Toto

Toto are one of the bands most despised by critics and most respected by musicians, and that enormous distance is, precisely, their story.

To the general public they are the ones who did "Africa", that song you cannot get out of your head.

To the music world they are something else: the best session musicians of their generation, the guys who played, without appearing on the cover, on records from half the planet.

One day they decided to get together and make their own band.

Five thousand other people's records

The musicians who formed it — above all the guitarist Steve Lukather, the keyboard player David Paich and the Porcaro brothers — were, before and during Toto, the most in-demand session musicians in Los Angeles.

That is: when any famous artist recorded an album and needed the best instrumentalists in the world to make it sound perfect, they called them.

The figure usually given is enormous and it is worth attributing it properly: according to the band's own official biography, Toto's family tree can be heard on some five thousand records adding up to half a billion copies sold. It is a figure they themselves put about and that nobody has audited, but it gives the scale of the thing.

And the biggest example connects with a story Rebobinados has already told: when Michael Jackson recorded "Thriller" with Quincy Jones, several members of Toto played on the record.

On "Beat It", the drums are Jeff Porcaro's and the bass and guitars are Steve Lukather's, except the solo, which was played by Eddie Van Halen.

It is worth correcting a detail that gets repeated wrongly, and it happens to be the most striking one: the "Beat It" riff is not Lukather's. Michael Jackson wrote it, and Lukather played it, doubled and with less distortion at Quincy Jones's request.

Steve Porcaro is also on that record, on synthesisers, and is a co-writer of "Human Nature". That song got there because of a badly rewound cassette.

Paich sent Quincy Jones a tape of candidates. Porcaro, who had no blank tapes to hand, had recorded over one that carried on its other side his home demo of "Human Nature", written after a conversation with his daughter Heather, whom a boy had hit at school.

Quincy listened to the good side, it was no use to him, and he let the tape run. The deck had auto-reverse. John Bettis finished the lyrics.

The best-selling album in history has the Toto boys playing on it. They were the invisible labourers of music. Toto was, deep down, those anonymous geniuses deciding to sign with their own name for once.

They played too well

And here is the paradox that defined them.

Precisely because they were session musicians — perfectionists, technical, capable of playing anything flawlessly — rock criticism hated them.

At a time when rock valued attitude, rebellion, rawness, Toto were the opposite: immaculate professionals from Los Angeles. They came out a year after "Never Mind the Bollocks" by the Sex Pistols, and they might have been from another planet.

The record came out on 10 October 1978, and in January 1979 Rolling Stone tore them apart with a line by Don Shewey that followed them forever: skilful craftsmen without a genius to guide them, professional but without poetry.

Lukather puts it with bitter humour: he thinks they are the most critically vilified band of all time.

But while the critics mocked them, musicians revered them, because they understood how difficult what they did was. In a single night, on 23 February 1983, "Toto IV" won six Grammy awards, including Album of the Year and Record of the Year for "Rosanna".

It is the eternal difference between what is cool and what is hard. Toto were not the first, but they mastered the second like almost nobody else.

Africa, the meme that became eternal

Their most famous song was written by David Paich and Jeff Porcaro, and not even the band itself thought it was anything special.

Lukather says that when Paich turned up with that business about blessing the rains down in Africa, he thought: we are a bunch of white guys from North Hollywood, they are going to kill us.

The single came out on 30 September 1982 and reached number one on the Hot 100 on 5 February 1983, for a single week. Over the years it seemed doomed to be just another eighties relic.

But something extraordinary happened: decades later, with the internet, it came back to life as a generational phenomenon. It became a meme, a guilty pleasure that millions of young people who had not been born when it came out embraced with affection and irony at the same time.

Weezer did a cover in 2018 that went to number one on the alternative chart. It plays in "Stranger Things". And in January 2019 the artist Max Siedentopf installed in the Namib desert six solar-powered speakers, designed to play it indefinitely, at a point he never revealed.

