For a 71-year-old musician who’s been at it for more than a half-century, who lives on the idyllic Hawaiian island of Kauai, Todd Rundgren sure spends a lot of time on the road. He’s made three tour stops in three years in the Tampa Bay area, each with a different musical presentation.

Make that four stops. Todd will be part of an eclectic all-star group on a tour called It Was 50 Years Ago Today — A Tribute to the Beatles’ White Album. (It’s actually 51 years since the release of that double LP, but why sweat the details.) He’ll be joined by Christopher Cross (“Sailing,” “Ride Like the Wind”), Mickey Dolenz (The Monkees), Joey Molland (Badfinger) and Jason Scheff (Chicago).

The artists will perform out front and in various combinations, backed by a group of pre-rehearsed musicians. Perhaps to the chagrin of some, they will not play the White Album (officially titled The Beatles) front to back, but rather incorporate its songs into a show that includes each artist’s “greatest hits.” At the time of this writing in July, the actual sequence of the show was not fully fleshed out, Todd said. Four days of rehearsals were scheduled just before the launch. “Everyone knows this material so well,” Todd said. “It’s not going to be a grueling rehearsal.”

Todd has been closely linked to the Beatles over the decades, especially as a long-standing member of Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band.

I spoke with Todd on Tuesday, July 20. He was at his home in Hawaii on a break from the road. His publicist called in at 7:19, a minute before our scheduled time. Please keep it to 20 minutes, he said. (I might’ve gone over by two or three.)

Here’s a (lightly) edited Q&A of our interview.

Tues. Sept. 24, 8 p.m. $30-$103.75. It Was 50 Years Ago Today — A Tribute to the Beatles’ White Album. Ruth Eckerd Hall , Clearwater. rutheckerdhall.com.

At the risk of beginning with a loaded question, given the tour you’re about to undertake, how does the White Album rank on your best Beatles albums list?

It’s not particularly high. It’s kind of a document that reveals the fissures and differences in the band. It presages the breakup of The Beatles. A lot of the stuff represents them going in different directions. Paul started doing everything by himself. It was John and Yoko doing their little weird thing. It was George blossoming as a songwriter. There’s more of his material than on previous Beatles records.

It’s a bittersweet record. It was plainly incoherent, for starters. There was no way it was going to be coherent, especially with “Revolution 9” and “Why Don’t We Do It In the Road.” It was disturbing to a lot of us at the time. The thinking was, “If you’d only made it into one great album, and saved the rest for out-and-out weirdness.”

Was there any tune or tunes that, when you confirmed the tour, you said, “That one’s mine?”

I immediately put dibs on “My Guitar Gently Weeps.” I’ve done it so often on solo shows. I did it on a George Harrison show at the Hollywood Bowl with the L.A. Philharmonic. My guitar influence is so heavily Eric Clapton-based that it’s just kind of a natural thing for me. I have done “Me and My Monkey.” There are a few songs I am comfortable doing. Some songs seem natural for the other guys — the gentle ones, Christopher has the voice for those. I kind of have the voice for rockin’ stuff in The Beatles context. I’m doing “Helter Skelter,” I think “Bungalow Bill.”

The show has an interesting mix of talent. Can you give me the Cliff Notes version of how it came together?

I think they were trying to do [the tour] last year, when it was actually the 50-year anniversary. There are quite obviously logistical issues to making something like this work. I’ve worked with the producer before. Me and Christopher did a Walk Down Abbey Road tour at some point and a Sgt. Pepper’s tribute. He and I might be considered the core of the band. I think Joey Molland came in fairly early in the process. I’m not sure when Mickey came on board. I think Jeff was the last one to sign on. All of that kind of congealed about six or eight months ago. It’s not a particularly grueling tour. There are a couple of four-in-a-row stretches, but it only goes about eight weeks.

We’ve got a backup band. We’ll certainly accompany ourselves to varying degrees. We realized it isn’t necessary for all of us to be on stage all the time. In fact, it’s probably more interesting for the audience if some of us leave the stage so that we can come back again.

I’m the only one who spent years playing with a real Beatle. All the other guys would love to have that gig with Ringo. I think he’s retiring soon. I’m not speaking for him; it’s something I’ve heard. I have a different perspective since I’ve been doing Beatles material for so long. It becomes like a second job for me. I’ve been off the Ringo tour for about two years now. Even though the White Album isn’t among my favorites, it’s always interesting to play something that didn’t get played at a Ringo show.

