Toto: The Session Aces Who Became a Band

Rock · Pop · Session Craft

Six studio aces step out of the shadows and build a band of their own.

The biography

Toto began in 1977 in Los Angeles, and the lineup read like the credits of half the records on the radio. Keyboardist David Paich, drummer Jeff Porcaro, keyboardist Steve Porcaro, guitarist Steve Lukather, singer Bobby Kimball and bassist David Hungate had spent the decade as first-call session players, shaping hits for Steely Dan, Boz Scaggs and dozens of others. When they decided to make a record of their own, they brought the studio with them — every arrangement precise, every groove immaculate. The band took its name from the Latin word for “all-encompassing,” a nod to the range its members could cover.

The self-titled debut, Toto (1978), announced them with “Hold the Line,” a top-five single built on Paich’s insistent piano riff. Two more albums followed before everything clicked: Toto IV (1982) paired the half-time swagger of “Rosanna” with the atmospheric sweep of “Africa,” and the industry noticed. The album won six Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, while “Rosanna” took Record of the Year — a rare sweep for a band critics had once dismissed as hired hands.

Tragedy struck in 1992 when Jeff Porcaro, the band’s rhythmic heart, died suddenly at thirty-eight. Toto carried on, and the lineup kept evolving around Lukather and Paich through the nineties and beyond. What never changed was the standard set in those Los Angeles studios: craft first, flash second, and a belief that a pop record could be built like a fine instrument.