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Steve Porcaro

Biography

Steve Porcaro

Overview

  • Born
    September 2, 1957 · Hartford, Connecticut, USA
  • Birth name
    Steven Maxwell Porcaro
  • Height
    5′ 6″ (1.68 m)

Biography

  • Steve Porcaro is a platinum-selling songwriter ( "Human Nature" by Micheal Jackson), Film/TV composer (FX's "Justified"), synth pioneer/keyboardist, and founding member of the Grammy-winning, platinum-selling band Toto, which he founded with his brother, iconic drummer Jeff Porcaro (Paul Simon, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen), and later included brother Mike Porcaro (Stevie Nicks, Bob Weir, Boz Scaggs) on bass.

    Throughout the 70s and 80s, the golden age of the recording industry - the Porcaro brothers were in constant demand as session musicians.

    Third generation musicians, all three Porcaro brothers started playing professionally at young ages; led by Jeff, one of the most successful session musicians of all time. Their father, Joe Porcaro, was a legendary jazz drummer and educator who was a part of The Wrecking Crew and appeared on over 1500 TV/Film scores including: Hawaii 5-0, Ghostbusters, Goonies, Chinatown, Badlands and The Jerk. Steve is also known as one of the stars of HBO Original critically acclaimed documentary "Music Box: Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary."

    Toto was one of the best-selling bands of the era, thanks to monster hits like "Africa" (#1 on Billboard Hot 100), "Rosanna" (Grammy Record of the Year) and "Hold the Line." The band's 1982 4X platinum "Toto IV" secured 6 Grammys and captivates some 25M monthly listeners on Spotify, nearly as much as The Rolling Stones and more than Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty.

    A visionary, Steve was an early adopter and master of analog synthesizers, including the Yamaha CS-80, Polyfusion Modular, Minimoog, and later digital synths. Steve's cutting-edge programming and atmospheric/textual sound design helped popularize synthesizers in rock and pop music. Soon he became a major go-to producing, designing, composing synths and drum loops for artists and producers such as Quincy Jones, Micheal Jackson, Hall & Oates, Chaka Khan, David Foster, Elton John and Don Henley. Roger Linn has credited Steve for suggesting he record samples of real drums onto a computer chip, resulting in the Linn LM-1 Drum Computer, which thanks to Gary Numan, Michael Jackson and Prince became a staple of 80's pop.

    In 1984, along with Toto, Steve composed music for David Lynch's Dune (1984). In 1987, Steve left Toto to focus on songwriting and scoring. He has composed music and arranged orchestration for such film/TV shows as Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money (1999), Eddie Murphy's "Metro" and Jackie Chan's "The Medallion."
    - IMDb mini biography by: Steve Porcaro

Family

  • Spouses
      Pam(September 12, 1998 - February 1, 2010) (divorced, 2 children)
      Jeanette L Mellin (divorced, 1 child)
  • Children
      Micki Porcaro
      Heather Porcaro
  • Parents
      Joe Porcaro
  • Relatives
      Mike Porcaro(Sibling)
      Jeff Porcaro(Sibling)
      Joleen Porcaro(Sibling)

Trivia

  • Son of Joe Porcaro. Younger brother of Jeff Porcaro and Mike Porcaro.
  • Played keyboards on the title track of Yes' "Open Your Eyes" album (1997). He also played with them on their "Union" album (1991) and well as touring the USA with three members of Yes in summer 1992 as "The Chris Squire Experiment".
  • Played keyboards and synthesizers for the band Toto, and other background groups.
  • The Toto song "Rosanna" is incorrectly assumed as using Rosanna Arquette name who was dating Steve then. David Paich wrote Rosanna and needed a female name so Steve's girlfriend was just chosen.

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