Jim Steinman, hitmaker for Meat Loaf and Celine Dion, dies aged 73

Jim Steinman speaks at the 2012 Songwriters Hall of Fame induction (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Jim Steinman, the Grammy-winning composer who wrote Meat Loaf’s best-selling Bat Out Of Hell debut album, has died aged 73, his brother said.

Bill Steinman told The Associated Press that his brother died on Monday from kidney failure and was ill for some time.

He said Jim Steinman died in Connecticut near his home in Ridgefield.

“I miss him a great deal already,” Bill Steinman said by phone.

Jim Steinman was born on November 1, 1947, in New York City.

Meat Loaf performing on stage at the Capital Radio Party (Yui Mok/PA)

He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2012 and won album of the year at the 1997 Grammy Awards for producing songs on Celine Dion’s Falling Into You, which celebrated its 25th anniversary last month and featured the Steinman-penned power ballad It’s All Coming Back to Me Now.

Steinman wrote the music for Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell, released in 1977 and one of the top-selling albums of all-time.

It has reached 14-time platinum status by the RIAA, which is equivalent to selling 14 million albums in the US alone.

Steinman also wrote Meat Loaf’s 1993 album, Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell, another commercial and multi-platinum success.

It featured the international hit I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That). Steinman also penned hits such as Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart and Air Supply’s Making Love Out Of Nothing At All.

“There is no other songwriter ever like him,” an emotional and teary-eyed Meat Loaf said at Steinman’s induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. “Here I go getting emotional…

“I can never repay him,” he continued. “He has been such an influence, in fact, the biggest influence on my life, and I learned so much from him that there would be no way I could ever repay Mr Jim Steinman.”

Meat Loaf and Steinman joined forces again for Meat Loaf’s most recent album, 2016’s Braver Than We Are. The songs were written over a 50-year period, and include several originally intended for Bat Out Of Hell.