I never thought that losing you could ever hurt so bad *

2009-09-01 9:13 p.m.

I planned to title the entry “Not quite a year since [they] went away” but since I’m not writing this article less than a year since Toto was disbanded, I changed it to another line from the song “Rosanna”.

The rise of giants amongst giants

By the 1970s, rock music to me was reaching its zenith with many bands trying to drown each other out, literally and market wise. Bands such as The Rolling Stones and Led Zepplin sort of ensured that that genre of rock music. So there wasn’ really much to expand on, but David Paich, two brothers Steve and Jeffery Porcaro, along with classmate Steve Lukather had other plans.

Each high school friend was already part of some well known rock group such as Steely Dan or Bob Scaggs but their debut album showed a difference, a distinct difference from any of the 1970s style. Added to Paich’s and Lukather’s voice was a certain Bobby Kimball, who sang “Hold the line”. That song rocketed on the charts to #5 in and was probably one factor that led to the band’s nomination in the Grammy’s as “Best New Artist” in 1977. Coupled with a mish mash of a song (in my opinion) of “Georgy Porgy” (which hit a respectable #48) the band worked on a second album. An instrumental piece, “Child’s Anthem”was also popular (one year being the UN’s year of children).

The Name

Back to the formation of the name Toto, which you may laugh at it depending which country you come from or which language you speak. Many rumours were formed over the peculiar name but Jeff Porcaro set the record straight (for fans that bothered) in a late 1980s interview. Toto comes from a Latin word which means “all encompassing”. Toto wasn’t exactly any single type of rock genre nor was it just simply about rock. All encompassing however to outsiders, wasn’t an immediately like but the second album produced a relatively good song by the peculiar name of “99”, charting at #26. Allmusic.com described it as “a sorrow that a lot of draggy, pensive ballads couldn't muster. That fact makes this a classic. Emotionally what makes this work [were] Steve Luakther’s pitch-perfect and poignant vocals”. But where was Toto actually going?

The early 1980s saw favourite R&B artists and old timers like Paul McCartney holding on to the music scene. With the LA music community, it was another beehive and the queen changed every now and then, depending of course on the perceptions of the people and music critics. One such critic was LA Times Robert Hilburn (Whom I believe is still around) and he was a critic of Toto literally. He saw them as a pre-fabricated band, with nothing new to the rock scene. The band’s third album, Turn Back, was probably another piece of fodder for Hilburn, but at least one song, “Goodbye Eleanore”, hit the Bubbling under 100 Billlboard chart. These three albums were mainly the work of David Paich, with Bobby Kimball as a co writer on some songs, Steve Porcaro adding in here and there and Steve Luakther added one major song, “Live for Today”.

Blessings

With disappointing sales, most bands would have broken up by this stage. In fact, Toto members drew influence from a famous but broken up early band, The Beatles. The year however, was 1982, and magical blessings occurred for the band. You can well read the whole background to Toto IV here or on other credible fan sites. Basically, Jeff Porcaro and David Paich were the brains behind the Toto IV Album, which should have reached number 1 and not number 4 (number one went to by some album named Asia). However what was grander was that they swept not one but sis Grammy Awards—“Record of the Year” (to the song) , “Album of the year”, “Best Engineered Recording”, “Best Vocal Arrangement”, “Producer of the Year” (to Toto members themselves) and Jeff Porcaro and Jerry Hey won for “Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocals” for “Rosanna.” What was even more remarkable was they were up against seasoned musicians such as Paul McCartney and notable producers like Quincy Jones. Added to this was Lukather’s own Grammy for the song “Turn Your Love Around” although this was not a Toto song. As a slight mockery of Hilburn’s criticisms, David Paich raised of award and remarked, “We’d like to thank Robert Hilburn for believing in us”.

Individually, the songs from this award winning album weren’t all on the number one places. “Africa”, a song which the band didn’t want to put in hit #1 for only one week in February 1983, “Rosanna” hit #2 in July 1982 (I Think it was beaten by the song “Eye of the Tiger). Even so, the band gained local and international fame because of these two songs and Lukather’s “I won’t hold you back”, which reached #1 on the Adult Contemporary Charts but #5 on the Billboard charts. As for music videos, the music video for “Rosanna” placed the song truly in context—it was a West Side Story Theme with soon to be famous actor Patrick Swayze as one of the dancers. Live tours of Toto IV however, weren’t picture perfect. There was once Lukather missed his line while singing “Rosanna” and one live performance of “Africa” saw many members out of pitch. But that was early 1980s technology.

