. This global chart-topper even won Meat Loaf his first (and only) Grammy Award, for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Solo – strange, as the song is not a solo endeavour. In its final minutes, the late rocker duets passionately with a raspy-voiced Geordie called Lorraine Crosby. Their to-and-fro is electric, though Crosby's appearance on the record was unplanned. The youngest of four children, Crosby grew up in poverty in the Newcastle suburb of Walker. She lost her father in a car accident when she was only two years old. Drawn to the eccentricity of David Bowie and the soulfulness of Motown, she honed her vocal skills in the church choir. But Crosby did not always sing with the gravelly texture we hear on I'd Do Anything For Love. 'I had this really high, thin voice,' she says, likening her tone to Blondie's Debbie Harry. By her 20s, Crosby was touring worldwide across United States Air Force bases, performing multiple shows a night with her band. 'It was gruelling, and I was drinking like crazy,' she admits. 'We were a proper rock and roll band, tequila shots and Jack Daniels. The amount of singing and drinking, they don't mix. My voice got rougher and rougher and rougher.' However, her voice impressed late composer Jim Steinman, who was sent a demo of original songs Crosby had recorded with her husband, Stuart Emerson. The mastermind behind Meat Loaf's seminal Bat Out of Hell album and Wagnerian epics like Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart, Steinman flew the couple over to New York and promptly signed them to his short-lived management company Arrested Development, eventually securing them a recording contract with Meat Loaf's label MCA Records. The couple sold their house in Newcastle and moved to New York, later living in Los Angeles. Steinman was 'one of the greatest people I've ever met in my){kind=link}
Thirty years ago, the rocker’s electric duet with an unknown Geordie made the song a chart-topper. What happened next?
Deemed an industry “has-been” after a long commercial slump, Meat Loaf defied expectations with his 1993 comeback hit I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That). This global chart-topper even won Meat Loaf his first (and only) Grammy Award, for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Solo – strange, as the song is not a solo endeavour. In its final minutes, the late rocker duets passionately with a raspy-voiced Geordie called Lorraine Crosby. Their to-and-fro is electric, though Crosby’s appearance on the record was unplanned.
The youngest of four children, Crosby grew up in poverty in the Newcastle suburb of Walker. She lost her father in a car accident when she was only two years old. Drawn to the eccentricity of David Bowie and the soulfulness of Motown, she honed her vocal skills in the church choir.
But Crosby did not always sing with the gravelly texture we hear on I’d Do Anything For Love. “I had this really high, thin voice,” she says, likening her tone to Blondie’s Debbie Harry. By her 20s, Crosby was touring worldwide across United States Air Force bases, performing multiple shows a night with her band. “It was gruelling, and I was drinking like crazy,” she admits. “We were a proper rock and roll band, tequila shots and Jack Daniels. The amount of singing and drinking, they don’t mix. My voice got rougher and rougher and rougher.”
However, her voice impressed late composer Jim Steinman, who was sent a demo of original songs Crosby had recorded with her husband, Stuart Emerson. The mastermind behind Meat Loaf’s seminal Bat Out of Hell album and Wagnerian epics like Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart, Steinman flew the couple over to New York and promptly signed them to his short-lived management company Arrested Development, eventually securing them a recording contract with Meat Loaf’s label MCA Records. The couple sold their house in Newcastle and moved to New York, later living in Los Angeles.