Todd Rundgren's best-known songs -- the Carole King pastiche "I Saw the Light," the ballads "Hello, It's Me" and "Can We Still Be Friends," and the goofy novelty "Bang on the Drum All Day" -- suggest that he is a talented pop craftsman, but nothing more than that. On one level, that perception is true since he is undoubtedly a gifted pop songwriter, but at his core, Rundgren is a rock & roll maverick. Once he had a taste of success with his 1972 masterwork Something/Anything?, Rundgren chose to abandon stardom and, with it, conventional pop music. He began a course through uncharted musical territory, becoming a pioneer not only in electronic music and prog rock, but in music video, computer software, and Internet music delivery as well.

As his career wound into its third decade, Rundgren concentrated on behind-the-scenes innovations, but during the '70s and '80s he maintained a relentless work schedule. He released up to two albums a year either as a solo artist or with his band Utopia, while producing acclaimed, successful records for artists as diverse as Badfinger, Meat Loaf, Grand Funk Railroad, the New York Dolls, and XTC. Given such an extensive catalog, it's not surprising that there's a vast variety of styles within Rundgren's music -- which is either rewarding or frustrating, depending on the album. Also, more often than not, the singles from each record do not offer an accurate indication of what the remainder of the album sounds like. Such an approach severely curtailed his mass appeal, but it helped him cultivate a ferociously dedicated cult audience.

During the '70s, his records were underground favorites, and his albums continued to chart until 1991, nearly 20 years after his commercial peak. In those 20 years, Rundgren may have existed largely on the fringes of pop music, but he produced a body of work that ranks as one of the most intriguing in rock & roll. A native of Upper Darby, Pennsylvania -- a suburb of Philadelphia -- Rundgren learned how to play guitar as a child, teaching himself after his initial round of lessons ceased. As a teenager, he absorbed pop music from Motown to Liverpool and formed Money, his first band, when he was 16. Following his high-school graduation, he moved to the resort town of Wildwood, New Jersey, where he regularly sat in with a number of bands. Eventually, he became a member of the blues group Woody's Truck Stop, which soon became based in Philadelphia.

Rundgren stayed with the band for several months, but when the group began to move toward hippie psychedelia, he and Carson Van Osten bailed to form the Nazz in 1967. Taking their name from an obscure Yardbirds song and inspired by a variety of British Invasion groups, from the omnipresent Beatles to the cult favorites the Move, the Nazz were arguably the first Anglophiles in rock history. There had been many groups that drew inspiration from the Beatles and the Stones, but none had been so self-consciously reverent as the Nazz. Playing lead guitar and bass, respectively, Rundgren and Van Osten were joined by drummer Thom Mooney (formerly of the Munchkins) and lead vocalist/keyboardist Stewkey (born Robert Antoni). By September 1967, the group received some financial support from local record store Bartoff & Warfield, who also put them in touch with John Kurland, a record promoter who was looking for a guitar pop band. Kurland took a shine to the Nazz and signed on as their manager.

NazzKurland and his associate, Michael Friedman, had the Nazz sign with SGC Records -- an offshoot of Atlantic Records and Columbia-Screen Gems -- in the summer of 1968. Their debut album, Nazz, appeared in October, supported by the single "Hello, It's Me." Although the song would later become a major hit for Rundgren as a solo artist, the dirgey original version barely scraped the national charts.