Todd Rundgren

All Music Guide:

Todd Rundgren's best-known songs -- the Carole King pastiche "I Saw the Light," the ballads "Hello, It's Me" and "Can We Still Be Friends," and the goofy novelty "Bang on the Drum All Day" -- suggest that he is a talented pop craftsman, but nothing more than that. On one level, that perception is true since he is undoubtedly a gifted pop songwriter, but at his core, Rundgren is a rock & roll maverick. Once he had a taste of success with his 1972 masterwork Something/Anything?, Rundgren chose to abandon stardom and, with it, conventional pop music. He began a course through uncharted musical territory, becoming a pioneer not only in electronic music and prog rock, but in music video, computer software, and Internet music delivery as well.

As his career wound into its third decade, Rundgren concentrated on behind-the-scenes innovations, but during the '70s and '80s he maintained a relentless work schedule. He released up to two albums a year either as a solo artist or with his band Utopia, while producing acclaimed, successful records for artists as diverse as Badfinger, Meat Loaf, Grand Funk Railroad, the New York Dolls, and XTC. Given such an extensive catalog, it's not surprising that there's a vast variety of styles within Rundgren's music -- which is either rewarding or frustrating, depending on the album. Also, more often than not, the singles from each record do not offer an accurate indication of what the remainder of the album sounds like. Such an approach severely curtailed his mass appeal, but it helped him cultivate a ferociously dedicated cult audience.

During the '70s, his records were underground favorites, and his albums continued to chart until 1991, nearly 20 years after his commercial peak. In those 20 years, Rundgren may have existed largely on the fringes of pop music, but he produced a body of work that ranks as one of the most intriguing in rock & roll. A native of Upper Darby, Pennsylvania -- a suburb of Philadelphia -- Rundgren learned how to play guitar as a child, teaching himself after his initial round of lessons ceased. As a teenager, he absorbed pop music from Motown to Liverpool and formed Money, his first band, when he was 16. Following his high-school graduation, he moved to the resort town of Wildwood, NJ, where he regularly sat in with a number of bands. Eventually, he became a member of the blues group Woody's Truck Stop, which soon became based in Philadelphia.

Rundgren stayed with the band for several months, but when the group began to move toward hippie psychedelia, he and Carson Van Osten bailed to form the Nazz in 1967. Taking their name from an obscure Yardbirds song and inspired by a variety of British Invasion groups, from the omnipresent Beatles to the cult favorites the Move, the Nazz were arguably the first Anglophiles in rock history. There had been many groups that drew inspiration from the Beatles and the Stones, but none had been so self-consciously reverent as the Nazz. Playing lead guitar and bass, respectively, Rundgren and Van Osten were joined by drummer Thom Mooney (formerly of the Munchkins) and lead vocalist/keyboardist Stewkey (born Robert Antoni). By September 1967, the group received some financial support from local record store Bartoff & Warfield, who also put them in touch with John Kurland, a record promoter who was looking for a guitar pop band. Kurland took a shine to the Nazz and signed on as their manager.

Kurland and his associate, Michael Friedman, had the Nazz sign with SGC Records -- an offshoot of Atlantic Records and Columbia-Screen Gems -- in the summer of 1968. Their debut album, Nazz, appeared in October, supported by the single "Hello, It's Me." Although the song would later become a major hit for Rundgren as a solo artist, the dirgey original version barely scraped the national charts. Despite the lack of success, the record -- particularly the Nazz's self-production of "Open My Eyes" and "Hello, It's Me" -- attracted some good notices. Taking these as a cue, the group began work on an ambitious, self-produced double album, named Fungo Bat. By the time it was released in April 1969, it was trimmed to a single album, Nazz Nazz. In the process of editing, much of Rundgren's newer, Laura Nyro-influenced material -- which he had sung himself -- was left on the shelves. Neither the management nor his bandmates gave Rundgren much encouragement to sing, nor was his new introspective direction warmly received by his colleagues. Faced with a no-win situation, Rundgren left the group not long after their summer 1969 tour. Stewkey took control of the Nazz, erased Rundgren's vocals from the album sitting in the vaults, and replaced them with his own. The result was released as Nazz 3 in 1970, but it stiffed.

Rundgren, meanwhile, became an in-house producer and engineer for former Bob Dylan manager Albert Grossman's fledgling studio and label, Bearsville Records. Around the same time, Rundgren formed a band called Runt. In reality, Runt was little more than a front for his burgeoning solo career. He played all of the instruments except drums and bass, which were usually handled by brothers Hunt and Tony Sales. Runt -- either Runt's first album or Rundgren's first solo album, depending on your point of view -- was released on Ampex Records in the fall of 1970. The album slowly earned an audience, with the single "We Gotta Get You a Woman" climbing into the Top 20 in early 1971. His modest success was enough to convince Grossman to sign Rundgren to a long-term contract with Bearsville.

Apart from a re-release of Runt, the first Rundgren album to appear on Bearsville was Runt's final record, The Ballad of Todd Rundgren, a record that was reminiscent of such melodic singer/songwriter peers as King and Nyro, yet it had a subtly bizarre sensibility and quirky sense of humor that gave it a distinctive character. As he pursued his solo career, Rundgren quickly earned a reputation as a talented producer/engineer. His first production was for American Dream, but he quickly graduated to the big leagues thanks to his association with Grossman. In 1970, he engineered the Band's Stage Fright and Jesse Winchester's acclaimed eponymous debut. These two productions set the stage for Rundgren to take the production seat that George Harrison left vacant; the result was Badfinger's Straight Up, which gave him a huge hit with "Baby Blue." It wasn't long until Rundgren had a huge hit of his own. He abandoned the Runt concept before beginning his third album, deciding to record the entire record himself.

The result was Something/Anything?, a double-album set that cemented Rundgren's reputation as a near-genius producer and gifted songwriter. Apart from the fourth side, which was constructed as a tongue-in-cheek operetta about a bar band, he played every instrument, sang every part, and produced the entire album. Hailed in the rock press as some sort of masterpiece upon its early 1972 release, it also won Rundgren a wide audience. The King tribute "I Saw the Light" reached number 16, and while its follow-up (the terrific power pop classic "Couldn't I Just Tell You") stiffed, the third single, a superior re-recording of the Nazz's semi-hit "Hello, It's Me," climbed all the way to number five. In all, Something/Anything? reached number 29 and went gold, spending nearly a full year on the charts. Stardom was handed to him with Something/Anything?, but Rundgren rejected it. He would later state that he had mastered pop songcraft and had no interest to simply repeat himself through endless recyclings of "I Saw the Light" or "Hello, It's Me." That's certainly not what he delivered with A Wizard, a True Star, his 1973 follow-up to Something/Anything? A weird sonic collage encompassing everything from psychedelia and Philly soul to Disney show tunes and vaudeville, the record may not have been an intentional move to shed his mainstream audience, but that was the ultimate effect.