Exit Kimball

After the euphoria of the Grammy’s, Toto saw many changes. First off was the inclusion of another Porcaro brother as the bass player, with David Hungate leaving. Second was that band members decided to work on individual projects. Rather Paich, Lukather J and S Porcaro would help form another multi-award album, Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Coincidentally, Jackson was presented his ward by all Toto members themselves, although Jackson paid tribute to only Steve Porcaro. The third but disappointing change was the removal/leaving of Bobby Kimball as the lead singer as he was heavily on drinking a drugs. Lukather mentioned the explanation over here but then again bands usually have such problems. Fergie Frederiksen was Jeff Porcaro’s favourite choice but he couldn’t fit in well during recording sessions. Frederiksen was probably not a good choice since Joseph Williams, son of composer John Williams was considered. In fact he became the third lead vocalist while songs in Isolation such as “Stranger in Town” and “Holyanna” charted at #20 and #71.

The Line up

Before I move on, a little bit about Toto’s line up and music. Paich and Lukather were somewhat low baritone voices of different degrees. Jeff Porcaro sitting behind his drum set, added much to each Toto song and various compositions of other artists. Steve Porcaro added only a few songs in the early Toto year and Bobby Kimball added high vocals, but not as high as falsetto singers like Robbin Gibb. This mixture of Paich’s, Lukather’s and Kimball’s voice came out most notably in “Africa” and “Rosanna” (I’m sure it was also distinct in other Toto songs but I’ve not listened to all of them). For “Rosanna”, the Lukather-Kimball combination reason cane be found here, and that in my opinion was a great combination of voices. As for “Africa”, Kimball only sings the chorus and adds to some parts of the verses, while they should have given him the whole song. (They did at least once in 2000, when Paich was absent and he performed brilliantly with the help of Tony Spinner and others). Lyrics wise, with a Beatles and other rock musicians influence, Toto formed their songs with simple but emotive background stories—“Stranger in Town” and “Africa” are good examples.

The Williams years

With Joseph Williams in, his voice added a new touch to the Paich Lukather tone. Williams pitch was much high than Kimball’s and he was much younger than Kimball when he joined. The first Williams and Toto album was Fahrenheit, something which Williams described a fiery fast paced album. I haven’t listen to all the songs but the music video of “Till the End” was pretty cool—vocal wise and acting wise. (The dancer was Paula Abdul). One song hit #11 on the US Charts but overall, it rated only #40.US charts however do not tell the whole story. After Toto IV, the US audience slowly began to shun this up and coming group. (Isolation hit #2 on the Japanese Charts and #8 of the Swedish and Norwegian charts but only #42 on the US charts).I’m not a music expert on 80s music but I suspected the US crowd stuck to their old time favourites and dismissed the artistic talent of this band. Also, Steve Porcaro left after the Fahrenheit tour to pursue a career in film and TV scoring.

However, Toto made it good with the song “I’ll be over you” which hit #11 on the US charts. A second notable but sadly not charted song is “Lea” written by Steve Porcaro. What is specially is how distinct “Lea” is from the Paich and Lukather contributions and how this Porcaro brother saw Joseph Willliam’s voice matching his music and lyrics. Mike Porcaro once commented, “Joe is a fantastic vocalist and musician. He's a son of composer John Williams. He was perfect for Toto...Basically he was a perfect Toto member, as a person and as a musician.” On another note, by know Toto audiences would have realised that the band used many “older” female names in their songs—for example, Manuela, Elenore, Carmen etc—rather than more common names like Shelia or Jessica. However, that should not be a factor in choosing which band to listen too. In an around the same time, Toto wrote and performed songs for the Dune soundtrack, which while it didn’t chart very high on the charts, was still a major breakthrough for the group and their first and only movie soundtrack.

If there was a second Toto IV like album in my opinion and not that of audiences and music critics, it would be The Seventh One. It can be classified as a rock album, but close continued listening would tell you that it was not a full rock or normal rock album. Songs such as “Mushanga”, “A Thousand Years”, “Only The Children” and “Home of the rave” touched many social issues. As Jeff Porcaro remarked in an interview, Toto professed not to draw social themes into their music, but by then most of them “had matured” with families and lifestyles that influenced their music. A second notable distinction from this album was that Williams made his mark, helping to write not only most of the songs but creating a distinct voice. This came out (in my view) in songs like “Pamela”, “Stop Loving You” and “Straight for the Heart”. A third but minor distinction was that it came under the Columbia not CBs label. It was really sad that this album didn’t chart high in the US or the UK but hit #2 on the Swedish Charts and #3 on the Japanese Charts.

