Stoney and Meatloaf is the only album by Stoney & Meatloaf, a collaboration between Meat Loaf and female vocalist Shaun Murphy, released in 1971 on the Motown subsidiary label Rare Earth. Meat Loaf and Murphy met while performing with the Detroit cast of Hair.
The album was re-released several times with a different track listing under the title Featuring Stoney and Meat Loaf. Firstly in 1978 and 1979 on the Prodigal label (PDL 2010) and again in 1986 on Tamla Motown (ZL 72217). The album contained most (but not all) of the tracks on the original album; "(I'd Love to Be) As Heavy as Jesus" and "Game of Love" were not on the reissue. In addition to three new tracks ("Stone Heart", "Who is the Leader of the People" and "Everything Under the Sun"), some songs appear in different versions and in some cases, different song titles.
The album is being released on CD for the first time in remastered two-disc form by Real Gone Music and Second Disc Records in 2022.[2] The release will contain a selection of bonus tracks including new mixes of the additional songs originally released on the 1978 reissue of the album, as well as both sides of Stoney's solo single for Motown, and unreleased outtakes from Stoney's solo sessions.[3]
Louder ranked Stoney & Meatloaf as the sixth best Meat Loaf album, calling it a "minor gem" and "a frothy stew of brass and thunder".[5] Although Allmusic deemed the songs to be "second-tier", the singers' performances were praised, and the site said the album was "Worth picking up for a buck or two out of a used bin".[4]
The track "(I'd Love to Be) As Heavy as Jesus" was included in the 1971 Motown gospel compilation Rock Gospel: The Key to the Kingdom, alongside tracks by label stars The Supremes, Valerie Simpson, Marvin Gaye, The Jackson 5, Gladys Knight & the Pips and others.[6]
^Shipley, Al (January 21, 2022). "Remembering Meat Loaf, A Singer Who Was Larger Than Life". Spin. Retrieved 2023-02-05. They signed to a Motown subsidiary, Rare Earth, as a duo but their album 1971 Stoney & Meatloaf — later appreciated as a psychedelic soul gem — flopped.