As the legions of listeners who loved "Hello, It's Me" departed, Rundgren's cult following -- the fans who did consider him "a Wizard, a True Star" -- intensified. Rundgren played the role to the hilt, dyeing his hair in a rainbow of colors and turning in extravagant concert performances. His appearance may have flirted with glam or glitter, but his music was getting increasingly progressive. His next album, 1974's Todd, may have had the occasional full-fledged pop song, such as the near-hit "A Dream Goes on Forever," but it had more than its share of lengthy experimental instrumentals. This was the direction he decided to pursue and he decided he needed a full-fledged band to help him continue in the progressive direction. And so Utopia were born. Initially, the group consisted of three keyboardists (Moogy Klingman, Ralph Shuckett, and Roger Powell), a bassist (John Siegler), a percussionist (Kevin Elliman), and a drummer (John "Willie" Wilcox).

Balancing Utopia with his solo career, Rundgren became one of the most prolific artists of the decade. Released just months after Todd, Todd Rundgren's Utopia consisted of only four tracks, all of which were mainly instrumental, none of which were less than ten minutes. Rundgren continued in that direction on his next solo album, Initiation, which was released in the spring of 1975. Its radio-play hit, "Real Man," became one of his concert staples, but the true heart of the album lay in the half-hour-long synth experiment to which the entire second side was devoted. Mere months later, Utopia released Another Live, a wild live album devoted to long synth-driven instrumentals. Another Live proved to be the culmination of the synth experiments and, in some ways, the stretch of willfully difficult records Rundgren made during the mid-'70s.

He kicked off 1976 with Faithful, an album that split into original pop material and re-creations of '60s chestnuts from the Yardbirds, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and the Beach Boys. His resurrection of "Good Vibrations" brought him his first Top 40 hit in three years. That year, he also revamped Utopia, stripping away two of the keyboardists (Klingman and Shuckett), as Elliman and Siegler left. Kasim Sulton joined as the new bassist. Although the new Utopia's first album, Ra, was a prog rock album by any measure, it was less overtly experimental and heavier than before. Ra was released early in February 1977 and was followed seven months later by Oops! Wrong Planet, a record that found the quartet abandoning progressive music for streamlined pop/rock, with a mainstream hard rock bent. By the time The Hermit of Mink Hollow was released in April 1978, it had been two years between Rundgren's solo albums, yet it had been six years since he had delivered an album as unabashedly pop and accessible as Hermit. On the strength of the Top 30 success of the ballad "Can We Still Be Friends," the record became a big hit, spending 26 weeks on the charts and peaking at number 36. He followed the record with the double-live album Back to the Bars, which was split between Utopia and solo material.

As his solo career received a shot in the arm, his production career reached a pinnacle of commercial success with Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell. The shamelessly bombastic record became an unexpected blockbuster, due in no small part to Rundgren's cinematic production. Not only did it reap financial rewards, but it also opened the doors for a variety of production gigs; over the next year, he kept extraordinarily busy, working with everyone from old friend Patti Smith (Wave) to new wave pub rocker Tom Robinson (TRB Two), as well as arena rock goofs the Tubes (Remote Control). Given that Rundgren had been releasing records at such a rapid rate throughout the '70s, it comes as a shock to note that neither he nor Utopia released an album during 1979. That's not to say he wasn't busy. Not only did he have his production work, but during 1979, Rundgren opened Utopia Video Studios, a cutting-edge video production enterprise. Utopia Video Studios' first project was a version of Gustav Holst's The Planets, a demonstration disc for video disc by RCA SelectaVision. It was a harbinger.

Throughout the next decade, Rundgren began to devote more time to technological developments than his own music. Nevertheless, the early '80s were a robust time for Rundgren -- his last great period of commercial success. He came back swinging in 1980, releasing two albums with Utopia: the shiny pop/rock opus Adventures in Utopia and the cutting Beatles parody Deface the Music. He also released "Time Heals," the first music video to combine computer graphics and live action; it would later be the second video played on MTV. The following year, he released his first solo album in three years, the spiritually inclined Healing. By this point, his relationship with Bearsville Records had become increasingly rocky. Utopia delivered one last album for the label, 1982's Swing to the Right, before departing for the fledgling Network label, releasing Utopia that same year. After completing a groundbreaking solo tour in 1982, which alternated acoustic sets with sets featuring taped backings and video backdrops, he released The Ever Popular Tortured Artist Effect. Despite the presence of a moderate novelty hit with "Bang the Drum All Day," the album didn't eclipse Healing on the charts.

As he attempted to leave Bearsville, Rundgren found himself in further record company difficulties when Network folded. Utopia then moved to Passport, yet another new record label. In 1983, after he devoted some time off to do technological work, he reconvened Utopia, which released Oblivion in 1984. Oblivion did respectably on the charts, peaking at 74, but the next year's follow-up, POV, tanked -- it reached only 161. Part of the problem was that Utopia's sound had indeed changed, but it was no longer contemporary. Following POV, Rundgren effectively pulled the plug on the group, although he would later reunite the band for an occasional tour. Rundgren's next solo album, A Cappella, featured nothing but his voice, albeit multi-tracked and sometimes processed beyond recognition. Negotiations with Bearsville held up the release of A Cappella for months. Once the deals were completed, Rundgren was finally free of Bearsville and he signed to its new parent company, Warner, which released A Cappella in September 1985. It did fairly well on the charts, but it was treated more as a novelty than a full-fledged record by both critics and fans.

Rundgren spent the next few years working on computers, as well producing. In 1986, he was hired to produce the cult British pop band XTC. Over the course of the recording sessions, tensions grew between Rundgren and the group's main songwriter, Andy Partridge, eventually spilling over into outright hostility. Nevertheless, the resulting album, Skylarking, revitalized XTC's career and Rundgren's producing career. Although he had a few high-profile gigs afterward -- such as with Bourgeois Tagg and the Psychedelic Furs -- he decided to continue with his own technological and musical endeavors. In 1989, he finally released Nearly Human, his soul-spiked follow-up to 1985's A Cappella. Staying on the charts for 11 weeks, it was Rundgren's last album to come close to a mainstream hit, thanks to the radio single "The Want of a Nail." Several songs on Nearly Human were also used in his musical score for the off-Broadway production of Joe Orton's Up Against It, which was originally the script for the unfilmed third Beatles movie.

