She and I hit it off like a house on fire. I wrote poems a lot and instantly became friends with Patti Smith, who had dated Todd. I very quickly became rock royalty: There was Mick and Bianca, Angie and David, Bebe and Todd.

He came down and Todd and I made eye contact and there was an immediate connection that you can’t deny. You had to throw a penny at Todd’s window because he didn’t have a doorbell and he lived on the second floor. The scene in Taxi Driver where Jodie Foster is leaning up against the door? That’s right there. I looked at him and said, “Wow, he’s fantastic.” So we pulled up to 13th Street between Second and Third, and in those days, that neighborhood was dangerous. I said, “Who’s that?” He happened to have an issue of Rolling Stone in the car and they had just done a story on Todd. He’d take us out dancing in New York and one night he was taking me to see Man of La Mancha, and said, “I have to stop by my friend’s house and drop off some tapes.” And it was Todd Rundgren. I met this guy on the modeling circuit, who was gay and not interested in any of the models.

Your relationship with Todd was legendary. Lead track “By a Woman” finds Buell praising powerful ladies, with verve that belies her 64 years.

Rather, it’s an invigorating record, mixing the icy New York cool Buell learned from hanging out at Max’s Kansas City (the defiant “Cross My Legs”) with the Nashville geniality she picked up in Tennessee (“Hello Music City”).

With the new album Baring It All: Greetings From Nashbury Park, out now, Buell returns to her musical ambitions.īut the 12-track album, produced by her husband, former Das Damen guitarist Jim Wallerstein, is far from a sashay through old glories. When NYC singer-model Bebe Buell moved south to Nashville five years ago, she brought a blast of rock & roll swagger to the still mainly country-music capital – as well as some of the best rock tales ever told, all of them witnessed firsthand by a woman who calls herself a “female Forrest Gump with a high IQ.” But while Buell may be best known for her modeling days, including a 1974 Playboy spread, and the long-haired guys she’s loved – she gave birth to daughter Liv Tyler with Steven Tyler in 1977 while also involved with Todd Rundgren – she’s had her own share of rock successes.

Bebe buell in playboy pic