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"Those two nights for me are what I could say started my whole career."--Jeff Porcaro
Jeff’s grandfather was a drummer in an Italian symphonic, those bands that would march in the street playing snare drum. His father Joe was, and still is a percussionist and jazz drummer who didn’t take formal lessons until he was about sixteen years old. Living in Connecticut, Joe wanted to be connected to the music scene and his good friend Emil Richards had moved to Los Angeles and had come back to Connecticut telling him about L.A. To Joe, it just seemed like L.A. was the place to be, especially with the demand for studio work and he moved to California in 1968.
If you’ve ever seen the TV serials Six Million Dollar Man, Bionic Woman, Wonder Woman, Baretta, Hawaii Five-O, and Medical Center...well in the 70’s that was Jeff’s dad, Joe, playing percussion. Guess who else Jeff’s dad Joe worked with? Marty Paich! That’s right, TOTO’s David Paich’s father. Catch an old re-run of the Streets Of San Francisco and notice at the end credits who the music was arranged by. The Paich-Porcaro connection was all over the place! Talk about musical roots and making deep connections. That’s what is so great about TOTO- this group of guys are as strong as they come. No wonder their music is so tight.
As a kid, Jeff began playing seriously at age seven, though he is sure "I was playing even earlier than that. Only my father would actually know when I got started" Jeff explains. He eventually had formal lessons with his dad and a few others. Jeff said, "My dad was doing the Hartford Symphony and all of us...actually, all the Porcaro boys started out on drums. My other two brothers, Mike and Steve, were taking lessons from him at the same time. We would go down with him on the weekends to the drum shop in Connecticut and he would find some free time from his regular students and give us lessons. My brother Mike was much better on the drums than I was, who switched to bass and Steve took up piano prior to our move to California."
An average Sunday would find the Porcaro kids Jeff, Steve, and Mike gathered in the family room, drum sticks in hand, reverberating in cadence. "As far back as I can remember," says Jeff, "I wanted to be a musician. The players I listened to as a kid were studio players, and in my opinion some of the best all-around musicians happening. I remember hearing my uncle Emil Richards playing micro-tonal music with the Harry Partch Orchestra. I'm very thankful for that environment and for the experience of hearing so many talented players.”
Jeff remembers early on using his father's drums, and when he was thirteen he got into a rock band. Walking home from school one day a friend came running down the street and told him he got a new drum set. Some kid had won a Slingerland champagne sparkle set in a poker game and he sold it to Jeff’s father with cases and cymbals for something like $250.
Sticking with the drums with his dad teaching him from age eight to eleven, and aside from a couple of private instructors and those in school, Jeff taught himself, either by playing with records or playing with bands. "I used to practice in junior high and every day, after school, I'd go into the den, put on headphones and play to 'Boogaloo Down Broadway.' The drums were cool on that and I used to dig that feel. I used to play with all the Beatle records, all the Hendrix records and that's where I think I got a lot of the versatility as far as being able to play authentically one kind of music as opposed to the complete opposite. It's copying what every other drummer did on records” says Jeff.
As for influences, "It was Jimi Hendrix," says Jeff, "who was then, and continues to be, my greatest influence -both musically and spiritually. It's difficult to put into words the magic and majesty I feel in his playing. He remains a vital force, as influential on his instrument as was John Coltrane on sax. It's funny, people have yet to really equal either man." With a sense of sadness in his voice Jeff says, "I'm sure if he had lived I would have had the opportunity to play drums with him. We'll never know what kinds of things he could have done had he lived."
Jeff recorded his first album right around the time of his seventeenth birthday. As a youngster Jeff would accompany his father on gigs, listening to and watching many of Hollywood's top studio and session musicians. His first record date grew out of a rehearsal band headed by Jack Daugherty. Jeff reflects: "When it came time to record I thought Jack was going to go out and hire a professional player like Hal Blaine or Jim Gordon. It surprised me when he called and told me to be at the studio the next day.
"Soon after came a job with Sonny and Cher, then Seals and Crofts, then Steely Dan. Jeff's next gig came when players from the Daugherty band were hired for a summer replacement show starring Sonny and Cher. Few thought the show would last out the summer. Jeff would continue with the show for four years, during which time his career would continue to accelerate. Eventually his strong desire for live group playing forced him to leave.