A collection of new material recorded live, 2nd Wind, appeared in 1991. It was his final record for Warner and the last record he would make for a major label. The following year, he reunited Utopia for a tour of Japan, then he set to work on his first album for Rhino's new music division, Forward. Released under the moniker TR-I -- from this point on, he used TR-I to distinguish his technologically innovative work -- No World Order was an ambitious project. Not only was it released as a conventional CD, it was also released as an interactive CD-ROM through Philips and Electronic Arts. It certainly earned him press, but the reviews didn't lead to sales. Frustrated, he left Rhino, releasing The Individualist on ION in November 1995. Like its predecessor, the album was designed as a groundbreaking technological innovation -- this time, however, it was an enhanced CD. The Individualist earned better reviews than No World Order, particularly among computer-based publications.

During this time, he also worked as a DJ on the acclaimed syndicated radio program The Difference with Todd. The show was nominated for several awards, but its production was ceased in November 1996 due to an altered show format. He also did several television and film soundtracks, including the hit Farrelly Brothers movie Dumb and Dumber. In 1997, the fledgling Angel Records offshoot Guardian Records offered Rundgren a significant amount of money to re-record many of his hits and cult favorites as a bossa nova record. Clearly, Guardian was attempting to capitalize on the lounge fad of the mid-'90s, but Rundgren took the bait, supporting the resulting record, With a Twist, with a full-fledged tour. Prior to hitting the road in the U.S., he was one of the first Western artists to perform for the Chinese during the summer Shanghai Festival. That year saw the first release of his Up Against It songs through the Japanese label Pony Canyon. He also inked a deal to host a weekly online radio program called Music Nexus for the EnterMedia network.

In fact, the Internet became the main focus of Rundgren's career by the end of the '90s. In 1996, Rundgren launched Waking Dreams, a collective that developed creative ideas in marketable commodities. Perhaps more importantly to the music industry, Rundgren also founded PatroNet, an innovative device that lets users subscribe to music offered directly from his site -- with no record company middlemen at all. During all this, Rundgren continued to work on new music -- intending to distribute his new material a song at a time through PatroNet -- as well as write his much-delayed autobiography (despite short previews on his official website, it's yet to be published). The late '90s saw Rundgren return to the road for several different tours -- both as a solo performer and as part of Ringo Starr's All-Starr Band, as he also continued to produce other acts (Splender's Halfway Down the Sky, Bad Religion's The New America, etc.).

The emergence of numerous archival projects began to surface in the early 21st century, such as The King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents in Concert and a slew of Japanese-only rarity sets as part of the ongoing Todd Archive Series (by mid-2001, 11 different sets had been issued -- comprised of outtakes, demos, and full concerts over the years featuring Rundgren solo, Utopia, and even the Nazz), as well as a compilation of tracks that has only been available previously on his PatroNet service, titled One Long Year. In the summer of 2001, Rundgren participated in the A Walk Down Abbey Road: A Tribute to the Beatles tour, which also included Ann Wilson (Heart), John Entwistle (the Who), and Alan Parsons (the Alan Parsons Project). Three years later, Rundgren issued his first rock album in over a decade. Liars, a political-heavy concept record, was issued on Sanctuary in spring 2004. After a brief sojourn where he fronted the New Cars, Rundgren returned to the solo arena with Arena in 2008. Over the next few years, he spent some time touring, playing some of his classic albums in their entirety -- separate tours consisted of A Wizard, a True Star, Todd, and Healing -- and in 2011, he released two albums: a collection of Robert Johnson covers called Todd Rundgren's Johnson and (Re)Production, where he offered electronic reworkings of songs he produced for other artists.

Wikipedia:

Todd Harry Rundgren (born June 22, 1948) is an American multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and record producer. Hailed in the early stage of his career as a new pop star, supported by the certified gold solo double LP Something/Anything? in 1972, his career has produced a diverse range of recordings as solo artist, and during the seventies and eighties with the band Utopia. He has also been prolific as a producer and engineer on the recorded work of other musicians.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Rundgren engineered and/or produced many notable albums for other acts, including Straight Up by Badfinger, Stage Fright by The Band, We're an American Band by Grand Funk Railroad, Bat Out of Hell by Meat Loaf, and Skylarking by XTC. In the 1980s and 1990s his interest in video and computers led to his "Time Heals" being the eighth video played on MTV, and "Change Myself" was animated by Rundgren on commercially available Amiga computers.

His best-known songs include "Hello It's Me" and "I Saw the Light", which have heavy rotation on classic rock radio stations, and "Bang the Drum All Day", which is featured in many sports arenas, commercials, and movie trailers. Although lesser known, "Couldn't I Just Tell You" has had a major influence on artists in the power pop musical genre.

Early career [edit]

Rundgren was born in Upper Darby, at the western city limits of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Ruth and Harry Rundgren. He began his career in Woody's Truck Stop, a Philadelphia-based group based on the model of Paul Butterfield Blues Band. However, Rundgren and bassist Carson Van Osten left the band to form the garage rock group Nazz in 1967 with Thom Mooney (drums) and Robert "Stewkey" Antoni (vocals and keyboards). The group gained minor recognition with the Rundgren-penned songs "Open My Eyes" and "Hello It's Me". (He later recorded a solo, uptempo version of "Hello It's Me"; it became one of his signature songs.)

Nazz released three albums during this time – Nazz (1968), Nazz Nazz (1969), and Nazz III (1971). "Open My Eyes" gained belated recognition thanks to its inclusion in Nuggets (1972), the genre-defining anthology of American 1960s garage punk and psychedelia compiled by musician Lenny Kaye. The group's second LP was originally intended as double album (titled Fungo Bat), but instead a truncated version was released as Nazz Nazz in April 1969. Rundgren and Van Osten left the band shortly after. Under Stewkey's leadership the band continued (with new members) until 1970, and their label released a third LP Nazz III, on which most of Rundgren's vocals on the unreleased songs from the Fungo Bat sessions were replaced by Stewkey's.

Rundgren's distinctive style was informed by a wide variety of musical influences—British pop-rock (notably Pink Floyd, The Beatles, The Who, The Yardbirds, Cream and The Move), the intricate vocal harmonies of The Beach Boys, classic American rock'n'roll, Broadway musicals, the operettas of Gilbert & Sullivan and American soul and R&B, but as his music evolved he demonstrated an increasing interest in other genres as well, such as hard rock and experimental music.

