Over the last 50 years Todd has remained one of our most consistent singer/songwriters. The other is the blue-eyed soul of Hall & Oates and Todd Rundgren. The first being the Philadelphia soul of songwriters and producers like Thom Bell, Linda Creed, Norman Harris, Dexter Wansel and the production teams of McFadden and Whitehead, and Gamble & Huff. For starters, I have always had a soft spot for all kinds of Philly soul. That day in August I knocked out a few hours at The Music Box and my first grab was Nearly Human.

Shopping for records isn’t like running into a grocery store for milk and eggs. For people like me that means carving out a few hours. It meant actually going to a record store. In those days, there was no just hopping on a computer and downloading a track or an album. There are those songs that, when you hear them for the first time, you realize that buying the entire record was going to be inevitable.

The record had just been released in May and the single “The Want of a Nail” connected with me quickly. I bought Nearly Human on an unforgettable August weekend in 1989. To this day, Todd Rundgren’s Nearly Human is the most significant. Unfortunately it closed its doors for good this past New Year’s Eve and on its last day I reminisced with the owner about the famous people who had come by over the years to thumb through his bins, and shared some of my most memorable “finds” from his store. I can’t remember ever leaving empty handed. No trip to town was ever complete without a pop in to The Music Box, once one of the finest record stores in the Northeast. Over the years, Newport, Rhode Island has been home to many of my life’s best memories.

Todd rundgren nearly human zip