In various line-ups, Toto is a band that continues to captivate over the years. Unfortunately never seen live yet but perhaps that will happen one day.
Toto
Toto is an American rock band from Los Angeles that had its greatest successes in the 1980s. The members of the group had worked as studio musicians on hundreds of albums before they started working together under the name Toto. Toto is not named after Dorothy's dog Toto from The Wizard of Oz, as is often assumed. What is true is that drummer Jeff Porcaro, shortly after seeing this film, noticed the group's demo tapes with the word 'Toto'. Bassist David Hungate followed Jeff Porcaro's idea. In the 1988/89 season, Jeff Porcaro gave an interview at the Ahoy in Rotterdam to Jan Douwe Kroeske. Toto comes from the Latin In Toto, Et Toto or Et Totas, which means 'all-encompassing'.
The band is named so because the group wants to use as many musical styles as possible when making their music. In the interview, Porcaro says: "We didn't just play heavy metal, or didn't just play R&B, we liked all sorts of music. We don't think there should be any barriers for what we are capable of doing or want to play". The interview is on the DVD Toto's Greatest Hits Live.. And More!. Many people still think that Robert Toteaux is the official name of singer Bobby Kimball. However, this was a joke made by guitarist Steve Lukather during an interview.
Jeff Porcaro died in 1992.
Toto was formed in 1976 in Los Angeles, when David Paich and Jeff Porcaro started a band together. Paich and Porcaro were already respected session musicians for, among others, Steely Dan, but they wanted to start a band themselves.
In 1978, Toto scored their first hit with "Hold the Line", from the debut album Toto. For this album, they received a Grammy Award nomination for Best New Artist. The successful debut was followed by Hydra (1979) and Turn Back (1981). Their fourth album, released in 1982 under the fitting name Toto IV, led to the big breakthrough for the Californian rock band. The album includes hits such as "Africa" and "Rosanna". The title of the latter song comes from actress Rosanna Arquette, who at the time of the album's recording regularly dated Toto keyboardist Steve Porcaro.
The remaining band members long debated whether to continue now their drummer had passed away. In the spirit of Porcaro, they decided to simply release the album Kingdom of Desire and go ahead with the already planned tour (for which all crew had already been hired). The British drummer Simon Phillips, who was already known to Steve Lukather through their work with Jeff Beck and Carlos Santana, was approached to take Porcaro's place.
In 2018, a new album was released which was also the name of the concert tour with which Toto celebrated their fortieth anniversary; '40 Trips Around the Sun'. The album contained 3 new songs. In August, Toto released the single "Hash Pipe". This is a song by the band Weezer, who earlier that year scored a hit with a cover of Toto's "Africa". In September, the autobiography was published as a hardcover, e-book and later as an audiobook. The book called 'The Gospel According to Luke' tells the story about Steve Lukather and about Toto. The book is in English and written in the way Steve Lukather also speaks.
Toto has quite a few songs in the Top2000.
Source: Wikipedia Photo: Eget værk
