Randgren, Todd

Randgren took his first steps in the musical field as part of the blues band Woody's Truck Stop, and he and his companions gave concerts in clubs in Philadelphia , playing the music of the blues band Paul Butterfield . Such performances did not last very long, soon the young ambitious musician wanted to try himself in other genres, in particular in pop rock , so in 1967 he left the original band and founded his own garage group called Nazz . Among the most famous songs are “Open my eyes” and “Hello it's me” (later Randgren rewrote the song “Hello it's me” at an accelerated pace, and for some time it was one of the top ten American music hit parades ). Over the course of three years, the group recorded and released three albums: Nazz (1968), Nazz Nazz (1969), and Nazz III (1970).

After leaving Nazz , in 1969 Randgren spent some time doing a minor part-time job, mainly taking part in writing songs and arranging compositions for other groups. In 1970, he created a project called “Runt,” a small group that included, besides him, two people - Hunt Sails, who played drums, and his brother, bass player Tony Sales. Randgren himself in the newly-minted team did everything he could: he sang, wrote songs, produced, played the guitar, keyboards and all other instruments. “Runt” is not even a group, it is rather one multi-instrumentalist with two assistants (the name “Runt” is, on the one hand, the nickname of Randgren, and on the other, a combination of letters from the names and surnames of three members of the group). In 1970, their first album of the same name “ Runt ” was released, after which the fourth member, Norman Smart, entered the group. In 1971, the second album " Runt: The Ballad of Todd Rundgren " was released. Hunt Sales participated in the recording of only two songs, but his brother Tony and Smart participated in the recording of most of the songs on the album. Both albums were designed in such a way that only the name of Randgren was written on the covers, and only his photograph was depicted. But, whatever it was, a group or one person, in 1970 the song “We gotta get you a woman” in the USA got into the Top 40 , two more songs entered the top hundred.

In 1972, “Runt” ceased to exist, the new album “ Something / Anything? "Can definitely be considered the work of solo musician Todd Randgren. This time he himself wrote texts and music, he sang, he himself produced all four sides of the double album. His musical style at that time (in the future he will be called the word “ power pop ”) combined the rhythms of soul and pop rock of the 60s. The sound can be compared with the work of such musicians as The Beatles , The Beach Boys and Phil Spector , as well as the style of Laura Niro and Carol King . Randgren gravitated to other genres, in particular, he tried to play hard rock and some styles of experimental music . From " Something / Anything? "Two songs made it to the Top 40 :" I saw the light "(a new song, not a cover of Hank Williams' classics) and" Hello it's me "(rewritten version of the Nazz hit).

Todd Randgren never deviated from the popular currents of his time, in the mid-70s he abruptly switched to progressive rock, which is becoming fashionable. The turning point in his work can be called mixing the next album, entitled " A wizard, a true star ", which became a vivid representative of the above genre. Then came the albums “ Todd ” (1974) and “ Initiation ” (1975), all performed in the same genre. The theme of his songs touches on cosmic themes, the spiritual essence of mankind, the influence of eastern philosophy is felt. The sound acquires elements of psychedelic rock , some songs can be attributed to the style of jazz fusion , some similarities with Frank Zappa can be traced. During live performances, his songs were strongly transformed, merging into one continuous stream of sound. At concerts, Randgren often used a brightly decorated psychedelic guitar , which Eric Clapton had previously played. Subsequently, Randgren sold this guitar at auction , and to date he only has a copy of it. ^[one]

In 1976, the Faithful album was released, stylistically reverting to its original pop rock . One side of the album contained new original songs, and the second recorded cover versions of 1966 hits: “Good vibrations”, “Yardbirds” and “Happening ten years time ago” (this single brought Nuzz 'fame in due time). Then came the disc “ Hermit of mink hollow ”, on which the main hit “Can we still be friends” can be singled out (after many years the song will be included in the soundtrack of the films “ Dumb and Dumber ”, “ Vanilla Sky ”). The result of long work is the album “ Healing ” (1981), then hit the New Wave of the sea ​​“ The ever popular tortured artist effect ” (1982) with the main hit novel “Bang the drum all day”. In 1985, the album “ A cappella ” was released with a bias towards electronic music , polyphonic program samples were widely used in the recording. In 1986, Randgren recorded the musical accompaniment for four episodes of the popular children's television show Pee Wee's Playhouse .

Two concert albums came out a little later: “ Nearly human ” (1989) and “ 2nd wind ” (1991). They were brought together in a studio, but were recorded in the theater in front of a small audience, which was ordered to behave quietly. The 2nd wind album contained several excerpts from Randgren’s musical Up Against It (originally titled Prick up your ears), scripted by British playwright Joe Orton . The musical was supposed to be performed by The Beatles , but the project was never brought to implementation. With the team that took part in the recording of the concert disks, Randgren went on a big tour of the country. He was accompanied by a brass band and a trio of backing vocalists (one of whom, Michelle Gray, he subsequently married). At one time, the tour was held in conjunction with Ringo Starr's band .

In his next two albums, Randgren is called the pseudonym TR-i (stands for "Todd Randgren - Interactive"). In the first of them, released in 1993, “ No world order ”, Philips involved interactive technology called CD-i . The entire disc consisted of many different lengths of audio tracks that listeners could combine as they saw fit. It also contained mixes mixed by both Randgren himself and other musicians ( Bob Clearmontane , Don Wass and Jerry Harrison ), who, when listening, could set the temp, mood and many other characteristics. The disc was published as a regular audio disc with remixes , it was released for PC and Macintosh platforms. The sound itself was very different from Randgren's early works, the compositions were composed in the genres of dance music and techno , some of the songs contained elements of rap . The second interactive album, “ The individualist ” (1995), in addition to the usual soundtracks, also contained a small simple game that could be played with these same soundtracks. In relation to the first, the second album turned out to be more rock-oriented.

In 1997, Randgren abandoned his last pseudonym and released the album “ With a twist ” under his own name. The disk was a collection of old material executed in the style of bossa nova . In 2000, Todd Randgren's seventeenth album, “ One long year, ” was released, which, as the name implies, has been reduced for a whole year. In 2004, Liars was released, a concept album addressing the theme of “lack of truth” in modern society. Stylistically, it was a mixture of old and new rock trends.

In early 2008, Randgren created his page on the Myspace website, and in September released the new rock album Arena . ^[2]

Albums

• Runt (1970)
• Runt. The Ballad of Todd Rundgren (1971)
• Something / Anything? (1972)
• A Wizard, a True Star (1973)
• Todd (1974)
• Initiation (1975)
• Faithful (1976)
• Hermit of Mink Hollow (1978)
• Healing (1981)
• The Ever Popular Tortured Artist Effect (1982)
• A Cappella (1985)
• Nearly Human (1989)
• 2nd Wind (1991)
• No World Order (1993)
• The Individualist (1995)
• Up Against It (1997)
• With a Twist ... (1997)
• One Long Year (2000)
• Liars (2004)
• Arena (2008)
• Todd Rundgren's Short Johnson (2011)
• (re) Production (2011)
• State (2013)

• Todd Randgren and Theosophy

• Official website
• The Todd Rundgren Connection
• Randgren Todd's official Myspace page