Particularly during the early years of his career, Rundgren's songwriting was heavily influenced by the music of singer-songwriter Laura Nyro:

Rundgren's debut solo album Runt (1970) includes the strongly Nyro-influenced "Baby Let’s Swing", which was written about her and mentions her by name.

Nazz manager Michael Friedman, who had joined Albert Grossman management brought Rundgren to the firm where he became both a solo artist and producer for many artists in the Grossman stable.

Solo albums and production work, 1970-75 [edit]

Rundgren's unhappiness with the production on the Nazz recordings prompted him to educate himself in audio engineering and production, and after leaving the Nazz in 1969, he relocated to New York, signed with Albert Grossman and began working as a producer for other groups, as well as recording his own material, which was initially released through the Ampex Records label (a short-lived joint venture between Grossman and the Ampex company). He also apparently considered working as a computer programmer. Subsequently, he became one of the first artists signed to Grossman's Bearsville Records label (distributed through Warner Bros. Records).

After signing with Bearsville, Rundgren worked almost constantly on production projects through the early 1970s and he rapidly became one of the most sought-after and acclaimed producer-engineers of the period. He quickly gained a high reputation for his creative approach, his no-nonsense, "can-do" approach, and for his ability to solve problems, work very rapidly and bring projects to completion on time and on budget - although he did occasionally come into conflict with some of the performers with whom he worked, due to his intense work ethic and his rather sarcastic, aloof manner in the studio. Rundgren's first project for Bearsville was a Philadelphia band called The American Dream, followed by a trip to Nashville to produce Ian and Sylvia Tyson's group Great Speckled Bird, with a backing band featuring guitarist Amos Garrett, pedal steel player Buddy Cage, pianist David Briggs and bassist Norbert Puttnam and drummer N.D. Smart, with whom Rundgren worked on several later projects. During this period Rundgren also made an abortive attempt to record with Janis Joplin and her band for Joplin's next studio album, but the sessions came to nothing and the project was eventually taken over by Paul A. Rothchild; the result was Joplin's swansong LP Pearl, which Rothchild pieced together from the incomplete session tapes, following the singer's untimely death from a heroin overdose.

Albert Grossman recommended Rundgren to Robbie Robertson of The Band as the engineer for an album Robertson was producing, by singer-songwriter Jesse Winchester, who was at the time living in exile in Canada to avoid the draft. This was followed by a live album for the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Having impressed Robertson with his work on the Winchester LP, Rundgren was then asked to engineer The Band's third album, Stage Fright, which was recorded in an often fraught series of sessions at the Woodstock Playhouse. One of these was attended by a budding New York writer called Patti Smith, and their chance meeting led to an enduring friendship. Smith became an ardent champion of Rundgren's early solo work through her reviews in the rock press, and the friendship came full-circle in 1979 when Rundgren produced the final Patti Smith Group album, Wave.

His work for The Band was followed by a second album for Winchester (which was then shelved for two years) and the album Taking Care of Business by the James Cotton Blues Band. This project resulted in another fortuitous meeting for Rundgren, introducing him to Cotton's keyboard player Mark "Moogy" Klingman, who in turn introduced Rundgren to keyboard player Ralph Shuckett, and both would work extensively with Todd over the next few years.

Although he had originally intended to concentrate on production rather than his own music, in 1970 Todd formed the 'band' Runt, consisting of himself, teenagers Hunt Sales on drums, and his brother Tony Sales on bass (the Sales brothers are the sons of US comedian Soupy Sales and went on to play with Iggy Pop, David Bowie, and Tin Machine). Rundgren himself wrote, produced, sang and played guitars, keyboards and other instruments. Whether Runt is best described as a band or simply as a pseudonym for Rundgren as a solo artist is unclear—for the album Runt (1970) the group appeared to be a bona fide trio, but on their second album Runt: The Ballad of Todd Rundgren (1971), Hunt Sales plays only on two tracks and is replaced by N.D. Smart on the rest of the album. Furthermore, only Rundgren is pictured on the covers of both albums, and both albums have been subsequently reissued with the same titles and cover art, but bearing the artist credit "Todd Rundgren". Whether a solo project or a band, Runt had a No. 20 hit in the U.S. with "We Gotta Get You a Woman" in 1970, and two other Runt songs placed in the lower reaches of the Hot 100.

By this time Rundgren had effectively moved his base to Los Angeles. As he prepared for his second solo album, he was introduced to aspiring L.A. band Halfnelson, led by brothers Ron Mael and Russell Mael and guitarist Earle Mankey. After attending an elaborate, self-staged 'showcase' performance by the group at their L.A. rehearsal space, Rundgren became intrigued by their music and agreed to produce their debut album, originally released as Halfnelson and later retitled Sparks. The brothers later credited Rundgren as being instrumental in launching their career and in 2010 Russell Mael commented that when reviewing the album in 2008 they were still "... really happy with the way it sounded. There's nothing there that really sounds 'of an era' because it didn't exactly sound 'of an era' at the time.".

By 1972, the Runt persona/band identity had been abandoned, and Rundgren's next project, the ambitious double LP Something/Anything? (1972) was credited simply to Rundgren, who wrote, played, sang, engineered, and produced everything on three of the four sides of the album. Something/Anything? featured the Top 20 U.S. hits "I Saw the Light" (#16; not to be confused with the Hank Williams song of the same name), and a remake of the Nazz near-hit "Hello It's Me", which reached #5 in the U.S. and is Rundgren's biggest hit. The former song featured Rundgren on all vocals and instruments. On his ensuing concert tour, his backing band was the Hello People, whose own album he later produced.

Changing style [edit]

The Something/Anything? period marked a significant change in Rundgren's lifestyle. Up until that time he neither drank nor took any drugs:

However, he began to change his views after a visit to Philadelphia to see Randy Reed, his closest friend from his school days. Reed introduced Todd to marijuana, and he credited this with having a big effect on his songwriting for his second solo album, The Ballad of Todd Rundgren. In the lead-up to his third album, Something/Anything?, he was experimenting with various mind-altering substances including marijuana, and a range of psychedelics including DMT, magic mushrooms, and peyote - although he says he never (to his knowledge) took LSD. During the recording of Something/Anything?, he began using the stimulant Ritalin and he later said that it had a marked effect both on the style of his music and on his productivity:

Speaking of the effect on A Wizard, A True Star (1973), Rundgren commented:

Though he often revisited the classic popular song format, during the early 1970s Rundgren's music began to incorporate elements of progressive rock. 1973's transitional A Wizard, a True Star marked the beginning of this trend, which came to fruition with his next two solo albums Todd (1974) and Initiation (1975) and the early recordings under the aegis of his new group project Utopia.

