![]() Maya Angelou said, “The only thing people are going to remember is how you make them feel.” And I was like, “Oh. When you say, “What time is it?” you just say, “It’s now.” And so that’s how I try to play my music: Outside of time and outside of gravity. If you and I get a chance to hitchhike a ride with Bezos or Elon Musk, and we take the space shuttle and go up there outside of the stratosphere and you look at the planet, there’s no flags up there. “One Love.” “All You Need is Love.” “What a Wonderful World.” I make it a point to listen to certain songs that are like the new anthems of no church, but the new anthems of a galactic cathedral that transcends corrupt corporations and governments. From Bob Marley to Bob Dylan, Marvin Gaye, Same Cooke, they all talk about the same thing. Q Was there a spiritual element to music for you early on?Ī Everybody in this world needs a heartfelt hug to be reassured that we’re not going to be doomed hitting a brick wall, that we will go to the wall and we will succeed at becoming architects creating heaven on Earth. Everything that I’ve done by grace, it gave me confidence that I can be on stage with Jerry Garcia or Michael Bloomfield or Peter Green, and later on Tito Puente and later on Miles Davis. When I came to the United States, I started winning a radio contest with a thousand bands. Q Still, you were just 19 when you first performed at the Fillmore West.Ī Since I was a child, I got a reputation in Tijuana for playing the violin and winning most of the radio contests. That’s what saved me from getting frustrated and going back to Tijuana. Little Walter and Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters. ![]() Fortunately when I got here, the Rolling Stones were coming out and they were listening to the same things I was listening to. And then I got here and they were like, “Who?” I had to start all over again. I basically thought that everybody knew John Lee Hooker. They didn’t want you to get all clever or sophisticated. Because if they didn’t like you, they’d cut and shoot you. Down and dirty, murky, simple but deadly, I think they call it cut and shoot crowd. In Tijuana, the people that I hung up hung around with were playing John Lee Hooker and Jimmy Reed and Lightnin Hopkins. Q What was San Francisco like when you first arrived there in the ’60s?Ī It was a it was a shock coming from Tijuana. The guys from Creedence Clearwater used to say: “What is it you call that music you’re playing?” And I go, “African rhythms with blues guitar.” Carlos Santana and his wife, Cindy Blackman Santana, attend the “Carlos” premiere in New York City. Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival So I learned how to scramble the eggs differently. Who would have thunk it that one minute I’m washing dishes at Tic Tock (Drive-In) and the next I’m on stage with Jerry Garcia and Eric Clapton and they’re looking at me like I definitely got something they want to learn from? They’d all go, “Where did you get that?” And I’d say, “Well, when you were listening to this, I was listening to a Hungarian gypsy musician named Gábor Szabó.” And also drummers. Ha ha! That he belongs on stage with these incredible musicians. It’s interesting to watch this person constantly strive and believe that he belongs. Q How is it to watch a movie of your life?Ī It’s strange. “I have developed selective celestial amnesia.” “I have nothing but good memories,” says Santana. RELATED: Legendary rocker makes an appearance during intimate all-star jazz show He’s been in San Francisco since his family (his father played the violin in a mariachi band) moved from Mexico in the 1960s. Santana, who launches the nationwide 1001 Rainbows Tour in Newark, New Jersey, on June 21, recently spoke by Zoom from his Bay Area home. The critic Robert Christgau once wrote: “He is less a man of style than of sound, a clear, loud, fluent sound that cleanses with the same motion no matter how often that motion is repeated.” The new documentary by Rudy Valdez, “Carlos,” which is premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival and will be released this fall in theaters by Sony Pictures Classics, chronicles the meteoric rise of one of the most singular guitar players in rock history. He left the Woodstock audience dazed and stunned before the first Santana record came out. He’s been doing it since he stormed onto the San Francisco scene in the late ’60s. ![]() Santana, 75, can still whip a crowd into a frenzy like few others. That way the referee can’t steal the fight from me.” “I want to get in the middle of the ring and knock the sucker out. I don’t like to rope-a-dope,” Santana says. “Take no prisoners - peacefully,” Carlos Santana sometimes tells his bandmates before taking the stage.
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