Jeff Porcaro The inspirations behind the Session King
During and after his time on this planet, Jeff Porcaro has been known by every moniker containing the word groove: Groove Master, the Man with the Golden Groove, the groovemeister... The reason is because in the large, wonderful pool of drummers, there really is no one who made a song feel the way Porcaro did. Groove was probably the most used word in my recent book, It's About Time: Jeff Porcaro, The Man And His Music, and was uttered by so many people I interviewed.
In addition to his Grammy-winning band Toto, Jeff was sought after by the pinnacle of pop and rock artists throughout the ’80s and early ’90s for his incredible sound and what he could bring to the song. Nearly 30 years after his untimely passing, Jeff’s groove still inspires drummers all over the world.
Fellow players thought of him and continue to think of him as the best groove drummer of his time. When talking about the Steely Dan track ‘Parker’s Band’, which Porcaro cut alongside drummer Jim Gordon, Steely guitar player Denny Dias said he felt Porcaro was the reason the track was so solid: “Jeffrey laid down a groove and there was no escaping it”. Donald Fagen (Steely frontman) told me: “It’s often difficult to pick out one rock ‘n’ roll drummer from another, but he had a groove that he developed; a really popping groove, so we thought we’d use him”.
The first time Vinnie Colaiuta met Porcaro was at a Tom Scott session, as a guest of his bassist friend Neil Stubenhaus. “The groove was just nuts,” Colaiuta recalled. “It was sort of
