Mike Porcaro RIP
Mike in the middle with brothers Jeff and Steve either side of him.
Since Anteater and I started this 'chat journal' for Toto, the third mainstream member of the band has sadly passed away in Mike Porcaro. Whilst not being the band's original bassist, Mike always felt like an original anyway largely because his two brothers featured on the first four Toto albums and he acted as an additional musician on some tracks. So when original bassist Dave Hungate announced his departure from the band Mike was the obvious choice and remained as the band's bass player for the rest of his musical career.
As expected Mike Porcaro was a bass player of the highest order and therefore usually appeared in 'best ever bassist' lists but whenever I think of Mike Porcaro I usually remember how cool he looked playing the bass and had great movement as he moved to the rhythm of his playing and was always a great visual focal point of the band, just standing there in the background.
He joins elder brother the original drummer Jeff Porcaro who died way back in 1992 at just 38 and the main vocalist of the Isolation album Fergie Frederiksen who died last year at 62. Mike Porcaro sadly joins them aged 59.