Bill Steinman told The Associated Press that his brother died from kidney failure Monday after a long illness near his home in Connecticut. “I miss him a great deal already,” Bill Steinman told AP on Tuesday.
He was eulogized by many in the entertainment world, among them Bonnie Tyler, who tweeted, “I am absolutely devastated to learn of the passing of my long term friend and musical mentor Jim Steinman.” Celine Dion tweeted in English and French about the loss of her collaborator, calling him “a musical genius.”
Steinman was born in 1947 to a Jewish family in New York. In 2012, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and in 1997, he won Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards for producing songs on Celine Dion’s “Falling Into You” album, which included his ballad “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now.”
He wrote the music for Meat Loaf’s 1977 “Bat Out of Hell” album, a classic and one of the all-time bestselling albums.
His other chart-topping hits include Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” and “Holding Out for a Hero,” Air Supply’s “Making Love Out of Nothing at All,” Meat Loaf’s “I’d Do Anything for Love (but I Won’t Do That),” “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” and “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad.”