The Universal Tone: Bringing My Story to Light (45 page)

I think the best guitarists have the biggest boxes of heroes—some British cats tend to limit themselves to one kind of style, but not Clapton and Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. They listen to Moroccan and African music—recently Jeff Beck has been checking out Romanian choirs. George Harrison listened to Indian sitar. I think Stevie Ray Vaughan could be fearless when it came to listening: he didn’t just check out T-Bone Walker, he also checked out Kenny Burrell and Grant Green and Wes Montgomery. It wouldn’t be fair to call Stevie a blues guitarist. You can hear it on “Riviera Paradise”: his vocabulary went far, far beyond Albert King. All these guys I mentioned are open to many influences, but they’ll always be rooted in a certain thing. Each musician to me is like an airport—there are a number of different planes coming in and landing and leaving. It’s never just one airline.

It’s always changing—right now I want to hear some Manitas de Plata, because he’s blues and flamenco together. I want some of Kenny Burrell’s
Guitar Forms
with Gil Evans arranging and Elvin Jones on drums—I could live with that on a desert island forever. As much as I love John Lee Hooker, sometimes I have to say, “Hold that thought: I’ll be right back. I got to hang out with some elegance and ‘Las Vegas Tango.’ ”

I noticed later that all the heavy metal guys—at least those who play very fast, like Eddie Van Halen and Joe Satriani—remind me of Frank Zappa’s kind of fearlessness, which leans toward a Paganini vibe as opposed to a B. B. King or Eric Clapton vibe. A blues connection might not be there anymore, but that’s not good or bad; there’s a nice contrast to all of it. It’s just a matter of apples and oranges and pears and bananas. Santana’s not going to be everybody’s favorite music every time.

“You’re not made out of gold”—that was my mom talking.

“Oh, yeah? What’s that mean?”

“Not everyone’s going to like you. You can’t be everyone’s golden boy.”

She was right. That was another lesson I learned in the ’70s. At the end of ’76 we played a double bill in Cologne, Germany, with
Frank Zappa—two shows, one that he opened and we closed, and the other that we opened and he closed. I wasn’t thinking that this would be another situation like the ones we had with Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Wilson Pickett, but when I went to Frank’s room to say thanks for the music, I could tell that he was someone who wasn’t going to let me into his awareness. I don’t remember what he said, but I got a feeling that I wasn’t supposed to be there.

I quickly offered my respect and gratitude for his music and left. I was sincere—I liked his music, especially “Help, I’m a Rock” on
Freak Out!
and that raw and dirty blues, “Directly from My Heart to You,” on
Weasels Ripped My Flesh
. Whatever it was Frank didn’t like, it came out a few years later when he made “Variations on the Carlos Santana Secret Chord Progression,” and in one listen I knew it was not a compliment. But in a weird way it was like a compliment because he went out of his way and spent time and energy to make a point about my music. You know how I found out about it? I was still buying Frank’s albums even after we met back in ’77. I loved the title
Shut Up ’n Play Yer Guitar,
so I got the album, and there it was.

My answer to anyone who’s so invested in that kind of criticizing or hating or toxic feelings has never changed over the years. My phone would ring, and it would be Miles or Otis Rush. Today the phone still rings, and it’s Wayne Shorter or Buddy Guy. Do I care what you think about me?

By ’75, there had been many calls from Miles, especially when I was in New York City. One time back in ’71, Miles called me at my hotel in New York and got me to come down to a weird gig at the Bitter End. “Write down this address. I want you to come over and bring your guitar.”

“Okay, Miles,” I said. I went down there but left the guitar behind. When I got there Miles was screaming at the owner of the club—screaming with that hoarse voice of his. In the middle of all that cussing he suddenly turned to me and got all nice, like, “Hey,
Carlos, how you doin’? Thanks for coming by.” Then he turned back to the owner and resumed the yelling and foul language.

Richard Pryor had just started his set—he was the opener, and he was cracking everybody up. Then Miles said, “Where’s your guitar?” I just shrugged my shoulders. “Oh, I see.” I didn’t say anything, but this was the band with Jack and Keith and Michael Henderson on bass. The way those guys were scrambling things, I couldn’t even find 1. They started playing, but Miles was still pissed at the owner, and it was like he went on strike. He stood his trumpet on the floor and then just lay down—right there in front of the stage—while the band was working on colors, not really songs.

