PORCARO, MIKE
In October 1999, when Toto toured Europe, Mike Porcaro gave an interview on a daily dutch radioshow. His answer to the question what his 3 most favorite songs were:
1) Stevie Wonder - Blame it on the sun
2) Marvin Gaye - What's goin' on
3) Elton John - 60 years
His motivation for choosing these songs:
1) Mike has been a big Stevie Wonder fan, ever since he was a child. That's why he had to pick a Stevie Wonder song in
his top 3 (he could have picked several SW songs).
2) Mike's a big Marvin Gaye fan as well and he especially liked the backing vocals on this
track.
3) He heard this song in a store and it was fresh and new, different than
other songs at that time and nobody had heard of Elton John at that time.
In an interview with Toto99, Mike briefly talked about his influences in music:
"The concept of playing bass to me is so vast. Gerry Germont was my cat when we were growing up - aside from Chuck Rainey and
Jamerson of course, I just loved where Jerry put it. I go specifically to albums like Aretha live at the Filmore West. Even more
than that is King Curtis live at the Filmore West. He was her musical director. He opened the show with his own set and they
recorded that set too. If you've never heard King Curtis live at the Filmore West, you have to get that record. It has some of
the greatest R&B rhythm section grooves; no vocals; just a rhythm section with a horn section. This is the shit we were listening to -
deep pocket stuff. That's where we're all coming from. Those are the kind of bands we molded ourselves after.
Bass to me was always about laying down a good time feel. Bass and drums are there to lock and all the blowing is going to be done by the
sax player and in this day in age by your Steve Lukather type of characters and your keyboard players. Me, I just wanted to find a groove
to lock in to. I figured the fewer notes I played, the better.
Related entry: => Gerald Germont