Lyrics

Though Jim began his career in theatre, he is best known as a songwriter/producer whose records have sold more than 100 million copies, described by the Los Angeles Times as ‘the Richard Wagner of rock’. At Amherst College he wrote and starred in an epic musical The Dream Engine. It caused a sensation and New York Shakespeare Festival’s Joe Papp bought the rights at the interval. His first professional musical was More Than You Deserve presented at Joe Papp’s Public Theater where he worked for five years. When a singer named Meat Loaf auditioned for him, Spin magazine called the meeting ‘one of the top ten most important moments in the history of rock and roll’. Then came his first record the legendary Bat Out of Hell with Meat Loaf, the biggest selling debut album ever and third best selling album of all time, well over 30 million. The sequel Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell topped the album charts in 38 countries 16 years later in 1993. No. 1 songs include Total Eclipse of the Heart (1983 and 1995); Paradise by the Dashboard Light; Dead Ringer; Making Love Out of Nothing at All; Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad; Holding Out for a Hero; I’d Do Anything for Love, But I Won’t Do That (best selling rock single ever) and It’s All Coming Back to Me Now which was named the 1997 Song of the Year by BMI, for having had the most broadcasts worldwide. He won a Grammy award as producer for Best Album of the Year for Celine Dion’s Falling Into You. He made one platinum album as a singer, Bad for Good. Film music includes Footloose; Streets of Fire; The Shadow and the forthcoming Mask of Zorro. He is currently writing Neverland and Lulu, two new musicals. He is excited by the possibility of doing music and lyrics for Batman, a large-scale stage musical being developed by Warner Brothers, as well as an American network television presentation of a musical based on The Little Prince. He has written the score for Dance of the Vampires, a rock opera, staged by Roman Polanski, which opened in Vienna in October 1997 to rave reviews and record box office and is scheduled to open next year in London or New York.

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