Jeff states, “Imagine some 18-year-old kid in 1972 who listens to Jimi Hendrix and then gets a gig with Sonny & Cher. I kind of approached it like a circus more than a serious gig." Jeff might have actually gone off to art school had he not gone to Leon Russell's house one night, where David Hungate happened to be. About eight months later, Hungate, who was playing with Sonny & Cher, suggested they audition the 17-year-old Porcaro, and in May, 1972, right before his high school graduation, Jeff left school to go on the road with them. "When you're 18 and you're away from home, as I was on the road with Sonny & Cher, you're sitting there going, 'Well, what am I going to do with my life? Is it always going to be a party like this or what?' I dug art, but the reality of getting into art is real ugly. So it was the kind of thing where I said, like with Sonny & Cher, if I played my cards right, it was a steady gig, plus they did a TV show which I did for their last two seasons. So I figured if I stayed legitimate here, at least I'd know there's some security if I kept my head together and did the gig right. And I could put some money away if I played Mr. Straight for a while."
Jeff comments on this early period, “When I left high school I didn't actually graduate, but I did get a diploma. I got this gig with Sony and Cher and I left a week or two before finals. I never took the finals, but they gave me a diploma anyway. I had to tell them how much I'd be making, and why I wanted to leave and what it meant as far as my future was concerned. They were quite pleased. They let me go without any quarrel.” Though he left school early in return for a drumming career, he doesn't necessarily suggest that high school age drummers in search of musical fame and fortune follow the same path.
"In general, I wouldn't recommend that an individual drop out of school at say his junior year for an opportunity like mine. I don't think my parents would have allowed me to leave if I was any younger. If it was totally up to me I probably would have, because I was a shlock in school. Yet, if I hadn't tripped off into the hills to Leon Russell's house one night, I would never have met Dave Hungate for him to say to Sonny Bono, 'Why don't you call this kid up to audition?' Now, also, if I hadn't played at Dantes one night I, Fagen and Becker [Steely Dan] would never have seen me play when they happened to walk into that club that night to get a drink. Those two nights, for me, are what I could say started my whole career.” And indeed, it was the end of 1973, when, while still with Sonny & Cher and doing an occasional stint with Seals & Crofts, Porcaro was playing at Dantes, a small L.A. club. He had just turned 19 and was earning $1,500 a week. But he quit Sonny & Cher without a moment's hesitation when Steely Dan offered him only $400.”
The Kid', as his cohorts dubbed him, was definitely on his way. Jeff reflects on that early period of his career: "There's a chain reaction that happens. I started to get calls to do record dates, and played on some things that became hits. Pretty soon I was getting more calls than I could handle. I felt that I had to live up to people's expectations, musically. There's a commercial style, a disco-apocalypse that's very easy to play, requiring no thought whatsoever. Yet as far as my own evaluation of my playing, I felt that there were many talented drummers that could provide a more authentic feeling...I mean if someone wants a shuffle drummer I can name ten cats who can play with authenticity and feeling in that groove. The late Al Jackson was beautiful (Stax session drummer who played with Booker T. and the MGs), but I'm not Jackson.”
After the first tour with Steely Dan and recording the Katy Lied album, doors continued to open for Porcaro, who, along with a cast of characters, were considered to be quite revolutionary. "Paich, Hungate, myself and a few other guys like David Foster and Jay Winding, all started getting into the studio thing at the same time. At that time -I'm talking about '72, '73 and '74 -there was a real echelon of older guys like your Gordons, Keltners and even Hal Blaine. The other pressure was always being the youngest guys being studio players in this town, doing sessions. We were real radical. I mean, I know myself, we hated contractors. I just remember a time observing studio sessions when nobody said anything. You didn't speak your mind; it was 'yes sir' and 'no sir' and you just did your stuff. We weren't brought up to be studio musicians. We were guys who played in power trios; rock 'n' rollers who happened to read and play Barbara Streisand dates too, so we were a bit radical and outrageous for the times.”
He goes on, “People didn't know how to take 19-year-old cats speaking musical sense. I was never meant to be a legitimate studio drummer and I get irked when people say "studio drummer.' Hey, I just walked in and played and had fun playing. But I always hated the politics and how you're supposed to perform and act as a studio person. I don't have a book and I don't go the phone and call my answering service and say, 'What's next?'"
Jeff continues, “From my personal experience, going on the road at eighteen did a lot more for me than becoming a school musical genius. They're schooled, and they're slick, but there's no soulful feeling from those guys. The school bit doesn't mean anything to me. It's good to look at, and you say, 'Oh yeah, beautiful, I like that, beautiful touch, you've got stick control'...but those guys would fall apart if they had to play with Chuck Raney, or someone like that. If they played anything, they would fall apart."
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