Goodbye [Joe] Goodbye

Touring and performing this album however, lead to another downfall for Toto unfortunately. Joseph William constantly partied late, got a cold and like Kimball, took drugs. Many performances, especially of songs like “Stop Loving You” weren’t his best and he had to leave. William’s departure was probably felt more by the members than was Kimball’s departure. Lukather remarked, “Joseph was great until he got ****** up and he'll be the first one to tell you that. Love Joe, funny guy. The first tour, the Fahrenheit tour he was brilliant. Sang great every night. And then, you know, you can't be a lead singer and get high. Like freezing your vocal chords and eventually, you know, you *** yourself up. I mean, I'm not trying to go back and dig up some old shit that he's already gone way past, 15 years ago. He's not like that at all anymore. It was a rough spot in the road and in that era everybody was doing it. I was doing it too. Not make it seem like I'm some innocent guy in all of this. We were all fucking getting high. It was the thing to do in the '80s. But you can't be the lead singer of a band, staying up all night doing that shit, destroying …It would be like me taking a sand blaster to my fingers every night and then trying to play. You can't do it.”

A South African touch that didn’t work

Without Joseph, the band would have easily broken up—but Toto wasn’t going to go bust so soon. They reached the mark where the Beatles hit until the fab four broken up but Toto wouldn’t go down that easily. Calling Bobby back was the first idea on their minds but their record company had other ideas. A rather unknown South African vocalist named Jean-Michel Bryon. Bryon himself did remark that he had to work to fit into this award winning group, but his actions just didn’t seem to fit.

The host of negative comments about Bryon online but to put it simply, he was Michael Jackson like on stage and girl happy off stage. Nothing wrong with being a Michael Jackson on stage (as noted several Toto members helped out in the Thriller album and Paich, Steve and Jeff Porcaro helped out with songs like USA for Africa and Heal the World) but Toto as a whole a serious musicians. They don’t want punk dancing on stage and especially if the lead vocalist can’t perform songs like “Rosanna”, he shouldn’t be dancing wildly on stage. As for off stage, he tried to barge into girls Steve Lukather was mixing with and tried to sell the band his own way. “He tried to imitate Michael Jackson on stage, with dance steps and stuff. It drove us mad. Especially my brother Jeff. Jean-Michel also thought he could make big stars of Toto again. That kind of bullshit. That was the last time we listened to our record company!" remarked Mike Porcaro in an interview. Lukather later said Bryon was like “like casting Pee wee Herman to play Godzilla”. Still under Bryon, fans liked singles like “Animal” and the compilation album Past to Present 1977-1990 hit Platinum under the RIAA. Bryon also worked with them on the album Toto Live. Music Videos from Past to Present also held strong messages, one on politics.

It’s the music that they choose

At this point in their career, Toto members weren’t simply Toto members but seasoned session musicians each having performed for many other artists including famous ones like Elton John, the Bee Gees, George Harrison and Paul McCartney. Without a Williams or a Kimball, they took in a African American female vocalist, Jenny Douglas-McRae who later recommended a male African American singer John James aw well as a certain Donna McDaniels. With them they produced Absolutely Live and Kingdom of Desire. With this line up, “Hold the Line” became a duet between Douglas McRae and James, “Rosanna’s” chorus and “Stop Loving You” was handled by James. This wasn’t the Toto that many knew but the audiences remained strong worldwide. Unfortunately, this was not the case with home audiences; Kingdom of Desire hit #3 on the Swedish charts but the US home crowd did not help put the album on the Billboard charts. However, hat wasn’t the big disappointment for the band.