Shortly after he had completed work on Something/Anything?, Los Angeles was struck by a strong earthquake, and Rundgren was sufficiently unnerved by this to move back to New York. His return east led to a long and fruitful working relationship with Moogy Klingman and the pair collaborated extensively over the next few years. They built a recording facility in Manhattan which they dubbed Secret Sound Studios, and a large proportion of Rundgren's solo and production work was done there, until his relocation to Woodstock in the mid-70s.

A Wizard, A True Star (1973), which was sequenced as a continuous medley, featured a wildly eclectic range of songs set in dazzling arrangements and production, with Rundgren experimenting with the synthesiser and exploiting virtually every studio effect and technique then available. Backing musicians included renowned horn players Michael Brecker and Randy Brecker, guitarist Rick Derringer and several other musicians, who subsequently joined the original incarnation of Utopia. Although it featured predominantly original material (including the anthemic "Just One Victory", which became a concert favorite), the album set a pattern followed on subsequent solo albums, with Rundgren recording cover versions of his favorite songs — in this case, "Never Never Land", from the Broadway musical version of Peter Pan, and a medley of soul classics, including a unique version of the Capitols' "Cool Jerk" played in the 7/8 time signature. The album was also notable for its extended running time — over 55 minutes in length, compared to around 40–45 minutes for a typical pop-rock LP of the period. This reflected Rundgren's skills as a mastering engineer, since this extended running time took the album close to the practical maximum for an LP. Due to the inherent physical limitations of the vinyl LP medium, on records with running times over 45 minutes there is an unfavorable trade-off between duration and the audio quality and volume. On the album cover, packed with his handwritten notes, he advised listeners to crank up their Victrolas accordingly.

Todd (1974) continued in this vein and featured similarly diverse material. Alongside originals such as "A Dream Goes On Forever" and "Heavy Metal Kids", both of which became concert staples, Rundgren also satirised his chosen profession with the song "An Elpees' Worth of Tunes" and revisited his teenage obsession with the music of Gilbert & Sullivan in a rendition of "The Lord Chancellor's Nightmare Song" (from Iolanthe). "Izzat Love?" was sampled by Indie artist Neon Indian on their song, "Deadbeat Summer" in 2010.

By contrast, Rundgren's work with Utopia (see below) and his next solo album took him decisively into progressive rock. Initiation (1975) addressed cosmic themes, showed a strong interest in spirituality (particularly Far Eastern religion and philosophy), and displayed the musical influence of psychedelic rock, as well as the avant-garde jazz fusion of contemporary acts such as the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Frank Zappa. Once again the original LP issue saw Rundgren pushing the medium to its physical limits, with the side-long suite "A Treatise on Cosmic Fire" clocking in at over 35 minutes.

When touring, Rundgren presented the music in a lavish stage setting that echoed the ambitious space-themed shows of acts like Parliament/Funkadelic and he adopted an outlandish space-rock image on stage, including multi-coloured dyed hair.

During 1977 and 1978, Rundgren attempted to tour with a true quadraphonic sound system, however it proved ultimately unworkable - despite successfully delivering high-quality sound in a concert setting - due to the enormous technical requirements involved. Since most concert arenas of the day were ill-equipped to host large towers of sound equipment in the rear of the halls, the speakers often had to be hung from the ceiling rigging. This installation could take up to two days to complete, meaning that it was necessary to send two separate sound systems, each with its own, complete set-up crew, out on the road, so that they could "leapfrog" and allow Rundgren to play dates on consecutive days, which would have otherwise been impossible. The system featured a then-new technology called "signal analysis", which required white and pink noise to be pumped through the speakers, in order to set the active equalizers so as to minimize feedback and distortion. The pink and white noise analysis had to be performed twice: once with the hall empty, and then again with the audience present, which many concertgoers found annoying. Additionally, Rundgren's insistence on personally overseeing the acoustic set-up of the system left him exhausted and unable to continue, and he pulled the plug on the experiment.

During the mid-to-late 1970s, Rundgren regularly played the eye-catching psychedelic Gibson SG (known variously as "Sunny" or "The Fool"), which Eric Clapton had played in Cream. After he had stopped using it ca. 1968, Clapton gave the guitar to George Harrison, who subsequently 'loaned' it to British singer Jackie Lomax. In 1972, after meeting at a recording session, Lomax sold the guitar to Rundgren for $500 with an option to buy it back, which he never took up. Rundgren played it extensively during the early years of Utopia before retiring the instrument for a short time in the mid to late 70's, which in that time he had the guitar restored having a lacquer finish applied to protect the paint and replaced the talpiece and bridge to stabilize tuning, bringing the guitar back out on tour during the 1980 deface the music tour and using it on and off throughout the 80's until 1993 when he permanently retired the guitar, eventually auctioning it off in 1999; he now uses a reproduction given to him in 1988 by a Japanese fan.

NME—September 1974

The 1976 album Faithful saw Rundgren marking his tenth year as a professional musician by return to the pop/rock genre, featuring one side of original songs and one side of covers of significant songs from 1966, including the Yardbirds' "Happening Ten Years Time Ago" (the B-side of that Yardbirds single gave Nazz its name) and a nearly identical re-creation of the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations".

In the latter half of the 1970s Rundgren moved to Woodstock, where Bearsville Records established a studio under Rundgren's direction. He bought a home nearby and a property adjoining the studio was taken over as acccomodation for artists who used the studio. The Woodstock complex became Rundgren's base until his eventual relocation to the Hawaiian island of Kauai in the 1990s. That move was in part prompted by a violent home invasion at Woodstock in the late 1970s, in which Rundgren and then wife (who was pregnant at the time) were tied up while the house was ransacked by a group of armed men. According to Rundgren's account, the men appeared to believe that he possessed a large quantity of cocaine (which he never used); although the family was unharmed, the men stole some valuable items including a custom-made Alembic bass guitar. Todd recovered it years later after Alembic staff spotted it for sale on Ebay and it was returned to him, but was by then so badly damaged that it could not be restored.

Faithful was followed by Hermit of Mink Hollow (1978); this included the hit ballad "Can We Still Be Friends" (covered a year later by Robert Palmer), which reached #29 in the U.S. (Palmer's version reached No. 52) and was accompanied by an innovative self-produced music video, and the album became the second most successful of his career (after Something/Anything?), reaching #36 in the U.S. During 1978 Rundgren undertook an American tour playing at smaller venues including The Bottom Line in New York and the Roxy in Los Angeles; this resulted in the double live album Back to the Bars, which featured a mixture of material from his solo work and Utopia, performed with backing musicians including Utopia, Edgar Winter, Spencer Davis, Daryl Hall and John Oates and Stevie Nicks.