You tour a helluva lot. Three, make that four, dates in three years in Tampa Bay alone. Most artists in their 70s, I think, hope to curtail their touring and even get off the road. Some need to stay out there. Some just want to remind people, “I’m still here.” Why do you keep going? Do you like touring?

It’s not the touring itself, but I really enjoy playing. I enjoy singing. I enjoy watching the audience enjoy what I’m doing — when they enjoy it [wry chuckle]. I even enjoy to a certain degree the interactions with the audience, to see where they’re at, what they feel about the show. I have meet-and-greets everyday while I’m on the road. You’d think it might become a burden, but it’s become part of the daily routine: soundcheck, meet-and-greet, all in a day’s work. It gives me the added advantage of getting direct feedback from my so-called customers. And it helps sell my music. At this point, selling my music is most likely going to take place at my merch table [laughs].

It’s a re-adjustment to the post-industrial music world. It used to be that big labels would make significant investments in acts. Not anymore. These days, you can maybe get a one-album deal [laughs].

So you have to diversify. You have to be conscious of your audience and the fact that they need to be refreshed. You get to be 70 like me and people don’t go out to shows as much anymore — either because they’re too old and not in the mood or they’re dead [chuckles]. When you get to be my age, you have to refresh your audience. And you can’t be coy about it. There’s a certain element of — “I’m still here.” And I haven’t stopped writing. As I continue to make new music, I want it to be heard.

Plus, you have a history, in my opinion, of performing to please and amuse yourself.

It’s self-gratifying. I have a short attention span, which is one of the reasons why I’m not in Ringo’s band anymore. It’s the same set night after night. You can go crazy at that point. There’s nothing unexpected going on. The other reason I like to take the new material out on the road is it gets better. When the only version you have is the one you did in the studio — you want to expand on that, find a deeper meaning in it, take it to a different level, find where it’s ultimately destined to go.

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As a follower of your career since the early ‘70s, I’ve often wondered about your attitudes toward stardom. When Something/Anything? became a hit, it’s my feeling that you could have kept that momentum going and perhaps became an enduring star, maybe a superstar. Yet you followed up with A Wizard, a True Star — dense, experimental, to my ears off-putting a lot of the time. What was your thinking then?

[Pause] There’s commercial art, art that you make consciously for an audience. You try and figure out what the audience wants and accurately represent that. I already had a job making commercial art as a record producer for other people. And most of the time the people I was producing wanted their records to be commercially successful, and I had the skills to make that happen.

Making my own records, I did not have the financial pressures of making commercial art. I was not obligated to do that, which most people must do or they won’t be making it anymore. For me, my living was already made producing.

I was making more money off record production than I was ever going to make off my own records.

[Brief interlude: Todd has produced an eclectic melange of albums, including Meatloaf’s 1977 smash Bat Out of Hell, The New York Dolls self-titled debut; Grand Funk Railroad’s We’re an American Band and LPs by The Tubes, Hall & Oates, Badfinger, close friend Patti Smith, XTC, and even Bad Religion]

I had not only the inclination to go places other artist wouldn’t go, but the ability. It wasn’t going to hurt my bottom line. So I felt free to noodle, to explore, to expand my abilities and explore possibilities. And then I could also apply them to making records for other people.

The thing that probably drove me after Something/Anything? to do A Wizard, a True Star was the comparisons people were making between me and other artists. I was hearing myself compared to Carole King. I liked Tapestry, and listened to it while I was making Something/Anything?, and maybe some stuff filtered in [very brief interlude: I don’t hear it], along with all the other stuff.

But I got very indignant about being compared to other artists. I wanted to make something incomparable. I wanted other artists to be compared to me. I also realized that a record is an enduring document and has a life far longer than what the record industry says is the immediate window after its release. My concern is, ‘What’s this going to sound like 10, 20, 30 years down the road? Is it dated and stuck into a genre that’s long been abandoned?” I make my own music not to be enjoyed just at the time it’s released, but into the future. My musical dynamic is so dense that most people don’t get it all the first time through, and it deepens with repeated listenings.

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