29th
TEC Awards
The
Les Paul Award:
Todd Rundgren
Named for one of the industry's
most revered personalities, the Les Paul Award
was created in 1991 to honor individuals or institutions
that have set the highest standards of excellence
in the creative application of recording technology.
The award is sponsored by the Les Paul Foundation.
The
term “renaissance man” is
thrown around fairly indiscriminately these
days (along with the word “awesome”).
But Todd Rundgren truly is a renaissance
man—a singer, songwriter, composer,
multi-instrumentalist, producer, engineer,
video artist, tech pioneer and visionary.
 The
Philly native first opened eyes nationally
when he fronted the group rock band the
Nazz in the late ’60s, but it wasn’t
until he started making solo albums a couple
of years later that he earned his first
hit, “Hello, It’s Me” (which
he originally had cut with the Nazz) on
his ambitious 1972 double-album, Something/Anything.
That record was also notable because on
three of the four sides, Todd played all
the instruments.
Since
then, he's recorded albums in every conceivable
way — with bands (Utopia
is his most famous), without bands, layering
instruments one at a time, live in the
studio with no overdubs, live onstage;
you name it. He’s cut note-for-note
replicas of famous pop songs; laid down
convoluted guitar-dominated prog-rock tracks;
made an album entirely out of treated vocals;
hit the charts with catchy, radio-friendly
ballads; recorded interactive albums; and
even made one with bossa-nova versions
of some of his best-known tunes. He’s
made albums in multi-million dollar studios,
in his own recording spaces and even on
laptop. He has constantly experimented
with both tools and techniques, which has
allowed him to continually evolve as an
artist.
Todd
also has an extremely impressive career
behind the board. By the time he left
the Nazz in 1969, he had learned so much
about recording and production that he
became an in-demand engineer and producer.
The list of high-profile artists he’s
worked with is staggering, and includes
The Band, Jesse Winchester, Badfinger,
Grand Funk Railroad, the New York Dolls,
Hall & Oates, Meat Loaf, Patti Smith,
the Tubes, Psychedelic Furs, XTC, Cheap
Trick, Bad Religion and the Flaming Lips,
to name just a few.
How
he’s had time to cut two dozen
solo albums and another ten or so with
Utopia is anybody’s guess. He is
famous for embracing new technologies as
they come onto the market, and as a musician
who can play so many different instruments,
he has always kept his eyes and ears open
to new developments in that area, too.
Always
creatively restless and apparently indefatigable,
Todd has continued to do vital and compelling
work, whether in collaboration with the
Dutch Metropole Orchestra in Amsterdam
last year or cutting his latest solo album,
State, on an Apple laptop using Reason
software. He’s always pressing forward,
in search of the new, while never completely
abandoning his past, as his occasional
outings with Utopia and his ongoing commitment
to Ringo Starr’s All-Star Band show.
“Sometimes being a musician has
little to do with viability and everything
to do with survivability,” Todd told
the website Noisecreep earlier this year. “Many
musicians start out great and they wind
up out of the business in ten years. My
idols, I have come to realize, are players
like Tony Bennett and B.B. King. They still
have an audience and they can do it forever,
and to me that’s what being a musician
truly is—somebody that does it for
their entire life pretty much on their
own terms. I have to say that I have no
formula that I calculated to have this
career…”
—Blair
Jackson |
2013
Todd Rundgren
Past
RECIPIENTS:
2012 Pete Townshend
2011 Steve Vai
2010 Lindsay Buckingham
2008 Ray Benson
2007 Al Kooper
2006
Steve Miller
2005 David Byrne
2004 Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis
2003 Bruce
Springsteen
2002 Robbie
Robertson
2001 Steely Dan
2000 Paul McCartney
1999 Sting
1998 Neil Young
1997 Stevie Wonder
1996 Brian Wilson
1995 Alan Parsons
1994 Herbie Hancock
1993 Peter Gabriel
1992 Bob Clearmountain
1991 Bob Ludwig
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