Subsequent solo releases included the album-long concept work Healing (1981) and the New Wave -tinged The Ever Popular Tortured Artist Effect (1982), which included a cover of The Small Faces hit "Tin Soldier". The latter album also marked the end of Rundgren's tenure with Bearsville Records. He then signed with Warner Bros. Records, who issued his next album, A Cappella (1985), which was recorded using Rundgren's multi-tracked voice, accompanied by arrangements constructed entirely from programmed vocal samples. "Bang the Drum All Day", from The Ever Popular Tortured Artist Effect was a minor chart hit, which has become more prominent in subsequent years, having been adopted as an unofficial theme by several professional sports franchises, notably the Green Bay Packers, and becoming popular on radio, where it was often featured on Friday afternoons. "Bang..." was also used prominently in a Carnival Cruises television advertising campaign. It is now considered one of Rundgren's most popular songs. In 1986, Rundgren scored four episodes of the popular children's television show Pee Wee's Playhouse.

Nearly Human (1989) and 2nd Wind (1991) were both recorded live—the former in the studio, the latter in a theater before a live audience, whom were instructed to remain silent. Each song on these albums was recorded as a complete single take with no later overdubbing. Both albums marked, in part, a return to his Philly soul roots. 2nd Wind also included several excerpts from Rundgren's musical Up Against It, which was adapted from the screenplay (originally titled "Prick Up Your Ears"), that British playwright Joe Orton had originally offered to The Beatles for their never-made follow-up to Help!. 2nd Wind was Rundgren's last release through a major label and all his subsequent recordings have been self-released.

After a long absence from touring, Rundgren hit the road with Nearly Human—2nd Wind band, which included brass and a trio of slinky backup singers (one of whom, Michele Gray, Rundgren married). He also toured during this period with Ringo Starr's All-Starr band.

The next few years saw Rundgren recording under the pseudonym TR-i ("Todd Rundgren interactive") for two albums. The first of these, 1993's No World Order, consisted of hundreds of seconds-long snippets of music, that could be combined in various ways to suit the listener. Initially targeted for the Philips CD-i platform, No World Order featured interactive controls for tempo, mood, and other parameters, along with pre-programmed mixes by Rundgren himself, Bob Clearmountain, Don Was, and Jerry Harrison. The disc was also released for PC and Macintosh and in two versions on standard audio CD, the continuous mix disc No World Order and, later, the more song-oriented No World Order Lite. The music itself was quite a departure from Rundgren's previous work, with a dance/techno feel and much rapping by Rundgren. The follow-up, 1995's The Individualist, featured interactive video content, that could be viewed or in one case, played; it was a simple video game along with the music, which was more rock-oriented than No World Order.

Rundgren returned to recording under his own name for With a Twist (1997), an album of bossa-nova covers of his older material. His Patronet work, which trickled out to subscribers over more than a year, was released in 2000 as One Long Year. In 2004, Rundgren released Liars, a concept album about "paucity of truth", that features a mixture of his older and newer sounds.

In early 2008, Rundgren launched his official MySpace page. Later that year, he released the rock album Arena. In concert, he had been performing the album in full and in sequence before its release.

Rundgren released the live compilation album, For Lack of Honest Work, in 2010. The album was advertised as a collection of bootleg recordings, that were approved by Rundgren himself.

April 2011 saw the release of Todd Rundgren's Johnson, a collection of Robert Johnson covers, which had been recorded more than a year earlier. On another 2011 release, scheduled for September 13, a further album of covers entitled re:Production sees him performing tracks he had previously produced for other acts, including Grand Funk Railroad's "Walk Like a Man" and XTC's "Dear God."

In April 2013, Rundgren will release his 24th solo album, State.

Utopia [edit]

Rundgren's back-up band for A Wizard, a True Star (1973) evolved into the first version of Utopia, a larger prog-rock ensemble, which included multiple keyboards, synthesizers and brass and featured a character completely disguised in a silver suit, "M. Frog Labat" (Jean-Yves Labat de Rossi) on synthesizers, who also put out his own electronics/keyboards-based solo album. This incarnation premiered on 1974's Todd Rundgren's Utopia, which was book-ended by the 14-minute "Utopia Theme" (recorded live in concert) and the 30-minute suite "The Ikon", which occupied the whole of Side 2 of the album. Like Wizard, the album also showcased Rundgren's skills as a recording and mastering engineer, clocking in at over 30 minutes per side.

A slightly altered version of this group performed on the eclectic 1975 live album Another Live. It featured three new extended progressive tracks (which appear only on this LP), a version of "Heavy Metal Kids" (from Todd) and covers of "Something's Coming" (from "West Side Story") and "Do Ya" by The Move. By the time this album was recorded the Utopia lineup included keyboard player/trumpeter/vocalist Roger Powell and drummer John "Willie" Wilcox.

In 1976 Siegler left Utopia and was replaced by Kasim Sulton (bass, keyboards, vocals), who had previously played with New York singer-poetess Cherry Vanilla. This formidable ensemble was widely regarded as one of the best live acts of its day—all four members were highly accomplished on their main instrument as well as being able to play multiple other instruments, and all four could sing lead vocals.

After 1977's prog-rock fusion homage, Ra, Utopia moved toward a more concise pop-oriented style with 1977's Oops! Wrong Planet, which included "Love Is the Answer", later a hit for England Dan & John Ford Coley, followed by the more successful Adventures In Utopia in 1980, which spawned the hits "Road to Utopia", "Set Me Free" and "Caravan". During that year Utopia also acted as the backing band for the Rundgren-produced Shaun Cassidy solo album Wasp.

Other releases include Deface the Music (also 1980), an uncanny Beatles homage, that borders on parody; the more politicised Swing to the Right (1982), incorporating more new wave elements; their pop-referenced, self-titled album Utopia (1982), as well as Oblivion (1984), which showed a cynical side of Utopia, sporting a black cover. 1985's P.O.V. includes "Mated", later a staple of Rundgren solo tours. Rundgren eventually disbanded Utopia in the mid-1980s; they released Trivia (1986) as their "swan song" effort. However, in 1992 a brief tour of Japan reunited the Rundgren/Powell/Sulton/Wilcox lineup, and Redux '92: Live In Japan was released on Rhino Records.

