Ellen Foley and Karla DeVito Collide Vocals For First Time on Ellen’s ‘Fighting Words’

For over 40 years Ellen Foley and Karla DeVito have had parallel careers which after all this time have come together on Ellen’s new album ‘Fighting Words’.

Ellen Foley was the female lead vocal on Meat Loaf’s ‘Bat Out of Hell’ classic ‘Paradise by the Dashboard Light’ but was replaced by Karla in the video who mimed Ellen’s vocals for the cameras.

Ellen Foley told Noise11.com why she wasn’t in the Meat Loaf video. “Because I declined from being in the tour and Karla was going to be in the tour,” Ellen says. “She was the face of the tour, the face of the female element of Meat Loaf. I just went with it. Whatever! And 40 million records later … it bothered me for a while but it certainly doesn’t anymore. Anybody who knows anything about the record, or me or Karla knows I sang the vocal on the record”.

‘Bat Out of Hell’ was recorded across 1975 and 1976. The album was released in 1977 and became one of the biggest selling albums in the world. It is the biggest selling album ever in Australia now outranking John Farnham, Abba and Shania Twain.

Despite the parallel career, Ellen and Karla only became friends in recent years. “We have come together in the last five years or so,” Ellen says. “We didn’t really know each other but we did a tribute one night here in New York called 54 Below to Jim Steinman. I sang ‘Heaven Can Wait’, Karla sang ‘Lost Boys and Golden Girls’. It was all these young types and it was she and I so we huddled together and we struck up a friendship. I just find her to be so wonderful. Then we both did this trio with Meat Loaf on ‘Braver Than We Are’, a cut from his last album. Our friendship took off from there to the point where I said to Paul ‘I want you to write us a song we can sing together. It was not all that unselfish. I figured it would get some attention if she was on the record with me”.