Light gone out

In August 1992, Jeffery Porcaro, a loving father and husband to Susan Porcaro a Californian newscaster, went out to tend to his garden but return indoors and shook violently. The official reason for his death was that he was allergic to the pesticide he used but Toto critics or “haters” of Toto conjured up rumours that he was taking drugs. I’ll of course stick with the version from Toto. Jeff wasn’t just any Toto member: he was the backbone of Toto—forming every songs, preparing every rehearsal, every stage performance. He wasn’t any drummer; he was a drummer for many other artists as mentioned above. With Jeff’s passing, many thought the flame in Toto would finally die out. It almost did with Steve Lukather who probably (I’m guessing here) got his arm tattooed (with Jeff’s name on it—I’m guessing; I haven’t seen his arm up close). However, Susan Porcaro urged the group to continue.

Simon Philips, an English percussionist who had worked with famous groups such as The Who was Paich and Lukather’s first choice since they had worked with him previously. While Jeff had injected much of his rhythm into songs like “Africa”, “Rosanna” and “Stop Loving You”, Philip brought in a whole new style to Toto songs. . His fills often begin earlier than is expected, often beginning on the "2-and" and continuing to build until "1" of the next bar. His use of metric modulation notable, and he often uses it to build tension in sections of songs with repeated chord progressions. He often uses double bass drums in the context of a fill. This would be most prominent in songs like “Rosanna”. Another key feature was that he plays open handed--meaning that he plays the hi-hat with his left hand and the snare with the right, not crossing his hands. The ride cymbal is also played left instead of right, even though he is right-handed. Finally, his drum kit was so huge that they used to call it “HMS Philips”. A good account of the transition from Jeff to Simon can be found here.

With Philips and the new lead singers, the band embarked on the remaining Kingdom of Desire tour and produced a live album, Absolutely Live, which was relatively well received by the Dutch crowd and radio stations (#23 on the Dutch charts). Lukather at this stage handled “I’ll be over you” by himself, making it a bass tone song. A fitting tribute to Jeff was given in a concert which included guest such a George Harrison, and the proceeds went to a fund for percussion and the children of the gifted drummer. Oh, a certain song, “Only You” was placed on this record. What was remarkable was that it was almost made it to the Top Gun soundtrack. Toto members in fact were suppose to perform the song “Danger Zone” in the movie but due to legal problems, it was handed to Kenny Loggins.

Lukather control

By the early 90s, Lukather had established several albums by himself—Lost Lobotomys, Lukather

I> and Candyman (1994) but none of these hit to top of the top of the charts. Neither did Toto songs from Kingdom of Desire but their international fan base continued to grow. One such fan was Dutch DJ named Alfred Lagarde whom the band later dedicated the album Toto XX to. (See later section). I not sure of all the factors that lead to American crowds to ignore Toto, but I’m sure the 90s hard rock bands, boy and girl bands won the hearts on teens. The problem though is what Lukather pointed out—changes in the music business. Changes also took place with Toto music in the 90s.

This is their Night

In 1994, the band participated in the Night of the Proms, delivering their hit songs though of course it sounded different without Bobby’s voice. The next year, they released an album with an African sounding name, Tambu, thought it was derived from South America. While I’ve not heard all the songs on Tambu, it’s definitely a much different album from their 70s or 80s stuff. One distinctive song, “I Will Remember”, is a song that bring out strong emotions and performed brilliantly by Steve Lukather. The unusual back drop to its music video can be found here--here. It’s certainly not a a rock song or a 90s rock, nor can it be classified as a a full love song. However, just like the Beatles, Steve Lukather managed to create a composition that fits with many of situations in our lives. With their international backing, “I will remember” went Gold in several European countries and in Japan and country which enjoy Toto’s music. Another sadly uncharted but great song was “The road goes on” and it was another Lukather song, co written with Glen Ballard. I can’t remember the source, but that song was written because of Lukather’s high school crush/girlfriend. In essence, while nineties music was all mainly pop or hard rock, Toto songs carried meaning and were composed by serious musicians who were concerned with music first, not so much entertainment.

Member’s character

There were certain interviews about the Tambu album and concert tour and even without looking at them, serious Toto followers would recognise the character of each Toto member then. Lukather was one would not hesitate to speak his mind. Whether it was about their record company (see later), other musician or people who got involved with Toto, he would always be frank when he discusses them. David Paich would be focused but would also give his views on anything. Mike Porcaro on the on hand was the peaceful one. Not that he didn’t say his mind (read above) but he plodded along, working to produce each Toto song and album diligently. I’m sure Mike helped with each song but he isn’t credited to any Toto specific song.

