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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 pop wunderkind for both his own material and for his production of other artists, supported by the certified gold solo double LP ''Something/Anything?'' in 1972, his career has produced a diverse and eclectic range of recordings often both as a solo artist and as a member of the band Utopia. Rundgren has often been at the forefront as a promoter of cutting edge recording technologies. During the 1970s and 1980s, Rundgren prolifically engineered and/or produced many notable albums for other acts, including the Band's ''Stage Fright'' (1970), Badfinger's ''Straight Up'' (1971), Grand Funk Railroad's ''We're an American Band'' (1973), the New York Dolls's ''New York Dolls'' (1973), Hall & Oates's ''War Babies'' (1974), Meat Loaf's ''Bat Out of Hell'' (1977), and XTC's ''Skylarking'' (1986). In the 1980s and 1990s, his interest in video and computers led to his "Time Heals" (1981) being the eighth video played on MTV, and "Change Myself" (1991) was animated by Rundgren on commercially available Amiga computers. His best-known songs include the 1972 singles "Hello It's Me" and "I Saw the Light", which have heavy rotation on classic rock radio stations, and the 1983 single "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== Rundgren was born in Upper Darby, at the western city limits of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Ruth (née Fleck; b. 1922) and Harry W. Rundgren (1917–1996). His father was of half Swedish and half Austrian descent. Todd's grandfather Johan Sigfrid Rundgren (1883–1951) was born and raised in Norrtälje, Sweden, and his grandmother Sophie Brandweis Rundgren was born and raised in Austria. Both immigrated to America in the 1900s. He began his career in Woody's Truck Stop, a Philadelphia-based group in the style of Paul Butterfield Blues Band. However, Rundgren and bassist Carson Van Osten left prior to Woody's Truck Stop releasing its eponymous first album () 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).〔Sanctuary Records, liner notes for reissues of Nazz and Nazz Nazz/Nazz 3: The Fungo Bat Sessions (2006)〕 "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 inspired by a wide variety of musical influences—British pop-rock & baroque pop (notably Pink Floyd, The Beatles, The Who, The Yardbirds, Cream and The Move), the intricate vocal harmonies of The Beach Boys, classic American rock and 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 the guitar work of Robert Jay Bruner experimental music. Particularly during the early years of his career, Rundgren's songwriting was heavily influenced by the music of singer-songwriter Laura Nyro: :"I knew her fairly well. I met her right after ''Eli and the Thirteenth Confession''. I actually had arranged a meeting, just because I was so infatuated with her and I wanted to meet the person who had produced all this music. We got along, and we were kind of friendly, and actually, after I met her the first time, she asked me if I wanted to be her band leader. But the Nazz had just signed a record contract and I couldn't skip out on the band, even though it was incredibly tempting." 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. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Todd Rundgren」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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