Jeff Porcaro

Jeffrey Thomas Porcaro was born on April 1, 1954, in Hartford, Connecticut, the eldest son of Los Angeles session percussionist^[4] Joe Porcaro (1930–2020) and his wife, Eileen.^[5] His younger brother Mike was a successful bassist and was a member of the band Toto. Younger brother Steve, also a member of Toto, is still a studio musician. Porcaro was raised in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles and attended Ulysses S. Grant High School. Jeff's youngest sibling, sister Joleen, was born in 1960.^{[citation needed]}

Porcaro began playing drums at the age of seven. Lessons came from his father Joe Porcaro, followed by further studies with Bob Zimmitti and Richie Lepore. When he was seventeen, he got his first professional gig playing in Sonny & Cher's touring band.^[6] He later called Jim Keltner and Jim Gordon his idols at that time.^[7] During his twenties, Porcaro played on hundreds of albums,^[8] including three for Steely Dan.^[9] On the Steely Dan album Pretzel Logic, he played alongside Gordon on the dual-drummer track "Parker's Band".^[10] He toured with Boz Scaggs before co-founding Toto with his brother Steve and childhood friends Steve Lukather and David Paich. Jeff Porcaro is renowned among drummers for the drum pattern he used on the Grammy Award-winning Toto song "Rosanna", from the album Toto IV.^[11] The drum pattern, called the Half-Time Shuffle Groove, was originally created by drummer Bernard Purdie, who called it the "Purdie Shuffle." Porcaro created his own version of this groove by blending the aforementioned shuffle with John Bonham's groove heard in the Led Zeppelin song "Fool in the Rain", while keeping a Bo Diddley beat on the bass drum. Porcaro describes this groove in detail on a Star Licks video (now DVD) he created shortly after "Rosanna" became popular.^[12]

Besides his work with Toto, he was also a highly sought session musician. Porcaro collaborated with many of the biggest names in music, including:

Porcaro contributed drums to four tracks on Michael Jackson's Thriller^[9] and also played on Jackson's Dangerous album hit "Heal the World". He is featured on Al Stewart's 1980 album 24 Carrots. Porcaro played on 10cc's ...Meanwhile (1992). On the 1993 10cc Alive album, recorded after his death, the band dedicated "The Stars Didn't Show" to him.^{[citation needed]}

Richard Marx dedicated the song "One Man" to him and said Porcaro was the best drummer he had ever worked with.^[14] Michael Jackson made a dedication to Porcaro in the liner notes for his 1995 album HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I.

On October 22, 1983, Porcaro married Susan Norris, a Los Angeles television broadcaster at KABC-TV. Together, they had three sons: Christopher Joseph (1984), Miles Edwin Crawford (1986–2017) and Nico Hendrix (1991).

Porcaro died at Humana Hospital-West Hills on the evening of August 5, 1992, at the age of 38 after falling ill while spraying insecticide in the yard of his Hidden Hills home. The doctors who treated Porcaro attributed his death to a heart attack caused by an allergic reaction to inhaled pesticide.^[15] However, a few weeks later the LA county coroner ruled the cause of death to be a heart attack due to occlusive coronary artery disease caused by atherosclerosis resulting from cocaine use, and stated that tests found no trace of pesticides in Porcaro's system.^[16][15] Friends and relatives have rejected this ruling and maintain that the pesticide was to blame.^[9] Bandmate Steve Lukather and Porcaro's wife stated they believed that Porcaro had also been suffering from a long-standing heart condition, exacerbated by heavy smoking, which contributed to his death. Lukather noted that several members of Porcaro's family had died at a young age due to heart disease.^[15] The history pages of Toto's official website stated that Porcaro died from an allergic reaction to pesticide and made no mention of the cocaine-related ruling.^[17]

His funeral was attended by musicians Eddie Van Halen and David Crosby, among others.^[18] Eulogies were given by Gary Katz (who produced several albums that Porcaro played on) and Porcaro's drumming idol Jim Keltner.^[9]

Porcaro's tombstone was inscribed with the following epitaph, comprising lyrics from the Kingdom of Desire track "Wings of Time": "Our love doesn't end here; it lives forever on the Wings of Time."

Porcaro's widow, Susan, re-married. Her husband, Rick Goings, is chairman emeritus of Tupperware Brands; she changed her name to Susan Porcaro Goings.^[19]

Porcaro was known for using a wide variety of drum equipment throughout his career. He used Gretsch drums early in his career before he switched to Yamaha and later Pearl. He endorsed Paiste cymbals, and also used his signature Regal Tip drumsticks, Zildjian cymbals, Remo drumheads and Drum Workshop pedals.

The Jeff Porcaro Memorial Fund was established to benefit the music and art departments of Grant High School in Los Angeles, where he was a student in the early 1970s. A memorial concert took place at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles on December 14, 1992, with an all-star line-up that included George Harrison, Boz Scaggs, Donald Fagen, Don Henley, Michael McDonald, David Crosby, Eddie Van Halen and the members of Toto.^[9] The proceeds of the concert were used to establish an education trust fund for Porcaro's sons.

• Flans, Robyn (2020). It's about Time: Jeff Porcaro, the Man and His Music. Hudson Music. ISBN 978-1-705-11229-8. Foreword by Jim Keltner.
• Flans, Robyn (2024). Moments in Time: Jeff Porcaro Stories. Hudson Music. ISBN 979-8-350-11455-3.

• Rosanna shuffle, a drum pattern