The
Hermit of Mink Hollow—AKA legendary singer-songwriter and record producer Todd
Rundgren—will return to the locale that was key to his colorful career when he
performs at the Bearsville Theater on July 5 and 6.
Born
in the Philadelphia area in 1948, Rundgren rose to fame as a member of psychedelic
band the Nazz in the late 1960s. His first 1970s solo hits were “We Gotta Get
You a Woman” (1970) and “Hello It’s Me” and “I Saw the Light” from the
milestone album Something/Anything (1972), and at the dawn of that
decade he became the house producer of music mogul Albert Grossman’s Bearsville
Records label. Making his home up Route 212 in the hamlet of Mink Hollow, he
produced Grossman-managed acts Great Speckled Bird, Jesse Winchester, and the
Band (1970’s Stage Fright).
At Bearsville Studios, he oversaw the recording
of Meat Loaf’s 1977 mega-selling album Bat Out of Hell. Other artists
produced by Rundgren include Badfinger, Halfnelson AKA Sparks, the New York
Dolls, Grand Funk Railroad, Hall and Oates, the Tubes, the Patti Smith Group, XTC,
Cheap Trick, the Psychedelic Furs, Bad Religion.
In
1973 Rundgren formed Utopia, a progressive rock group that would go on to explore
power pop and new wave styles. The giddy solo single “Bang the Drum All Day,” from
1982’s The Ever Popular Tortured Artist Effect, his final album for Bearsville
Records, was an enormous hit that was later coopted for use at professional
sporting events. Rundgren was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in
2021.
Todd
Rundgren will perform at the Bearsville Theater in Bearsville on July 5 and 6
at 7pm. Tickets are $79.65.
This article appears in June 2025.