Anyway, Toto continued to tour during the mid 90s. In 1995, a compilation album, Best Ballads which to critics like AllMusic.com rated pretty high. In my view, such critics only appreciated the alignment of Toto songs and not each new album itself. In 1996, their record company (against their will—I think) released another compilation album entitled Greatest Hits, included the previously unreleased song, “The Seventh One”. I can find exact information on how high this album charted, but I’m sure it hit the top 200 in European countries. During the Tambu Tour, another mishap fell on the band as Simon Philips injured his back but Gregg Bassinette filled in for him. A near miss came as Tambu was nominated for Best Engineered Album in the 1996m, engineered by Elliot Scheiner.

20 year mark

Toto by this time rode high on its old songs like “Hold the line”, “Rosanna” and “Africa”. Another interesting fact was that songs perform live (mainly in the 1990s) contained unreleased tracks. Touring continued but by 1997, the band had outlasted many of the old famous 50s 60s and some 70s rock groups. The only setback was the inability to get more number ones on any chart, especially given their international fan base. For Toto lovers however, the Band gave them a special treat by firstly releasing some previously recorded tracks in a new album called Toto XX, marking 20 years of Toto sound. Visiting South Africa and thus the African continent naturally, they themed up with a SA choir and drum unit to sing a version of “Africa”. Another surprise was a reunion with Steve Porcaro, Joseph Williams and the original vocalist, Bobby Kimball. One of their best performances in my view was in Paris where Steve Porcaro played the bridge of “Rosanna” which won the crowd’s praise. Just at the closing of the Toto XX tour, Bobby Kimball rejoined as the official lead vocalist and the single “Goin’ Home” hit #99 on the German charts.

So once more Toto was almost Toto, save Jeff Porcaro who was with them in spirit. Once with Kimball, the band worked on another album, Mindsfields, which reached both #7 on the Swedish and Norwegian charts. Next came Livefields, a live album which showcased much of the Mindsfields tour. One small difference was a added song for the Japanese version of Mindsfields. Livefields not only hit #25 on the French charts but saw the inclusion of a new guitarist who played the acoustic guitar and sang background vocals. This certain Tony Spinner , combined with another certain Buddy Hyatt made the Toto tour in Japan one of the most memorable Toto tours ever. To me, their performance of Africa here was one of the best performances. Toto seemed to be rejuvenated.

The Millennium and Toto

The first part of the new century saw Toto touring, hitting East European cities. On once occasion in Sofia, Bulgaria, David Paich had to return to take care of his sister and Jeff Babko filled in for him. Without the main vocalist for Africa, Kimball, along with Spinner and Lukather’s background man John Jessel pulled off a fantastic performance of their hit song. It was from this performance that I judged that Kimball should have handled “Africa” by himself. Ever the musicians, the members adjourned to pursue their own projects, especially Luke, who worked out another album entitled No Substitutions. Because of their own pursuits, Toto decided that their next album would be mainly covers to hasten time. Entitled Through the Looking Glass, Toto gave this explanation—“ This is a rendering of masterpieces that could not have been perfected, only interpreted and passed down to the next runner (may he never drop the baton). This is a musical mirror of our true reflections.” It included songs from Bob Marley to George Harrison. Toto took the latter’s classic song, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and turned in into a strong soul touching song, added much of Paich’s keyboard style and Luke’s deep voice to it. A great background to the album can be found here. Despite several great covers, this album failed to hit charts. Around the same time in 2002, Sony released yet another compilation, Greatest Hits and More which while even managing #210 on the Japanese charts, was “for the real Toto fan there's nothing new”, according to Lukather’s website.

25 years

The biggest tour that fans were waiting for was their 25th Anniversary tour. It was certainly was extremely well received world wide and the band choose Amsterdam as the place to film their concert live—came out in both DVD and CD. No longer under Colombia Records but under Eagle Rock, the band in my view performed spectacularly. Many have argued that Kimball lipsynched the chorus of “Africa” in the DVD but I strongly disagree. The voice may be close to the original record, but Philips drum beats weren’t. Furthermore, Tony Spinner’s background vocals added to the chorus, thus it sounded quite perfect. Besides, after listen to that performance several times, I truly believe it was a live performance—Kimball could sing songs like “White Sister”, “Rosanna” and “Home of the Brave” with ease. Even if it was a success for fans (though not on charts--#66 on the Dutch charts), Lukather himself didn’t like his performance in some parts.

