Wednesday, April 3, 2013

The Voices in My Head

When I'm first waking up and at random times throughout the day, the voices come. Most of the time they're from the 70s. One that's in my head a lot lately is Todd Rundgren's.

Todd made the big time 3 times that I can think of- with "Hello it's Me"


"I Saw the Light (in Your Eyes)"



and
"Can We Still Be Friends"


Todd was a bit strange, not marketably strange like David Bowie or Peter Gabriel, just a bit strange.

But if you listen to his albums and not just the hits, especially "Something/Anything"(1972), you get a sense of all that he's been in music. His music styles gave birth to bands like Queen and Todd's vocals were Daryl Hall before Daryl Hall was Daryl Hall. He played every part on "S/A" and sang every vocal on 3 of the 4 sides. He produced so many bands' albums that he'd probably be best known as a producer if he hadn't had hits of his own. The guy's a musical genius.

Lately, though, it's been his voice that won't leave me alone. The guy's gonna be 65 and his voice is as strong, clear, and in control as it was 40 years ago. Maybe even better, if truth be told. Here he is from a few weeks ago-


Yeah, that's a voice in my head that I won't be trying to shut up any time soon.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

He sounds good.

Austan said...

His voice is remarkable!

Starting Over, Accepting Changes - Maybe said...

The problems with my iPad is that I can seldom see videos. I will have to check these out tomorrow on my Mama computer. These little guys have a lot to learn.

Austan said...

Arleen- you'd think an iPad would have that capacity! Ah well, he's worth the wait. ;)

Elephant's Child said...

He was my first love from within the Beatles - and still has a lot of charm.

And normalacy is overrated. Tod was on the odd side true, but who of the people we value isn't? (No-one that I value anyway.)

sdt (a.k.a. stevil) said...

Oh the Nazz are now flying around in my head. Back when I was the assistant manager of the 2nd floor paperback department at the Doubleday bookstore on 5th Ave and 53rd in NYC (which would make it around 1973 or maybe 74), Rundgren made quite a stir when he came in to the store. Not because people knew who he was - most of them didn't. His hair had been dyed - locks of hair had been dyed different colors. There must have been 20 different colors in his hair. It was extremely unusual to have mutli colored hair at the time. In fact, I've never seen anything like it since.

Austan said...

EC- I'm a Ringo girl too! :)

Very true, EC. Normalcy is pushed at us these days, but it's the odd ones who do the amazing things.

Austan said...

Stevil- Wow, what a great memory to have! Wish I'd seen, he was one of the only Americans to do the glam up right.