CARLOS SANTANA: a PORTRAIT of the ARTIST (Continued from Page 16)
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CARLOS SANTANA: A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST (Continued from page 16) Haight -Ashbury, I found these cats named Stan card and punch it in the time clock." So I punched without the lyric." [Laughs] So we left it as an with our gurus became vinegar. And that's Marcum and Ron Estrada, who had been out of it, said, "I'm outta here," and just left. instrumental. because Debbie and I were growing in a different school for a long time and were a little more adult. way, and we didn't need a middle man to get to I went to Mission High School from 1964 to 1965, So the Dead inadvertently pushed you to get "Abraxas" prepared people more adequate- our inner self. After a while a guru or a swami or a and I graduated [on June 9, 1965] after they gave along with your dreams? ly for the remarkable live shows. yogi or even Jesus can get between you and God me a tutor, because I caught tuberculosis. if you don't know what you're doing. Because The Dead pushed me in that direction, yes, but Frankly, a lot of guys came in and out of the what Jesus is about is to discover the same things Tuberculosis ?! once I saw through B.B. King that you could cap- band, a lot of drummers. The whole thing didn't he discovered. That's what he died for: that you tivate people with no bullshit, no gimmicks, just first form itself until we went to Woodstock. That should discover his Christhoodness in yourself, I was in Mission General Hospital for three playing, I knew there was no turning back. So I was with Michael Shrieve and Chepito [Areas]. an understanding of what is of the highest good months. People were dying left and right in the started putting my band together and started play- And we stayed together until we couldn't stand for all people. same ward that I was in. All of a sudden they'd just ing at the Matrix or opening up for different bands each other, which was only about a year. Bill Gra- Meanwhile, if you want to know who your god cover this guy nearby with his sheet. I probably like the Loading Zone and the Who at the Fillmore. ham had told us, "Listen, when your first album is, write down the pattern of your habits over two caught it from drinking water out of the faucets in Anytime anybody canceled, we were there, and comes out, you guys are gonna be recognized in days. If you don't like that [Laughs], change it. Tijuana, because the water's not clean. It was pret- Bill Graham just adopted us. the street, and your egos are gonna get so big ty bad, but they arrested it with streptomycin. They Growing up here in New York, Bill Graham's first you're gonna need a shoehorn to come into a When do you think your music changed shot me so full of holes in my butt that I couldn't passion was Afro-Cuban music: Tito Puente clas- room, and it's gonna fuck you all up." again? sit for a week. I finally just split from the hospital, sics like "Oye Como Va," that was his thing; it We said, "No, no!" And sure enough, that's calling a friend and saying, "Look, bring me some wasn't the Grateful Dead or anything else. He exactly what happened. That was because we It changed with Mahavishnu because we both I clothes. gotta get outta here." Because it was loved to play salsa music, but he only called it didn't pace ourselves. Once you live with some- loved John Coltrane, and still do to this day. I kinda like jail. Afro -Cuban music. And so we were the closest to body for a whole year and you're constantly on didn't care about hits, and Mr. Clive Davis at CBS that, because we played blues with congas, and the road, unless you meditate or do certain things warned me, saying I was committing career sui- Yet you could escape to the incredible new we played [the music of] Olatunji. We had a seri- to relax, you really got on each other's nerves. No cide. And I said, "Thanks for telling me. I actually sense of freedom that San Francisco then epit- ous talk, Bill and the band, and he said, "You guys two ways about it. So for me now, we don't travel know you're saying this from your heart-but I've omized. got something different, something that makes the very much. Three to four weeks on the road; three gotta do this!" pelvis move in a different way. Your music is two to four weeks at home. So when we're on the road In 1988, we toured with Wayne Shorter, and Bill That's what was really beautiful about the Bay things that should never be separated: spiritual it's always inspiring; it's not mechanical or routine. Graham warned me, saying, 'Are you sure you Area. At that time the Bay Area was a cornucopia and sensual. So stop want to do this ?!" And it was one of the highlights of Ravi Shankar, Jimi Hendrix, Duke Ellington. It fighting it!" When after "Abrax- of my life, as far as touring with a musician. There's was fusion before it became confusion [Smiles]. With my Catholic as" did you feel that no one on this planet left who has the brilliant Seeing B.B. King for the first time at the Fillmore upbringing, you get that Santana broke through genius of a Wayne Shorter; he's the last of the was a revelation; Otis Rush opened up, and Steve guilt thing. You're horny, to a new level artisti- Picassos, the last of the Igor Stravinskys. Miller was second -billed and B.B. King was the but you're guilty cally? headliner. When B.B. King went out there, he got because you're horny. You reached yet another new level when you a standing ovation without hitting one note. Every- That kind of Catholic From "Caravanserai," completed "Blues For Salvador," which won a body stood up and they wouldn't shut up; they trip. But he was the first but Gregg Rolle and well- earned Grammy. just got louder and louder, and I was electrified. one who really looked Neal Schon already had Finally he started crying, and the light beams from at it for what it was, and eyes to do Journey, and Around that time I just said, "No, I don't want to the spots were hitting his face, big tears coming he told me that he they basically showed appease producers, I just want to play my own down. And all I could see were the sparkles from noticed that the women up, played their parts, music." So you're right, "Blues For Salvador" was his tears and from the diamonds on his ring. So moved a different way and split. So it was the beginning of reclaiming my persona again, if when he did hit his first note of the night, it was with our music than Michael Shrieve and I you will. When I did "Blues For Salvador," the song like a whole other world had opened up. I thought, they did with Jimi [Hendrix] or anybody else. who produced and nurtured that vision together. was something that my wife picked up from a cas- "Oh, that's how he does it. You go inside yourself That was because of Michael's and my fascina- sette that I did the night before -just a jam thing to come out with this sound." What was the process through which San- tion with the Eastern philosophy, and of Mahav- with [keyboardist] Chester Thompson. So I went home and I just said that I had to leave tana became more accepting of its unique- ishnu John McLaughlin and John Coltrane. My wife heard it on a cassette I left on the table my house, I couldn't live with Mom anymore. And ness? All of a sudden playing pop music seemed overnight, and she took it along in the car to play I couldn't be washing dishes all week and be a strange, especially because all the pop guys were as she was getting groceries. She said, "What's musician only on weekends. It was called the Santana Blues Band from dying, like Jimi, Janis [Joplin], Jim Morrison. And the name of that?" I said, "I was just stretching out 1966, but then we dropped the "Blues" part Sly Stone had discovered Peru, so to speak, so with C.T." She said, "No, you don't understand. I You decided that you once again needed to because everybody was playing blues: Fleetwood he was off on the sidelines; you either snorted couldn't drive when I heard that; I had to pull over be on your own? Mac, Jimi Hendrix, Cream. They were just louder cocaine and shot heroin, or you folded your hands to the side of the road. That needs to go on the and more sophisticated, but it was still the blues. and thanked God. album!" Exactly, and I moved out of the family home, an Nobody was really messing with the parameters Maybe I'm too vain, but I couldn't see myself in At that time I was really involved with a cause apartment by Church and Market streets.