Mike Porcaro
Michael " Mike" Joseph Porcaro (* May 29, 1955 in Hartford, Connecticut, United States) is an American bassist. He is a member of the rock band Toto.
Biography
Mike Porcaro, also known by the nickname Groove Master and Mr. Time, grew up as the second son of his parents, Joe and Eileen Porcaro in his birthplace. In the family Porcaro music was commonplace, and as Mike quickly began to play with his brother Jeff Porcaro drums. At the age of eleven he moved with his family to Los Angeles and began to learn to play bass at the age of twelve years. Later, he learned also the instruments cello and percussion.
Porcaro played in high school with his brother Jeff and the later Toto founding member David Paich in a band together. In 1976, the band broke up because Jeff Porcaro and David Paich, together with Steve Lukather, David Hungate, Bobby Kimball and the third Porcaro brother Steve started their new band Toto. Mike played in the early years of Toto not with, but worked as a session musician for many well-known names, such as Aretha Franklin, The Pointer Sisters and Michael McDonald. In 1982, he replaced David Hungate then as bassist for Toto.
By 2006, Mike Porcaro played with the band a total of 14 albums and made all concert tours with. He also worked in recent years, again concentrating on foreign productions, including for Carlos Santana, Ricky Martin and Radioactive, a project of the Swedish rock guitarists Tommy Denander. On the last Toto album Falling In Between, which was published in February 2006, he has worked.
Although he is actually left-handed, he still plays right-handed instruments. He justifies this by saying that it was taught from the beginning. On stage he played five-string bass Peavey and G & L.
2006 Mike Porcaro suffered an injury to his left hand and also complained of numbness in the fingers; he was therefore replaced on the Falling in Between Tour 2007, Leland Sklar. Not least because of Porcaros disease, first band was resolved on 27 February 2010, in 2008, on its official website announced that Mike Porcaro is terminally ill with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and the band in July 2010, with most former members, including Steve Porcaro, go on a short tour in Europe in order to support him. Since that tour, which was followed by other performances, Mike Porcaro is still named as an official member of Toto ( and is therefore directly involved in the revenue). He sits now, however, in a wheelchair and is expected never to occur again.