Whatever needed to happen must have gotten worked out, because eventually Miles got up, put the trumpet to his mouth, and everything fell together. Suddenly there was a theme and a focus and a feeling of structure. It was amazing—he changed the music without even playing a note.

I think Wayne and Herbie would agree that a lot of what made them the way they are today was because of being with Miles. I think it was like that with anyone who played with Miles—even to this day Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Jack DeJohnette, Dave Holland, Gary Bartz, and many others are all making music that is the best in jazz, making music that makes other stuff sound like easy listening. I remember Branford Marsalis talking about this after he played on Miles’s
Decoy
album. He said that with Miles he was able to play stuff he had never thought about playing, but as soon as he got back on the road with his own band he was playing the same old way as before. He credited Miles for bringing new things out of him.

I know how Branford felt, because Miles’s consciousness permeates many musicians, not just those who played with him. It permeated me even before I heard him live, just from listening to his albums and reading the liner notes and playing along with John McLaughlin on
In a Silent Way
. You know, Miles never really came out and asked me, but I sometimes got the feeling he was checking to see if maybe I would be in his band. He’d ask, “So you like living in Frisco?” It was the closest he came to inviting me, but then my
stomach would tighten up and I’d say to myself, “No, don’t do it. It will break up a friendship.” With Miles I knew enough not to get too close. Also it was an honor to think that it was even possible, but I never thought I’d be able to hang with the music he was making then.

The other thing about Miles was that you couldn’t rely on knowing what he had done in the past. That can be intimidating. He was moving forward with his music and not looking back. I only remember one time that he changed his mind, just for a moment. Miles was at the Keystone Korner in ’75, and his band started with some deep funk stuff. Miles was playing organ; his trumpet wasn’t even out of its beautiful leather case. The music sounded like a freaking cat in the alley, with a subwoofer that only gophers could hear, way down there. I was thinking, “Oh shit, that’s the opening song?” All of a sudden a big lady in front yelled out, “Miles! Miles! Play your trumpet!”

The whole place was looking at her, and her date was trying to hush her up, but she wasn’t having any of that. “What? I paid for your goddamn ticket, and I paid for mine, too. Miles, play your goddamn trumpet! We don’t want to hear this shit.”

It was on Miles what to do next. He looked at her, then opened the case, took out the trumpet, and brought down the band. Then he got down on one knee right in front of her and gave her a little taste of
Sketches of Spain
. Only a woman could have gotten away with that, and I loved the way Miles handled it.

At that time I was starting to see a few things about Sri that weren’t endearing him to me. He was still treating me with favoritism, but sometimes he’d say things that didn’t feel right. I didn’t feel that a holy man should complain about his disciples and be ragging on their imperfections. My feeling was that as disciples we were supposed to be the ones who were human, who needed inner work, and he was supposed to be the one showing us how to be compassionate.

My pulling away from Sri was gradual but efficient and tangible,
because for me, everything that used to be honey was turning to vinegar. By ’77 it felt like it was time for me to go. Larry Coryell and John McLaughlin had both left by then, but Deborah wanted to stay. I was starting a long tour with Santana at the beginning of that year, and that’s when I told her I was leaving him. “You can stay with Sri if you want, but I’m gone.”

The Santana tour in the first half of ’77 went on for months and months. I was disconnected and cut off from my life in many ways. Deborah and I were on the same frequency when I left, and I felt our spiritual paths should be together whether Sri was guiding us or not.

But when that long tour came to an end in April I could tell it was time to come home and be with Deborah, or we were done. We got together, and she got very, very serious, and I knew what I had to do to not lose her. I asked Bill to come by our house in Marin. He had booked Santana to do some dates at Radio City Music Hall—after a sold-out US tour, this was going to be the crowning jewel of those four months. I recognized and respected that. I knew what I was risking, but I told Bill, “I can’t make those gigs, man. I need to spend time and reconcile things with Deborah and heal the situation. It has to be now, right away.”

