David Paich

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David Paich
David Paich during a live concert
Background information
Born	June 25, 1954 (1954-06-25) (age 55) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Genres	Hard rock pop rock progressive rock Sophisti-pop
Occupations	Musician, songwriter, singer, producer
Instruments	Vocals, Keyboards
Associated acts	Toto

David Paich (born David Frank Paich on June 25, 1954 in Los Angeles, California) is a multiple Grammy Award-winning session musician, keyboard player, recording producer, arranger, vocalist and main composer of the Los Angeles-based rock/pop band Toto. David is the son of the late jazz composer, musician, and arranger Marty Paich. With Toto, Paich has released 17 albums and sold over 30 million records.

Biography

Toto

David Paich is one of the most prolific songwriters of the 1980s. He wrote "Rosanna", "99", "Hold the Line", "Georgy Porgy", and most of Toto's hits over the years, including several 1970s hits by pop artists (such as Cheryl Lynn's hit, "Got To Be Real" and George Benson's "Lady Love Me(One More Time)".

David co-wrote the 1982 hit, "Africa", along with Toto's drummer Jeff Porcaro. David also sang lead vocals on the song. On the 1988 Toto album, The Seventh One, he (co-)wrote 9 out of 11 songs. Those included "Pamela", "Stop Loving You", and "Mushanga", which became hits in some parts of Europe and in Japan.

Paich remained with Toto up until its disbandment in 2008 but he did not tour extensively with the band in its last few years. Session Keyboardist Greg Phillinganes joined Toto in 2005 as an additional keyboardist for both studio projects and tour dates.

Session and side projects

He has co-writing credits with Boz Scaggs on the songs "What Can I Say", "Lowdown", "Lido Shuffle" from the multi-platinum album Silk Degrees, and occasionally still sits in on keyboards with Boz Scaggs' band. As songwriter he wrote or co-wrote songs for Cher, Jacksons, Andy Williams, George Benson, Jon Anderson(Yes) and Chicago. As arranger he worked for Michael Jackson, Rod Stewart, Patti Austin, Donna Summer and many more.

In the early and mid 80´s, Paich often worked with well-known producers Quincy Jones and David Foster. David was a part of the session group on the Michael Jackson album Thriller. He played piano, synthesizer and did some synth and rhythm arrangements.

In the 1989 David produced and arranged the Oscar-nominated song "The Girl Who Used To Be Me", written by Marvin Hamlisch, Alan and Marilyn Bergman, for the "Shirley Valentine" film.

As a session musician David played on a lot of soundtracks and on albums of the following artists: Elkie Brooks album Rich Man's Woman, Bryan Adams song "Please Forgive Me", Michael Jackson songs "Earth Song", "The Girl Is Mine", "Heal The World", "Stranger In Moscow", "I Just Can't Stop Loving You", USA for Africa song "We Are the World", Aretha Franklin, Boz Scaggs, Quincy Jones, Don Henley, Steely Dan, Elton John, Joe Cocker, Pink and many many more.

David Paich traveled to China where he worked composing theme music for the 2008 Summer Olympics. In 2009, he sang the hit song "Africa" at the Millennium Development Goals awards in New York and co-produced a new tune for George Benson. Paich was involved with the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards as a music producer and keyboardist for the on-stage band.^[1]

In October 2009, David Paich was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame along with the other members of Toto.^[2]

Equipment

Paich uses primarily a Korg Triton and a Yamaha Motif-8 keyboard for live applications. For studio applications he also uses a 9-foot Baldwin grand piano, Yamaha KX-88 and SY77 keyboards and a variety of effect and sound generation modules manufactured by Roland Corporation and others.^[3] For the 2006 Toto album Falling in Between, he also used a Hammond A-100 organ. Paich has stated that he has used the Baldwin piano on every Toto album.^[4]

Awards

• Emmy Award for Best Song or Theme (year - 1974)
  • "Ironside" - David Paich shared with Marty Paich. For the song "Light The Way".

• Grammy - Best Rhythm & Blues Song (year - 1977)
  • David Paich & Boz Scaggs (songwriters) for "Lowdown" performed by Boz Scaggs

• Grammy - Best Vocal Arrangement for Two or More Voices (year -1983)
  • David Paich (arranger) for "Rosanna" performed by Toto

• Grammy - Record of the Year (year - 1983)
  • Toto (producer & artist) for "Rosanna"

• Grammy - Album of the Year (year - 1983)
  • Toto (producer & artist) for Toto IV

• Grammy Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocal(s) (year - 1983)
  • Jerry Hey & David Paich, Jeff Porcaro (arrangers) for "Rosanna" performed by Toto

• Grammy - Producer of the Year (year - 1983)
  • Toto

• Grammy - Best Engineered Recording, Non-Classical (year - 1983)
  • Al Schmitt, David Leonard, Greg Ladanyi & Tom Knox (engineers) for Toto IV performed by Toto

References

External links

• (English) Official website
• (English) IMDB - David Paich
• (French) Toto-Hydrasolation french website devoted to TOTO
• (French) French Forum Toto-Hydrasolation