Bassist for Grammy-winning group
LOS ANGELES -- Mike Porcaro, who was the son and brother of prominent musicians and carved out a long, successful career as the bass player for the Grammy-winning pop group Toto, has died at age 59.
Porcaro died Sunday, Toto's publicist Keith Hagen told The Associated Press.
No cause was given, but he had suffered from Lou Gehrig's disease for several years. He left the group in 2007 because of declining health.
Lou Gehrig's disease, also called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, attacks the cells that control muscles.
"Mike mentally is fantastic, and if you talk to him, his spirits are up and he's great and like the old Mike Porcaro, except that he's disabled, he's in a wheelchair and can't move, can't walk and can't play, which is a heartbreaking drag," Toto's keyboard player, David Paich, told the webzine Something Else in 2012.
Toto was formed in the late 1970s by Paich, Porcaro's brothers Steve and Jeff, and other prominent session musicians.
Porcaro came on board in the early 1980s when bassist David Hungate left to resume his session career.
The three siblings were the sons of jazz percussionist Joe Porcaro. Jeff Porcaro died in 1992.
Toto's merging of jazz, power pop, soul and other musical forms sold millions of records in the late 1970s and early '80s and made the group one of the most popular of that time.
Toto IV won the Grammy for album of the year in 1982. The song "Rosanna" won record of the year.
Activist, journalist, voter turnout expert
WASHINGTON -- Curtis Gans, a liberal activist, journalist and recognized expert on voter turnout in the United States, has died. He was 77.
Gans, a northern Virginia resident, died of lung cancer Sunday night at a hospital in Frederick, Md., said his only son, Aaron Gans.
Gans was co-founder, with Allard Lowenstein, of the "Dump Johnson" movement, which sought an alternative to President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968 because of his policies in Vietnam. Johnson withdrew his candidacy, a rarity for a sitting president. Gans went on to work for Eugene McCarthy, who ran on an anti-Vietnam War platform and was the first Democratic candidate to challenge the president.
Gans went on to found the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, which provided data and analysis of voter turnout. The organization later became affiliated with American University in Washington as the Center for the Study of the American Electorate, with Gans as director. He was the author of Voter Turnout in the United States, 1789-2009, and he also wrote syndicated newspaper columns.
The State Department called on Gans to brief foreign governments about voting patterns ahead of U.S. elections.
Born in New York City, Gans became active in the civil-rights movement while at the University of North Carolina, where he edited the student newspaper. In 1960, he participated in the Greensboro sit-ins, which led the Woolworth department store to end its segregationist policies.
Metro on 03/18/2015