The first thing Bill said was, “Carlos, you must be out of your mind. Those tickets are already on sale!” I said, “Well, I probably am out of my mind, but I feel that right now this is what’s supremely important to me, and there’s nothing that can change my mind.” I put it in words I knew he’d understand. “The Santana machine is not more important than my relationship with Deborah.” Bill looked at me, and in his face I could see him slowly go through a full mix of emotions—anger, hurt, frustration, and finally defeat and deep sadness. Then he said, “Carlos, I hope that someday in life I will know love like this.”

Do you ever get tired of smelling bread when it’s just been baked and it comes out of the oven early in the morning, even if it’s the same old recipe? Water doesn’t get tired of being water; the sun doesn’t get tired of being the sun. It’s the ego that gets bored. That’s when I have to tell my ego, “I’m in charge here, not you.” If the ego gets to be in charge, everything will be old, or it will have a date stamp on it. So I have to tell myself, “No. I’m not afraid to play ‘Black Magic Woman’ or ‘Oye Como Va’ and make it new again.”

Great music has no expiration date. In the ’70s I was starting to feel that some of the music on the radio was becoming very disposable—and
that feeling never went away. I call songs that come and go sound bites—they’re like meaningless quotes on the nightly news. How can you get meaning or timelessness or elegance from a sound bite? To me, a sound bite is the opposite of a “memorable forever.” “Light My Fire” by the Doors—that’s not a sound bite. “No Woman No Cry” and “Exodus” by Bob Marley—those are memorable forevers.

In the ’70s we had the Bee Gees and Tony Orlando. Disco and punk. People were glorifying the Ramones and the Sex Pistols, and I was telling myself, “Okay, let me look at the energy.” I felt it—it was valid. At the same time, Jaco Pastorius and Tony Williams—that was punk to me. My point is that no matter how intense it might be, I don’t know any punk music that’s more intense than Tony Williams Lifetime.

What was really happening for me back then? Marvin Gaye and Al Green. I think there will always be a time and a place when I’ll listen to Led Zeppelin or AC/DC and love it. But when I really need to replenish myself—when I feel I’ve been under water too long, and I need to come up for air—it’s always going to be Coltrane or Miles.

A
t the end of the ’70s I would not allow myself to think that some other music was “happening” and my music was old hat. But when I read interviews I did for
Creem
or
Rolling Stone,
my values seem like they were from another generation. In a sense they were: the ’60s was, “Let’s change the world.” You hear it in the music—let’s help people, and let’s be gentle. Let’s be
this
kind of people—kind people. It was a consciousness of healing.

Bob Marley was the heart and conscience and soul of the ’70s. No question about it. I think he is the most important artist of the ’70s. When everything was going disco or dis
cord,
he was the glue that made music meaningful. His was music with a purpose, to spread the Rastafarian mission of oneness—I and I—which was no different from the philosophy of claiming your own light, which Sri was talking about. “One Love,” “A Love Supreme”—I don’t get tired of saying those two back to back. Bob Marley had purpose, and his music had beauty and movement and sex and truth.

I started listening to Jimmy Cliff and
The Harder They Come
back in ’73, and then I got interested in music from Trinidad and Brazil. Do that and you’ll start to hear all the sounds that came from Africa, you know? But I’d come back to thinking, “What is this music from Jamaica? Okay, reggae. First they called it calypso; now it’s roots reggae.”

Third World, Burning Spear, the Abyssinians: Bob Marley had a whole other spin on it. The first album I had of his—
Catch a Fire
—looked like a big lighter that you could use to light your spliff. I was saying, “Wow, this music is really different, man. Really, really different—where’s the 1? How’s that beat work?” He had two brothers in the band—Carlton and “Family Man” Barrett—on drums and bass. He took them from Lee Perry, who had been Marley’s producer, and I don’t think Perry ever forgave him. I don’t think I would have.

I never met Bob Marley—we never crossed paths. But once I left Sri, I lit up again and listened to him more and more. He was the saving grace of the ’70s—each album he put out just got better.

