Stoney & Meatloaf came to Rare Earth to record an album together. Marvin Lee Aday (Meatloaf, of “Bat Out Of Hell” fame) met Shaun Murphy (Stoney), a young White female singer, when both of them were hired to sing as members of the cast of the musical Hair in Detroit. Both have powerful voices easily capable of tackling the more dramatic end of R&B, so it is no surprise that Rare Earth management took up the project. The songwriters and producers for the album included a couple of established Motown staff members, Michael Valvano and Russ Terrana, with support from Russ’ brother Ralph Terrana (owner of the Tera Shirma Studio) and members of the group Scorpion (Mike Campbell, Ray Monette), plus Patti Jerome (otherwise known as PJ). Between them, this group co-wrote eight of the ten songs. The odd-ones-out are “Game Of Love” which was the work of Ike Turner, or Icky Renrut as the credit goes, and the traditional ballad “Jimmy Bell”.
Their album “Stoney & Meatloaf” is a wonderful mixture of theatrical show-tunes and Blues and Gospel-infused up-tempo ballads. Guitarist Ray Monette is probably responsible for the subtle guitar intro to the Blues track “Lady Be Mine”, which is one of the many surprises on the album.
Stoney & Meatloaf (or Meatloaf & Stoney!
Photo: Publicity Photo 1971 (Wikimedia Commons)
Two singles were drawn from the album: “”What You See Is What You Get”/ “Lady Be Mine” and “It Takes All Kinds Of People” / “The Way You Do The Things You Do”. The second B-side is not on the album; it is a cover of a 1964 Motown song co-written by Smokey Robinson and Bobby Rogers.
None of the releases made a chart entry, but is a surprisingly good set of songs that still sound fresh and full of fun. The album has been re-issued a couple of times, with a new title each time. The first re-issue has two extra tracks, but the opening track is missing. The second re-issue was as a double CD entitled “Everything Under The Sun”, with eighteen extra tracks added to the original listing.
The duo’s departure from Motown was triggered by one of those two extra tracks on the first re-issue. When “Who is the Leader of the People” had been mixed, the original vocals were replaced by the voice of Edwin Starr. It didn’t go down well!