Toto also participated in their second Night of the Proms, performing so hard back to back that they hardly had time to rest. Another mishap happened as Simon Philips ill at the beginning and the band had to settle for Ricky Lawson. Lawson was ok, but he tried hard (and failed) to copy Jeff Porcaro’s style in playing “Rosanna”. Again, Paich had to return to LA and another guy filled in for him. Despite this, NOTP 2003 was another successful run for Toto; it saw Tony Spinner handling the full vocals for “Stop Loving You” (which was Joseph William’s song). Tony certainly performed 100/100 for this song and made it his own, although I still prefer Jeff’s drumming. In 2003, Sony again brought out another compilation, Love Songs, where Allmusic.com noted “the sequencing is planned brilliantly, interspersing major hits with album material like a proper arena rock concert”. One more compilation was The Essential Toto, which hit #2 on the Norwegian charts. However, Tot rested far more on its live performances rather that the albums that it’s not so supportive company made (more later).

The Rise of “Davida" or rather the entry of Greg

Toto continued to tour much after that with many live performances, included a great one by Kimball who sang another song intially sung by Williams--“Only the Children”. By this time, many fans would have noted that Bobby Kimball kept many bottled of water on stage. It was excusable given him being the oldest member then, but it showed just how long the band had lasted. Also by this time, David Paich really needed to take care of his sister and family in LA and a certain Greg Phillinganes replaced Paich on the keyboards. Phillinganes was an accomplished musician (having also helped with M Jackson’s “Thriller”) but I personally prefer Paich’s voice, especially on songs such as “Africa” (most definitely) and “Home of the Brave”. To mark Paich semi-retirement, Lukather pulled a cheeky note and said that he would return as Davida. With the media failing to get the joke, the note was retracted, but that’s Luke for you. Toto continued to tour, even back in their home country and did a well received performance with the US Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Tokyo Jazz Festival.

From the bottom of their souls

Finally in 2006, Toto, plus Steve Porcaro and Joseph Williams racked their brains together and produced a new studio album entitled Falling in Between. Free of Sony/Columbia, there produced this under the Italian company Frontiers Records, most probably because of their long strong relationship with the European crowds .Falling in between, the single itself features vocal and music work by Phillinganes and Mike Porcaro himself is credited in many songs. In was much a family reunion for them as Joseph Williams gave additional vocals to a certain song, “Bottom of your soul”.

If fans thought the band successfully captured the mood and environment of “Africa”, “Bottom of your soul” was certainly more African like in sound. Furthermore, it conveyed a message of poverty and conflict moving along side movements such as the End of Poverty, the Jubilee Debt Campaign and the Millennium Development Goals. I’m not sure where Toto got the background of “Bottom of your soul” from (some say it was about Sudan—well I’ve not purchased the actual album) but once more Toto was addressing contemporary issues, unlike many other artists. In fact, another song of theirs, “No End in sight”, contains the lyrics “The curse of blood Falls upon this nation I was my hands And hang my head in shame”. Lukather himself dismissed this in a interview with Jeffery Ougler of Sault Star. “I’m not Bono..I’m not trying to save the world...” as an after thought he adds, “Let’s just say we all want love and peace in the world”. Politics minded or not, “Bottom of your soul” reached #32 as a single and the fans and radio stations pushed the album to #6 on the Swedish charts. More about the album and the single can be found here and here. Do note Lukather’s gladness to be free of Sony records and the performance on Wetten Das. (That performance was a pure playback and one rare time when Toto agreed to use playbacks).

No Mike

Touring and promoting the album saw another big mishap. Mike Porcaro suffered a muscle disease—see here for Mike own account. He managed to perform sitting down for several performances before he had to rest and a veteran bass player, Leland Sklar took his place. Lee as he was commonly known was a great bass player but he didn’t look Toto with his long shaggy beard. Nevertheless, Toto hit the road with Falling in Between Live. Notable changes to songs were first “Rosanna” which was made into a jazz version (well for the first verse at least) after 30 years of playing in the same style. Second, Tony Spinner also gave a jazzed up version of “Stop Loving you”. Finally, each member left the stage one by one at the closing of “Africa”.