What was amazing, though, is that there were not a lot of black people who were into Bob Marley. Especially strict black church people—they couldn’t get with his philosophy or his hair or his ganja. Some people were trying to change that when they made a decision to have Marley open for the Commodores, and he played Madison Square Garden. Same thing happened with Jimi Hendrix—he never had much of a black audience, and I think it troubled him.

All that reggae music introduced me to the island kind of life. It helped me see that someday I could slow down and relax and live in a place like Maui. You cross a road, and the ocean is your bathtub. The sky is your roof; the food is fresher than fresh. This is better than the Ritz-Carlton. That made me realize that this is what reggae is about and where it’s supposed to take you: no problem, man, no worries. Far away from “What is wrong with me? Why can’t I learn to relax?” Listening to Bob Marley takes you on a natural, mystic flow. These guys were never in a hurry. It still sounds good.

I’ll tell you the best bands that came out of that scene. One was the Police. They were straight-ahead punk, and because of Sting, they wrote intelligent songs with that punk energy. Another group was the Clash—they wrote smart songs with a message and a purpose, and they loved Latin music. I met them backstage in ’82, when we both opened for the Who in Philadelphia. They were playing
cumbias
on a boom box they had, and Joe Strummer was humming the lines and the whole band was into that music. Then they were playing black music—early hip-hop stuff. I was pleasantly surprised. Their music had a symmetry of Africanness in it.

Sometimes the music in the ’70s and into the ’80s was surprising, like rock getting together with hip-hop. There was Afrika Bambaataa with Johnny Rotten and James Brown, and a few years later Run-D.M.C. teamed up with Aerosmith and then came black rock and white hip-hop—Living Colour and the Beastie Boys. That was in the ’80s, but that kind of unexpected mixing had been there before—for example, in what Miles did at the Fillmore. That’s how things change in music—one kind of music comes up next to another, and suddenly,
shift!
That’s what’s important to me.

Columbia Records supported us reluctantly. With Clive Davis long gone, no one was putting pressure on me to produce radio hits, but I knew they wanted another
Abraxas
from Santana. They didn’t say it, but I could feel it. I was ready to return—I’d gone so far out and up ahead with Santana, and with Alice Coltrane and John McLaughlin, that I figured we should try to take Santana back in a song direction, to be more radio-friendly. It was like taking a walk back down a familiar path.
Amigos
—with the songs “Europa” and “Dance Sister Dance”—came out of that.

Greg Walker is a very, very soulful singer, and we needed someone new in 1975, when Leon Patillo left. Ndugu brought Greg to a rehearsal at SIR in San Francisco, and that was it. He came into Santana right on time—just when we started
Amigos
. The first
song he sang with us was for the album. Leon’s voice had a clean gospel sound, but Greg’s voice was coming from Luther Vandross. Greg has that same facility and presentation of soul.

The one thing I remember saying to Greg was not to
sell
a song. Don’t make it like, “Hey, buy this tire.” Offer me your heart. I still say that to singers in Santana, because they’re the front part of the show. Treat the song like you’re making a love offering; don’t look or sound obvious.

Greg had some fearlessness in him—many musicians who join the band and get onstage for the first time will say, “Damn, we didn’t know it was going to be like this. It’s like a 747 taking off, and I’m holding on the best I can.” Then they have to decide if they want to be hanging off the tail or up in the cockpit. Greg was up front from the beginning, no problem. He helped define Santana for a time, because he was right there, front and center, on four albums—
Amigos, Festival, Moonflower,
and
Inner Secrets
.

We reconnected with Dave Rubinson because of Bill Graham, and this time around we all had more experience and worked better together. He wrote “Dance Sister Dance” with Ndugu and TC—to me, it sounded like their version of what they imagined Spanish Harlem to be like. When I first heard it I was like, “Okay…” But I really like the ending, with its synthesizer chords. We could work with synthesizers and other technology from the start because Weather Report made it okay, and I loved Jan Hammer and George Duke and Herbie, of course.

I wasn’t afraid or ashamed of that technology—I tried an ARP Avatar for a while, playing my guitar directly through the synthesizer. But I always felt that as soon as I played the guitar, all the other stuff was just stuff. I mean, if you play Albert King next to just about anything on the synthesizer, what can I tell you? It’s like putting up a whale next to a goldfish.

