| Memories | |
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Posted by: |
JimmyG (jimmy.granstrom@gmail.com) 03:05 am UTC 04/23/21 |
| Already shared on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/JSRockman/permalink/3896104657169758 Jim left us far too soon, but he left us with a lot of songs and memories to remember and treasure for the rest of our lives. I'd like share some of my Steinman memories with you below (some of you may already have read most of them before). I still vividly remember hearing "Anything For Love" for the first time in late 1993. I was totally out of the loop on "new music" at the time, and was basically only listening on 80's compilation albums. For some inexplicable reason, I was watching the end of MTV Top 20 European Countdown on this particular evening. The #2 song was "Please Forgive Me" by Bryan Adams. After that, "Anything For Love" started. When Meat started singing, my first thought was "Just another power ballad" (like "Please Forgive Me"), but soon the song exploded, and by the time the duet started, I knew I had to buy the single (I ended up buying the whole album because the single was sold out). I hadn't had any significant exposure to musical theater or "rock opera" at the time, so the various parts and transitions in "Anything For Love" were new to me. Since then, I've learned to appreciate the complexity in seemingly "simple songs" like "Please Forgive Me", but at the time, I only wanted to hear more "Anything For Love"-type stuff. During the first year after buying BAT II, I was all into MeatLoaf, and did not fully recognize Jim's contributions as a songwriter. Perhaps not surprising for a 14-year old who did not play an instrument and had not started writing his own songs or lyrics yet. However, when I saw a $4 sale for the Pandora's Box tape ("songs by MeatLoaf's songwriter") I thought "How bad can it be?". Turned out to be absolutely stunning! Since then, I have typically paid more attention to songwriters than artists. I joined Rockman Philharmonic in 1996, and was fascinated by reading all the articles in the printed Rockman Record that was mailed to members. In October 1997, Steen Elm Steen Elm Sørensen and I headed to Vienna to see "Tanz der Vampire", and the following summer we went with Sandra Lindholm-Svensson to London to meet up with Joerg Bindschus and Jackie Jacqueline Dillon see a "Whistle Down The Wind" preview, where I also met Jim for the first time. I posted like a maniac on Jim's mailing list at that time, and out of all the hundreds of things I must have posted, he remembered the one time I mentioned that I worked extra as a tennis coach a few years a week. Bloody unbelievable! Something similar happened at the Joe's Pub concert in January 2005. Steven Rinkoff came up to me and said "I remember your e-mail on the mailing list". I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, but apparently I had posted some epic "bats and guitars"-type e-mail on Jim's mailing list around the 1996/1997 time frame, and he still remembered it almost a decade later! I was cranking out a lot of outrageous posts and comments at the time, but the fact that something stuck with him for almost a decade is still quite remarkable. I wish I had remembered it as vividly as he did, as it has become increasingly more difficult to tap into that "wild side" in recent years. Would have been a fun read today.... I had a long stretch of not seeing a Steinman show between 2005-2015. My wife thinks Steinman's songs are "worse than porn" (I know Jim would take that as a "compliment"), so after 10 years of "celibacy" since the "Over The Top" performances at Joe's Pub and at the Mohegan Sun, I was more than ready for a "musical orgy" when I saw "Paradise Found - The Lost Songs of Jim Steinman" at 54 Below in 2015, followed by three more Steinman shows (Tyce Green's release concert and the BOOH musical in Toronto and London) in 2017 and 2018. I am really grateful that Jim stayed alive long enough to see his Bat Out Of Hell musical finally be staged, and I also know that the people who performed for him in recent years are also grateful that he was able to attend some shows - like Pat's NYC concerts in 2015 - and make their dream of performing in front of him become a reality. Jim had a lot of huge hits during his career, but I still believe that his legacy will grow even greater in the years to come, as people fully start to understand his importance in music history. | |
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