Toto

• Genre: AOR
• Hometown: Los Angeles
• Toto Website

About

Although their carefully crafted lite rock would have a hard time getting airplay these days, the 1980s were kind to groups like Toto. When the band debuted, Kenny Loggins was a sex symbol and the public yearned to fix Mr. Mister's broken wings. Synthesized love songs were topping the charts, and ex-studio musicians Toto knew how to hit the right keys. Their 1982 hits, "Rosanna" (an ode to Rosanna Arquette, guitarist Steve Lukather's then-girlfriend) and the broken hearted, I-blame-myself "I Won't Hold You Back" helped their fourth album, Toto IV, become a top ten hit. Once they'd held a lighter for the lite rock path and swept six Grammies for Toto IV, the band realized there's no place like home and left the world of original rock to work again as studio musicians.

- Jennifer Maerz