Toto

Toto, the band that helped invent studio-slick pop rock. Membership:David Paich, kybd., voc. (b. Los Angeles, June 21, 1954); Steve Lukather, gtr., voc. (b. Los Angeles, Oct. 21, 1957); Bobby Kimball, voc. (b. Vinton, La., March 29, 1947); Steve Porcaro, kybd. (b. Hartford, Conn., Sept. 27, 1957); Jeff Porcaro, drm. (b. Hartford, Conn., April 1, 1954; d. Hidden Hills, Calif., Aug. 5, 1992); David Hungate, bs.; Mike Porcaro, bs. (b. Hartford, Conn., May 29, 1955); Dennis Frederiksen, voc. (b. Wyoming, Mich., May 15, 1951); Joseph Williams, voc. (b. Santa Monica, Calif.); Simon Phillips, drm. (b. June 2, 1957).

A second-generation group of studio musicians, the Porcaro brothers are the sons of session percussionist Joe Porcaro, who worked with David Paich on an Eric Carmen record and did sessions with Tom Waits, among many, many others. Paich’s father was arranger Marty Paich. Paich (the Junior), bassist David Hungate, guitarist Steve Lukather, and the younger Porcaros all attended the same high school and started playing sessions very young. Paich, Hungate and Jeff Porcaro were all featured on Boz Scaggs’s quintuple platinum slick pop R&B breakthrough Silk Degrees. Paich co-wrote the hits “Lowdown” and “The Lido Shuffle” While Toto slowed down their studio work, all the members of Toto remain first-call session musicians, playing with Bruce Springsteen and writing hits for bands like the Tubes.

In the wake of Scaggs’s success, they put together their own band and signed to his label, Columbia. Their eponymous debut album went double platinum and hit #9, largely on the strength of the gold #5 single “Hold the Line.” The tune mixed pristine studio chops with a crunchy guitar riff and high harmonies that became a staple of late 1970s-early 1980s rock. Ironically, although they mentored this sound, their next two albums, Hydra and Turn Back, did not fare nearly as well: Hydra went gold and hit #37, with the minor smooth rock ballad “99” going to #8; Turn Back topped out at #41.

The group’s real breakthrough was Toto IV. Written about Steve Lukather’s girlfriend at the time, actress Rosanna Arquette, “Rosanna,” a jittery ballad punctuated by blasts of keyboard “horns” spent five weeks at #2, going gold. While the sophomore single “Make Believe” only rose to #30, the group topped the charts with the atmospheric “Africa,” which also went gold. “Won’t Hold You Back” hit #10, helping to propel the album to #4 and triple platinum. At the Grammys, the group took home six awards: Record of the Year, Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying a Vocal and Best Vocal Arrangement for Two or More Voices (all for “Rosanna”) and Album of the Year, Producer of the Year, Best Engineered Recording for the album.

However, they couldn’t maintain the momentum. For one thing, both Hungate and Kimball left the band before they could go into the studio for their fifth album. On Isolation, they were replaced by Dennis Fredericksen on vocals and a third Porcaro brother, Steven, on bass. The album barely went into the Top 50, and the single “Stranger in Town” stalled at #30. They created songs for David Lynch’s ponderous film version of Dune. Fredericksen left the band, replaced by another legacy musician, composer John William’s son Joseph. Fahrenheit rose as high as #40, with the single “I’ll Be Over You” topping the adult contemporary charts for two weeks, but only reaching #11 pop and “Without You Love” scraping into the Top 40 at #38.

Before recording The Seventh One, Steve Porcaro left the band. Shortly afterwards, Williams left as well. The single “Pamela” rose to #22, but the album didn’t fare too well. After trying to replace him for one song, Lukather took over the vocals. After the group finished Kingdoms of Desire, Jeff Porcaro died of an allegedly cocaine-induced heart attack. Veteran English drummer Simon Phillips replaced him on Tambu, another album that didn’t sell very well. The group reunited with Kimball leading the Toto IV line-up (minus Jeff Porcaro) on 1999’s Mindfields and its live companion album. Lukather produced a record for Jeff Beck and Paich produced Boz Scaggs. While American audiences have become indifferent to the group’s brand of studio-honed chops, they remain a popular attraction in Europe and Japan.

Discography

Toto (1978); Hydra (1979); Turn Back (1981); Toto IV (1982); Isolation (1984); Dune (1984); Fahrenheit (1986); T/ze S7- enth One (1988); Past io Present: 1977-1990 (1990); Kingdom of Desire (1993); Absolutely Live (1993); Tamfrw (1995); Tofo XX: 2977-1997 (1998); Mindfields (1999); Livefields (1999)

—Brock Helander