I think the best Santana tribute is a song Sonny Sharrock made just before he died. He told me about it one night in San Francisco at Slim’s. I went to see him, and he said, “I wrote a song about you, man. It’s called ‘Santana.’ ” I kept looking for it, and I finally found
it. I remember I said, “Brother Sonny must have been listening to the ending of ‘Dance Sister Dance.’ ”

Columbia told us that
Amigos
was a hit, so everyone was happy and loved Santana again. We made another album with Rubinson—
Festival
—for which Paul Jackson came into the band on bass and Gaylord Birch on drums. Ndugu left and recommended Gaylord.

Usually when someone leaves Santana it’s because it’s time for us to grow in different directions. Sometimes a player will know it himself, and sometimes it will be my job to say that it’s time to go and grow and be prosperous and maybe see you again—thank you for everything. That happens the majority of the time. Very seldom will people leave because they want to. But Ndugu had other things to do, and he was the one who decided to leave.

Ndugu is a perfect feel musician. He played beautifully on “Europa.” He could play with us, then with Marvin Gaye or George Benson or Michael Jackson. And before us he played with Miles! You can hear what I mean on the beginning of “Billie Jean”—that beat is swinging. In 1988 we got Ndugu to come back as part of the Santana-Shorter Band.

Santana was still a rock band, but it was creating its own identity—it was changing, creating new music, coming up with new hats for us to wear. About “Dance Sister Dance”: I’m not trying to be facetious or funny, but I’m always surprised when any Santana song becomes a hit. Even when we released “Black Magic Woman” and “Oye Como Va,” there was a voice inside me saying that maybe it was a mistake; maybe it’s just not rock and roll enough to be popular.

Then another voice answers, “Excuse me: why would you put any limitations on yourself? You don’t want to be a prisoner of yourself. You don’t want to be putting out your hand, saying, ‘Hi, I’m Carlos Santana, the Latin rock guy.’ ”

By 1977
Lotus
was selling enough copies as an import to make Columbia want a live album—that was part of the inspiration for
Moonflower
. The album was half live tracks and half studio songs. Bill Graham is credited on the album for his “direction,” and he was the one who wanted us to cover a song by the Zombies. He kept insisting, asking us to choose either “Time of the Season” or “She’s Not There.” Bill was more directly involved this time around—sometimes he was even in the studio.

That was a challenge, because Bill could be strong in his opinions anywhere he was, even though he wasn’t really a producer. One time we were recording a song, and somehow he got the notion that he needed to step in, like a producer would. Tom was playing a solo, and Bill started going, “Stop, stop”—he stopped the take! TC goes, “What’s going on?” Bill starts explaining that he needs to do the solo again and think about when he enters, and he’s saying, “I’m picturing a helicopter above a beach and it’s got a rope hanging down and holding on to the rope is a naked woman and there’s a horse running along the beach without a saddle and she needs to land just right on the horse, okay? Your solo should be like that, so you need to try it again.”

Everybody was quiet. I said, “Bill, why don’t you just tell him he started too soon?” He said, “I just did, schmuck.”

The other thing Bill loved to do at recording sessions was tell stories. When he did, we knew we were going to be there for a while—at least until someone would say, “Hey, who’s going to pay for this studio time?” It was worth it. We decided to do “She’s Not There,” and it was another hit. Over the years, Bill picked two songs for Santana, and both were hits.

I like the artwork for the two albums we did with Bill—man, I’ve been blessed that few people try to stop me once I make up my mind about an album cover. The cover of
Moonflower
is a photo taken from the top of a mountain that I loved, with the gold of sunset spread across the clouds. I found that in a photo book on the Himalayas. The photo on the cover of
Inner Secrets
was taken by Norman Seeff, the photographer who did the cover of Fleetwood Mac’s
Rumours
. In the photo, I was dancing while the band was clapping. I forget what song we were dancing to—maybe one from
the album—but I remember that Norman made me feel more comfortable than I had felt in any other photo session.