Family Reunion

In around the same time, ex Toto vocalists like Jenny Douglas-McRae, John James and Fergie Federiksen combined to make a Toto plus (that’s my term) concert. Federiksen was much disliked by Lukather after he left as he continued to sing Toto songs and presented himself as part of Toto in TV performances. See this interview again for Lukather’s views. Falling in between live was notched up to only #81 on the French charts but even if it wasn’t due to the fans, proper music listeners could tell that Bobby Kimball was using auto-tune for songs such as “Hold the line” and couldn’t always give a great performance of “Pamela”. Still everything seemed fine until...

Gone

Lukather finally posted this article explaining in quite detail why he decided to end Toto. Far from being a Beatles break up of a Brian Wilson-Beach Boys feud, it still was a shock to fans. Lukather’s first reason was that there were differences between how he and the rest wanted the band to go. I can’t remember which source, but Lukather increasingly wanted to play new songs on tour while the others were sticking to the old familiar tracks. I agree with Lukather with that while Toto is known for its old 80s songs, to outsiders the tendency was that Toto was only associated with “Africa”.

The second reason was that he was the remaining original member (Kimball to him didn’t count) and that it didn’t feel like the original Toto anymore. I disagree with this as a reason for breaking up; they could just stopped touring and worked on projects until Mike Porcaro recovered. Fro Luke’s explanation, I sensed that he favoured Joseph Williams over Bobby Kimball as a lead vocalist. I suppose so since Kimball started drinking water on stage and having to use auto tune. But Kimball’s songs and Williams songs are a level apart—although both did try to reach each other’s vocal levels. Without a constant lead singer, it’s easy for a band to end. But they could have just stopped and called back David Hungate or so. Maybe.

A third reason not exactly emphasised on Lukather’s post was the feeling of going Solo. Lukather had already done song with several individual or collaborated albums as well as playing extensively for a range of artists. Every now and then, musicians want to break away and take solo careers—Robin Gibb in the 60s and 80s and Paul McCartney (one of the small reasons for the Beatles breakupp) are good examples. Sadly, Lukather did not hit the charts with his albums and releases (if he did, please tell me and I stand corrected). Lukather’s style and songs are of course different from Toto’s. Someone on his site once asked him to perform “Only the Children” and he remarked he could hit that high a voice. To me personally, Lukather needs Toto and Toto needed Lukather.

What Lukather did allude to much in his explanation was how Sony wasn’t forthcoming with Tony and how their manager then, Donny Ienner refused to help promote the band. As with many other band failures, Toto just didn’t have a great company. Again, Lukather also mentioned how the US shunned the group. Was Toto’s music really unpopular with an American/(and to some extent British) crowd? Simon Philips said it was again due to the record company. Perhaps they tried so hard to be The Beatles number 2 but just couldn’t make it

Meet you all the way

So where are they all now? Lukather himself has made a rather successful career jamming with European and US crowds and working with other artists. With five Grammys to his name, it wouldn’t be long till he gets a sixth. David Paich recently performed “Africa” at the UN MDG awards ceremony but again without Bobby’s voice, it just didn’t sound right. I suppose he’s living a quiet lime in LA, working in session music. Bobby Kimball toured South East Asia with the break up and again, without Toto, he just didn’t seem right to perform “Africa” and “Rosanna”. Mike Porcaro, well there’s no new on his recovery but it could be due to privacy. He still is the quiet one and his website isn’t updated. Steve Porcaro is still with film scores but to my knowledge, hasn’t written for major movies. Joseph Williams fits in well with animated or cartoon voices and music but his live performances of “Pamela” says much of his age. Ferderiksen has a wordpress site up but is just singing here and there. The nineties vocalists have in fact found greater heights after Toto and Tony Spinner himself is on the road, sometimes with Lukather. Interestingly, JM Bryon has his own website up and has a lousy version of “Hold the Line” up. One big reward will be in October this year, where Lukather, Hungate, Paich and the three Porcaros (Jeff in memorandum) will be inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame, for contributions to various music groups through the years. This award sadly is only for the music players, so the lead singers, especially Kimball, will not be entitled for the award.

Toto started off as a unknown band and hit high in the eighties, proving critics, outsiders and other well known artists wrong. They suffered as any band did but moved through it all, making not just songs but meaningful music, always placing the notes and sound before popularity and image. Battling through the setbacks, they emerged true to music, placing each note with soul reaching effect. They may not have been the Beatles or any other chart topping band, but they were Toto to many. Perhaps one day we will see a 35th or 40th Toto reunion but for now, they’ve certainly did the things we’ve never had.

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