Jeff Porcaro

Porcaro endorsed Pearl drums, pedals, racks and hardware, Paiste cymbals, Remo drumheads and Regaltip drumsticks. He had his own Regaltip Jeff Porcaro signature drumsticks, which are still made by the company as of 2020. He used other brands of drums until joining Pearl in 1982, notably Ludwig, Gretsch, Camco, and Yamaha Drums.

Richard Marx dedicated the song "One Man" to him and said Porcaro was the best drummer he had ever worked with. Michael Jackson made a dedication to Porcaro in the liner notes for his 1995 album HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I.

Besides his work with Toto, he was also a highly sought session musician. Porcaro collaborated with many of the biggest names in music, including George Benson, Tommy Bolin, Larry Carlton, Eric Carmen, Eric Clapton, Joe Cocker, Christopher Cross, Miles Davis, Dire Straits, Donald Fagen, Stan Getz, David Gilmour, James Newton Howard, Al Jarreau, Elton John, Leo Sayer, Greg Lake, Rickie Lee Jones, Paul McCartney, Michael McDonald, Bee Gees, Sérgio Mendes, Jim Messina, Pink Floyd, Lee Ritenour, Diana Ross, Boz Scaggs, Seals and Crofts, Bruce Springsteen, Steely Dan, Barbra Streisand, Richard Marx, Don Henley, David Foster, Donna Summer and Joe Walsh. Porcaro contributed drums to four tracks on Michael Jackson's Thriller and also played on the Dangerous album hit "Heal the World". He also played on 10cc's ...Meanwhile (1992). On the 1993 10cc Alive album, recorded after his death, the band dedicated "The Night That the Stars Didn't Show" to him.

Porcaro died at Humana Hospital-West Hills on the evening of August 5, 1992, at the age of 38, earlier falling ill after spraying insecticide in the yard of his Hidden Hills home. The coroner ruled out an accident, and determined a heart attack due to occlusive coronary artery disease caused by atherosclerosis resulting from cocaine use.

Porcaro's funeral was held on August 10 in the Forest Lawn – Hollywood Hills Cemetery, where he was buried on the Lincoln Terrace, lot 120. The Jeff Porcaro Memorial Fund was established to benefit the music and art departments of Grant High School in Los Angeles, California, where he was a student in the early 1970s. A memorial concert took place at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles on December 14, 1992, with an all-star line-up that included George Harrison, Boz Scaggs, Donald Fagen, Don Henley, Michael McDonald, David Crosby, Eddie Van Halen, and the members of Toto. The proceeds of the concert were used to establish an education trust fund for Porcaro's sons.

On October 22, 1983, Porcaro married Susan Norris, a Los Angeles television broadcaster. Together, they had three sons, Christopher Joseph (1984), Miles Edwin Crawford (1986–2017), and Nico Hendrix (1991).

AllMusic has characterized him as "arguably the most highly regarded studio drummer in rock from the mid-'70s to the early '90s", and says that "it is no exaggeration to say that the sound of mainstream pop/rock drumming in the 1980s was, to a large extent, the sound of Jeff Porcaro." He was posthumously inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1993.

Jeffrey Thomas Porcaro (/p ɔːr ˈ k ɑːr oʊ / ; April 1, 1954 – August 5, 1992) was an American drummer, songwriter and record producer. He is best known for his work with the rock band Toto. Porcaro is one of the most recorded session musicians, working on hundreds of albums and thousands of sessions. While already an established studio player in the 1970s, he came to prominence in the United States as the drummer on the Steely Dan album Katy Lied.

Jeffrey Thomas Porcaro was born on April 1, 1954, in Hartford, Connecticut, the eldest son of Los Angeles session percussionist of Italian descent Joe Porcaro and his wife, Eileen. His younger brother Mike was a successful bass guitar player and was a member of the band Toto. Younger brother Steve is still a studio musician and member of Toto. Porcaro was raised in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles and attended Ulysses S. Grant High School.