A song the critics despised ended up as one of the internet's best-loved anthems. Toto, who were never cool, became cool by accident, forty years late.

What to remember

Toto are proof that craft and mastery deserve respect, even if they do not grant rock credibility.

Put on "Africa", "Rosanna", "Hold the Line" or "I Won't Hold You Back", and you will hear pop-rock made with a precision that borders on the perfect, played by some of the finest instrumentalists who have ever existed.

The band had its tragedies too. Jeff Porcaro, the brilliant drummer and engine of the group, died on 5 August 1992, at thirty-eight. The initial account spoke of an allergic reaction to a pesticide he was spraying in his garden; the Los Angeles county coroner ruled a heart attack from coronary disease linked to cocaine use, with no trace of pesticide in his system, a conclusion his family and his bandmates reject, maintaining that he had a previously undiagnosed heart condition.

His brother Mike, the bassist, died in March 2015 after years of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. And Dennis "Fergie" Frederiksen, the singer on "Isolation", died in January 2014 of liver cancer.

They were a family of musicians, in the literal sense and in the figurative one. The critics laughed at them for decades, musicians studied them with admiration, and in the end even young audiences rediscovered them.

Few bands this good were so little valued in their own time, and few had such a sweet revenge.

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Sources

Toto, American band formed in Los Angeles in 1977 by David Paich (keyboards) and Jeff Porcaro (drums), with Steve Lukather (guitar), Steve Porcaro (keyboards), David Hungate (bass, later replaced by Mike Porcaro) and Bobby Kimball (vocals). Its members were leading session musicians; the figure of some five thousand records and half a billion copies comes from the band's official biography, refers to their complete "family tree" and has not been independently audited. Several of them took part in Michael Jackson's "Thriller", produced by Quincy Jones: on "Beat It", Jeff Porcaro played drums and Steve Lukather bass and guitars, except the solo, handled by Eddie Van Halen. It is worth correcting a frequent attribution: the "Beat It" riff was written by Michael Jackson, and Lukather played it, doubled and with less distortion at Quincy Jones's request; the album credits also list Paul Jackson Jr. on rhythm guitar. Steve Porcaro took part on synthesisers and is a co-writer of "Human Nature". "Toto IV" (1982) won six Grammy awards in a single ceremony, on 23 February 1983, including Album of the Year and Record of the Year for "Rosanna"; regarding the latter, David Paich has denied that it is about the actress Rosanna Arquette, then Steve Porcaro's partner, although he took the name from her. "Africa", written by Paich and Jeff Porcaro, was released on 30 September 1982 and reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on 5 February 1983, for one week; it experienced an enormous cultural revival on the internet decades later, with a Weezer cover in 2018, its use in "Stranger Things" and Max Siedentopf's installation "Toto Forever" in the Namib desert, in January 2019, designed to play it indefinitely at an undisclosed location. The critics treated them harshly: the review of their debut album in Rolling Stone, signed by Don Shewey and published in January 1979 —the record had come out on 10 October 1978—, described them as skilful craftsmen without a genius to guide them, professional but without poetry; Lukather has told that same magazine that he considers them the most critically vilified band of all time, and has said that on first hearing "Africa" he thought they would be killed for being a group of white guys from North Hollywood. Jeff Porcaro died on 5 August 1992, at 38; the initial account attributed his death to an allergic reaction to a pesticide, while the Los Angeles county coroner ruled a heart attack from occlusive coronary disease associated with cocaine use, with no trace of pesticide, a conclusion rejected by his family and his bandmates. Mike Porcaro died on 15 March 2015, at 59, of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and Dennis "Fergie" Frederiksen on 18 January 2014, of liver cancer. Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones, Van Halen, Weezer and Sex Pistols have their own profiles in this series. Externally authored text, edited and verified for Rebobinados. Interpretations of the meaning of their work are offered as the author's reading. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from Louder, Rolling Stone, Grammy.com, NPR, Wikipedia, maxsiedentopf.com and other coverage.