Todd Rundgren readily admits that he views The Beatles<\/i> as an uneven record. \u201cThe album is incoherent,\u201d he says, \u201cand contains stuff that a lot of us found curious, but not essential, like ‘Revolution 9.’\u201d But he acknowledges that for many listeners it remains a classic. \u201cI think there were diehard Beatles fans who said, ‘Anything they wanna do, I\u2019ll go for that.’ But it sort of marked the beginning of the end for The Beatles.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like many listeners, he thinks of The Beatles<\/i> as the sound of individuals. \u201cA lot of it was obviously the different guys in the band going in their own directions,\u201d Rundgren says. \u201cThere was less and less ‘Lennon-McCartney’ and more and more McCartney or<\/i> Lennon or<\/i> Harrison. As it turned out, I was disappointed in the record.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Yet Rundgren’s disappointment was and remains tempered by his appreciation for some the the album’s lesser-known cuts. He mentions Harrison’s \u201cSavoy Truffle.\u201d \u201cThat song revealed [George’s] hidden talents that had been overshadowed by Lennon and McCartney,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Rundgren never worked with the Beatles, though he does have a strong Beatles connection. The singer and multi-instrumentalist was a member of Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band in 1992, 1999 and from 2012 to 2017. And decades earlier, Rundgren had been brought in to replace producer George Harrison (then busy planning the Concert for Bangladesh) on sessions for Badfinger’s 1971 album Straight Up<\/i>. That’s when he first met guitarist Joey Molland, guitarist in the Beatles prot\u00e9g\u00e9 band signed to Apple Records.<\/p>\n
That time wasn’t a happy one for the group. Molland recalls those sessions as \u201ca very unpleasant experience; Todd was so arrogant.\u201d But he concedes that Rundgren has a different view. Years later when he approached his former producer about their time together in the studio, he says that Rundgren replied, \u201cThat’s how you<\/i> remember it, but it wasn’t really like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe enjoyed himself,\u201d Molland says. \u201cThat’s kind of weird.\u201d But Molland \u2013 the sole surviving member of Badfinger’s classic lineup \u2013 shrugs it off. And he’s looking forward to getting onstage with Rundgren. \u201cIt should be a lot of fun,\u201d he says. \u201cTodd Rundgren is a great<\/i> guitar player.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Liverpool native a few years younger than the Beatles, Molland was 21 when the White Album was released. By that time he was already a professional musician himself, a member of Gary Walker & the Rain. He recalls the first time he heard the double album. \u201cI liked a lot of it,\u201d he says. \u201cSome of it I felt was a bit weird, but I really enjoyed it and I liked the way it was still a Beatle album.\u201d<\/p>\n
Molland recognized the album’s experimental nature, but he preferred the more straightforward cuts. He mentions \u201cGlass Onion\u201d and \u201cI’m So Tired\u201d \u2013 both Lennon compositions \u2013 as favorites. \u201cAnd ‘Cry Baby Cry,’\u201d he adds. \u201cThat’s one of the songs I’m doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joey Molland will also take the spotlight for two more Lennon numbers, \u201cDear Prudence\u201d and \u201cRevolution 1,\u201d the slower arrangement of the non-album hit single. He says that the process of song selection came naturally and without conflict.<\/p>\n
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\u201cLuckily we didn\u2019t all step on each other\u2019s toes with everybody wanting to do ‘Back in the USSR,’\u201d Molland says with a good-natured laugh. \u201cEverybody wanting to do this, that \u2026 it wasn\u2019t like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the tour, Rundgren will be out front singing and playing on some of the album’s heavier, rocking songs including \u201cHelter Skelter,\u201d \u201cThe Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill\u201d and \u201cEverybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey.\u201d \u201cI think there’s another one,\u201d Rundgren chuckles, \u201cBut I can’t remember which one. It might be ‘Sexy Sadie.’\u201d<\/p>\n
The final list of songs \u2013 and lead singers \u2013 hadn’t been made public at press time, so concertgoers can expect a few surprises. But they’re not likely to witness anything too<\/i> off-kilter. When it’s jokingly suggested that Christopher Cross might take the lead vocal on the eight-minute avant garde audio collage \u201cRevolution 9\u201d \u2013 a work to which Yoko Ono contributed to some degree \u2013 Rundgren laughs. \u201cYeah, that’s it. And I’ll be rolling around in a bag onstage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Molland chuckles when it’s pointed out that there’s not a great deal of stylistic overlap between the sort of music with which he’s associated and that of former Monkee Micky Dolenz or Christopher Cross. \u201cChristopher is a great songwriter, and a great performer as well,\u201d he says. \u201cMicky is a giant star still; he\u2019s well loved by his fans. And he\u2019s a lovely guy. So it should all work out.\u201d<\/p>\n
All of the co-headlining musicians on the \u201cIt Was Fifty Years Ago Today\u201d tour have extensive catalogs of their own upon which to draw for the concert set list. Dolenz released nine albums with the Monkees during the group’s heyday, and scored many hit singles. Badfinger’s classic lineup made six highly regarded albums between 1970 and ’74; among their string of hits is \u201cBaby Blue,\u201d a song that gained renewed popularity when used in the final scene of Breaking Bad<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Jason Scheff replaced longtime Chicago lead singer Peter Cetera, remaining with the band for four decades. Christopher Cross won five Grammy Awards for his 1979 self-titled debut album (and a 1981 Academy Award for \u201cArthur’s Theme\u201d). Rundgren has enjoyed a career filled with critically acclaimed albums, as well as hit singles including \u201cHello It’s Me, \u201cCan We Still Be Friends\u201d and \u201cBang the Drum All Day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rehearsals for the tour were scheduled in Florida in the weeks ahead of the opening date (September 19 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania). And Molland expects the high caliber of musicianship to yield good musical chemistry. \u201cDon\u2019t expect us to go on and jam our way through Beatles songs,\u201d he cautions. \u201cBecause they don\u2019t lend themselves to that.\u201d He says that the evening of music will be full: about 45 songs over the course of approximately two hours. \u201cIt sounds like a fun show, doesn\u2019t it?\u201d he offers.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody loves the Beatles,\u201d Molland points out. \u201cEverybody loves to do Beatles songs. And the White Album is a great record; there are lots of great songs on it to do. And it just seemed like a good idea.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The continuing story of the Beatles’ White Album Continued from Part One… Todd Rundgren readily admits that he views The Beatles as an uneven record. \u201cThe album is incoherent,\u201d he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17397,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,44,62],"tags":[256,278,3959,2228],"class_list":["post-17389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-live-shows","category-rawk","tag-badfinger","tag-beatles","tag-joey-molland","tag-todd-rundgren","cat-41-id","cat-44-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17389"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29128,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17389\/revisions\/29128"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}