Hello It's Me was the first original song by Todd Rundgren. It was first recorded in 1968 by Rundgren's band Nazz and was included on their self-titled debut album. Although released as the B-side of the group's debut single "Open My Eyes" it was picked up in preference to the A-side by Boston radio station WMEX, where it rose to #1, and was subsequently picked up by other stations. It first charted in 1968 at #66 on the U.S. charts.

Rundgren's songs in this early phase of his career were heavily influenced by the work of Laura Nyro, but in a 2005 interview he revealed that the basic structure of the song was adapted from the introduction of a Jimmy Smith recording:

...the main influence for Hello It's Me was an eight bar intro that Jimmy Smith played on a recording of When Johnny Comes Marching Home. He had this whole sort of block chord thing that he did to set up the intro of the song. I tried to capture those changes, and those changes became what are the changes underneath Hello It's Me. I then had to come up with melody and words, but the changes are actually almost lifted literally from something that was, from Jimmy Smith's standpoint, a throwaway.

Rundgren recorded an uptempo version of Hello It's Me on his 1972 solo album Something/Anything?. Although a remake of the original, this new version became widely popular and has since become a staple of the classic rock genre. An edit of this version was released as a single in 1973 and became Rundgren's only Top Ten pop hit, reaching #5 on the Billboard Hot 100.

...
Wikipedia