the recordings has mellowed over the years but certainly the statement seems rather harsh. What cannot and should not be denied is that the recordings are a part of Meat Loaf's history.

I have an Interview and Comments Page on this site where you can download an MP3 file of an extract from an interview with Meat in 1978 in which Meat gives his views on the Stoney and Meatloaf album. The page also has a full transcript of the relevant part of the interview and comments from Ralph Terrana, one of the album’s producers.

This probably is now the end of the story. It would be wonderful to have these songs officially released on CD but I suspect this is a forlorn hope.

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