Eventually, the compilation Oblivion, P.O.V. and Some Trivia was released in 1996, an effort by Rhino Records to re-release selections from the Todd/Utopia discography. In addition, many Utopia concerts from the mid-1970s onwards were taped (e.g. their 1975 London debut, recorded by BBC Radio) and these were widely bootlegged by fans, although some have since gained an official release and can now be obtained as commercial digital downloads from iTunes.

Production, video and other work [edit]

In addition to his own recordings, Rundgren has engineered and/or produced albums for many notable acts. Sparked by his dissatisfaction with the sound quality of the Nazz albums, Rundgren learned how to engineer and master his own records and since 1970 he has overseen production of all his solo recordings and those by Utopia. His earliest outside credits were as producer on a long-unreleased Janis Joplin track (recorded with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band) and as recording engineer for the LP Stage Fright by The Band (1970). Other notable production credits include Halfnelson (first incarnation of Sparks), New York Dolls, Badfinger, Grand Funk Railroad, Hall & Oates, Ian and Sylvia (on their "Great Speckled Bird" album), Meat Loaf, Patti Smith, Shaun Cassidy, The Tubes, Tom Robinson Band, XTC, Bad Religion, John Sloman, Cheap Trick, Hello People, Hiroshi Takano, Bourgeois Tagg, Dragon (aka Hunter), 12 Rods, The Pursuit of Happiness, The Psychedelic Furs, Steve Hillage, The American Dream, and many others.

The difficult XTC sessions produced the album Skylarking (1986), now considered a high point for band and producer despite its acrimonious origin. Rundgren's production of Meat Loaf's Bat out of Hell (1977) (on which he also played lead guitar) helped that album become one of the top selling LPs released in the 1970s. The industry regard for Rundgren's production work has been a lofty one: Jim Steinman, with whom Rundgren worked on Bat Out of Hell, has said in interviews, that "Todd Rundgren is a genius and I don't use that word a lot."

Rundgren has long been on the cutting edge of music and video technologies. His music video for the song "Time Heals" was among the first videos aired on MTV, and a video he produced for RCA, accompanied by Gustav Holst's The Planets, was used as a demo for their videodisc players. His experience with computer graphics dates back to 1981, when he developed one of the first computer paint programs, dubbed the Utopia Graphics System; it ran on an Apple II with Apple's digitizer tablet. He is also the co-developer of the computer screensaver system Flowfazer.

In the 1990s, Rundgren was an early adopter of the NewTek Video Toaster and made several videos with it. The first, for "Change Myself" from 2nd Wind, was widely distributed as a demo reel for the Toaster; he also used the system for videos from No World Order (songs "Fascist Christ" and "Property"). Later, he set up a company to produce 3D animation using the Toaster; this company's first demo, "Theology" (a look at religious architecture through the ages featuring music by former Utopia bandmate Roger Powell) also became a widely-circulated item among Toaster users. Most of Rundgren's Toaster work is available on the video compilation The Desktop Collection.

Rundgren composed music for the 1986 TV series Pee-wee's Playhouse and Crime Story as well as the movies "Undercover" (a/k/a "Under Cover") (1987), and Dumb and Dumber (1994), plus background cues for several other TV shows. He hosted a syndicated radio show called "The Difference" in the early 1990s.

In 1986 he sang a duet with Bonnie Tyler: Loving You's a Dirty Job but Somebody's Gotta Do It, released (also as a single) on Bonnie's album Secret Dreams and Forbidden Fire.

As the Internet gained mass acceptance in the mid-1990s Rundgren, along with longtime manager Eric Gardner and Apple digital music exec Kelli Richards, started Patronet, which offered fans (patrons) access to his works-in-progress and new unreleased tracks in exchange for a subscription fee, cutting out record labels. The songs from Rundgren's first Patronet run were later released as the album One Long Year. Since then, Rundgren has severed his connections with major record labels and continues to offer new music direct to subscribers via his website, although he also continues to record and release CDs through independent labels. (However, as of November 2007, the PatroNet.com website offers the following message: "PatroNet is undergoing a major software revision and is not accepting memberships at this time.")

Rundgren produced the 1999 debut album for the band Splender, entitled Halfway to the Sky.

In the summer of 2001, Rundgren joined artists such as Alan Parsons, The Who's John Entwistle, Heart's Ann Wilson and Ambrosia's David Pack for the successful "A Walk Down Abbey Road" tour, in which the musicians played their own hits alongside Beatles favorites. They also did a short tour of Japan in Winter of 2001. John Entwistle's guitarist/vocalist, Godfrey Townsend acted as musical director for the tours and stayed on for the following year's "sequel" tour, which included Todd and Parsons returning, with a slightly changed lineup which featured Jack Bruce of Cream, Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad, Christopher Cross and Eric Carmen. Godfrey also brought drummer/vocalist Steve Murphy on board for "A Walk Down Abbey Road's" 2002 Summer tour.

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks Rundgren created the score for the film 'A Face to a Name', directed by Douglas Sloan (filmmaker). The film depicted the many photographs of NY's missing, that were displayed on Bellevue Hospital's 'wall of prayers' following the attacks. The film was part of a special screening at the Woodstock Film Festival in 2002.

Rundgren toured the US and Europe in 2004 with Joe Jackson and the string quartet Ethel, appearing on Late Night with Conan O'Brien performing their collaborative cover of the Beatles song "While My Guitar Gently Weeps". (video)

In 2009, Rundgren produced Cause I Sez So by the New York Dolls. In October, in one of the last concerts at the famed Wachovia Spectrum, Rundgren and Philadelphia area musicians The Hooters and Hall & Oates headlined a concert titled "Last Call". Tickets were as low as $6.00, the deep discount reflected ticket prices in 1967, when the Spectrum first staged concerts.

The year also included a lecture at DePauw University in Indiana, in which he discussed "Music, Technology and Risk-Taking".

In late-October to early-November 2010, Rundgren was the IU Class of 1963 Wells Scholars Professor at Indiana University. He taught a course with IU Professor Glenn Gass entitled 'The Ballad of Todd Rundgren'.

The New Cars [edit]

In late 2005, the Boston-based band, The Cars were planning to re-form despite bassist Benjamin Orr's death and disinterest on the part former lead singer Ric Ocasek. Rumors followed that Rundgren had joined Elliot Easton and Greg Hawkes in rehearsals for a possible new Cars lineup. Initial speculation pointed to The New Cars being fleshed out with Clem Burke of Blondie and Art Alexakis of Everclear. Eventually it was revealed, that The New Cars were to complete their lineup with veteran bass player and former Rundgren bandmate Kasim Sulton and studio drummer Prairie Prince of The Tubes, who had played on XTC's Rundgren-produced Skylarking and who has recorded and toured with Rundgren.

