Steven Lee Lukather is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, arranger and record producer. He is best known as the sole continuous founding member of the rock band Toto from its founding in 1976 to the present day. Lukather has recorded guitar tracks for more than 1,500 albums representing a broad array of artists and genres. He has released seven solo albums, the latest of which, Transition, was released in January 2013.
About Steve Lukather in brief
Steven Lee Lukather is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, arranger and record producer. He is best known as the sole continuous founding member of the rock band Toto from its founding in 1976 to the present day. Lukather has recorded guitar tracks for more than 1,500 albums representing a broad array of artists and genres. He has released seven solo albums, the latest of which, Transition, was released in January 2013. Since 2012, he has toured with former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr’s live supergroup, the All-Starr Band. He was nominated for twelve Grammy Awards, and has won five. In August 1992, Jeff Porcaro collapsed while doing work at home and subsequently died of heart failure. The death profoundly affected Toto, and Lukather credits him for his leadership within the band during that period. He remains the lead guitarist for the band’s entire history, serving in that capacity for the entire band’s lead and backing vocalist and composer history as well as a vocalist, composer, and producer. In 2012, Lukather won three of his five Grammy Awards for work with Toto as a producer, twice as an artist and once as a songwriter. His solo work ventures into progressive rock and hard rock, and many of his side-projects are focused on jazz fusion. He also has a long-time collaboration with jazz guitarist Larry Carlton that produced a Grammy-winning live album, and he was a member of jazz fusion band Los Lobotomys, a collaboration of prominent session musicians. He played guitar on Boz Scaggs’ albums Down Two Then Left and Middle Man, and was a prominent contributor to several studio albums by Michael Jackson, including Thriller.
He is known for his efficiency in the studio, often recording tracks in one take using minimal sound processing. He now frequently disparages such practice, and instead advocates clean tones and minimal studio processing. His style is influenced by such blues-rock guitarists as Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page, and such jazz fusion players as Al Di Meola and John McLaughlin. He first played keyboards and drums, and then taught himself how to play the guitar starting at age seven, when his father bought him a Kay acoustic guitar and a copy of the Beatles album Meet the Beatles. In 1976, when Lukather was nineteen years old, he was invited by his high school friends David Paich and the Por carro brothers to join them in forming their band, Toto. He remained in Toto throughout its entire history. He said that the album Meet The Beatles “changed his life” and that he was greatly influenced by the guitar playing of George Harrison in particular. He still plays primarily a signature electric guitar manufactured by Ernie Ball Music Man bearing his nickname, Luke. His first job in the music industry was studio work with Boz scaggs, after which he began taking guitar lessons from Jimmy Wyble. In the early 1970s he became interested in the idea of becoming a session musician, a vocation that provided opportunities to play with a variety of famous musicians.
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