In early 2006, the new lineup played a few private shows for industry professionals, played live on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and made other media appearances before commencing a 2006 summer tour with the re-formed Blondie.

Rundgren has referred to the project as "an opportunity ... for me to pay my bills, play to a larger audience, work with musicians I know and like, and ideally have some fun for a year."

The New Cars' first single, "Not Tonight", was released on March 20, 2006. A portion of the song is featured on a promotional teaser for the band online. A live album/greatest hits collection, The New Cars: It's Alive, was released in June 2006. The album includes classic Cars songs (and two Rundgren hits) recorded live plus three new studio tracks.

Tours from 2009–2012 [edit]

In April 2009, Rundgren discussed his career during an Ubben Lecture at Indiana's DePauw University. In September 2009, Rundgren assembled a very limited-engagement tour with Jesse Gress, Kasim Sulton, Prairie Prince, Greg Hawkes, Bobby Strickland, and Roger Powell (and his wife Michele as costume designer and back-up singer for the concerts finale'), covering his 1973 album, A Wizard, A True Star. The shows included a complete, start-to-finish rendition of the album, with multiple costume changes and theatrical props to accent the songs. The opening band for the shows was Utopia, with Roger Powell, Kasim Sulton, and Prairie Prince.

In December 2009, Rundgren once again took the AWATS Live show on the road with four shows in California. Roger Powell returned to his real job in the computer/software industry and was replaced by Ralph Schuckett, who played keyboards on the studio recording of the original album.

The AWATS show has had two European dates as well; playing in London, England at the Hammersmith Apollo on February 6, 2010, and the Paradiso in Amsterdam, Holland on February 8, 2010. Rundgren opened the London and Amsterdam shows by showcasing his new project, entitled 'Todd Rundgren's Johnson'; consisting of Rundgren, Jesse Gress (guitar), Prairie Prince (drums) and Kasim Sulton (bass) reworking Robert Johnson songs.

In January 2010 Rundgren gave his first ever concert performance in Australia as a participant in the Rogue's Gallery show, produced by Hal Willner for the 2010 Sydney Festival. In October 2010 Rundgren returned for a three-date tour of Australia performing his 'Johnson' project, with concerts at The Basement, Sydney, the Great Southern Blues Festival at Bateman's Bay and the Corner Hotel in Melbourne. The band consisted of Todd, guitarist Jesse Gress, Australian bassplayer Damien Steele Scott and Australian drummer Mick Skelton.

A Photographic Journal of each American show was created by rock photographer J Bloomrosen.

In October 2010, Rundgren was selected as the Class of 1963 Wells Scholars Professor at Indiana University (Bloomington). In that capacity, he taught two weeks of a four-week, one-credit hour honors seminar designed for 22 Wells Scholars (HON-H300: The Ballad of Todd Rundgren). Co-teaching the class was IU Professor of Music Glenn Gass—whose relationship with Rundgren helped make the professorship possible—and IU Distinguished Professor of Sociology Bernice Pescosolido, who was instrumental in helping to plan the course.

In September 2010, Rundgren performed his Todd and Healing albums live for the first time ever in Akron, OH and followed that up with five more of the album concerts in Muskegon MI, Indianapolis IN, St. Louis MO, Glenside PA, and Morristown NJ. A large LED display and lasers were on display throughout the shows with Rundgren and the band dressed in extravagant costumes. Rundgren brought out his SG Gibson "The Fool" replica guitar and also performed a few songs on the piano. The band consisted of Jesse Gress, Greg Hawkes, Prairie Prince, Bobby Strickland, and Kasim Sulton. Led by Choir Master Dirk Hillyer, local choirs from near each venue joined the band during parts of the "Healing" album set, which added a brand new element to the music for fans, that had only heard it by listening to the album. The shows closed with the song, "Sons of 1984", which included fan participation even after the band left the stage. In March 2011, Rundgren took the Todd and Healing albums live concerts back on the road for a mini-tour and included stops in Hartford CT, Boston MA, Red Bank NJ, Toledo OH, and Columbus OH.

In January 2011, a reunion of the most of the members of the 1974 Utopia personnel (Rundgren, Klingman, Shuckett, Siegler, and Ellman) was held for two nights in New York City, with proceeds to defray medical treatment for Klingman, who was battling with cancer. Material was drawn from the 1972–1975 catalogs of Rundgren and Todd Rundgren's Utopia. Both shows sold out in just three days, which may have influenced the idea for a full tour, that took place in November 2011 as "Todd Rundgren's Utopia". The original plan for the tour included Moogy Klingman but his health condition worsened during rehearsals and he died before the 12 concert tour was finished.

In September 2011, for the first time ever with a symphony orchestra, Rundgren performed two concerts in the Netherlands backed by the Dutch Metropole Orchestra. On June 1–2, 2012, he performed in two concerts accompanied by the Rockford Symphony Orchestra at the historic Coronado Performing Arts Center in Rockford, IL. The concerts were Rundgren's first ever symphonic shows in North America.

Rundgren is touring with Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band for the third time and for the first time in 13 years, in the summer of 2012 and the early part of 2013.

In November 2012 Rundgren again collaborated with the Dutch Metropole Orchestra. At the Paradiso venue in Amsterdam he was also backed by three backing vocalist, including Dutch singer Mathilde Santing with whom he sang a duet that night.

Personal life [edit]

Rundgren has three sons; Rex (born 1980) and Randy (born 1985) with his first wife Karen Darvin, and Rebop with current wife Michele. Rex is a minor league baseball player (Infield position), who, as of 2012, plays for the Tulsa (Oklahoma) Drillers.

Actress Liv Tyler was born July 1, 1977 and originally used Rundgren as a last name. According to Tyler "...Todd basically decided when I was born that I needed a father so he signed my birth certificate. He knew that there was a chance that I might not be his but…" He paid to put her through private school, and she visited him several times a year. Rundgren had a five-year relationship with Tyler's mother Bebe Buell which ended shortly after Liv's birth. At age nine, Liv Tyler was informed by Buell she was Steven Tyler's biological daughter.

Tyler maintains a close relationship with Rundgren "I’m so grateful to him, I have so much love for him. You know, when he holds me it feels like Daddy. And he’s very protective and strong."

In 1998 Rundgren married Michele Gray (Michele Rundgren), who had been a dancer with The Tubes, performed with Rundgren as a backup singer on the tour for his Nearly Human album which led to a number of appearances on the David Letterman Show as one of The World's Most Dangerous Backup Singers.