© Jay Blakesberg

Santana: Guitarists Bore Me To Tears

By Chris Charlesworth

(Originally Published: 09/20/1975, Melody Maker)

Of all the great groups to have emerged out of San Francisco since the mid-sixties, Santana have retained a musical credibility that surpasses their home town bretheren.

While running mates like the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane dissolved into various spin-off bands and suffered musically as a result, Carlos Santana, despite changing line-ups, has always maintained an exemplary standard, especially on record.

From his earliest experiments with Latin-American rhythms to his latest band, which seems more guitar/organ orientated than any previous line-up, Carlos has sought the deepest musical satisfaction. Those lucky enough to have seen him on his current tour will certainly agree.

Behind the smiling, calm and spiritual front that the slightly-built guitarist exudes, lies a man of steel will and determination, a man whose ideals have altered dramatically since his involvement with Guru Sri Chinmoy, but a man who is both fair and never afraid to speak his mind.

As a guitar player, Carlos Santana, for me, has always been the master of sustain, holding notes, letting them shine and live brightly instead of developing a fast technique like so many rock guitar players of today. His runs are melodic, flowing sentences rather than sharp, staccato phrases falling on top of each other. His fretboard technique is to squeeze every drop from each vibrating string.

His latest band, in fact, gives him more opportunity to play than did other complements. The new Santana seem less concerned with percussion than with melody, a welcome change for some but probably a disappointment for his Latin followers. And future bands, he informed me last week, may well take on a funky personality, hardly surprising in view of the black contingent on the current British tour.

Prodigy

It is eight years now since Carlos first emerged as a Bill Graham prodigy at the Fillmore West, legendary rock ballroom of San Francisco. His future, like that of so many others, was sealed with an appearance at the 1968 Woodstock Festival, and just six Santana albums (excluding the hits package) have emerged from the studio over the years -- not a prolific rate by any standards.

The last time we met was in San Francisco almost two years ago at his health food restaurant, the Dipti Nivas, which is run by his wife. Carlos -- "I remember everything since I gave up dope" -- recalled the meeting well, much to my surprise. He even remembered that there were roadworks on the street outside where the San Francisco council were digging an underground railway.

We began by discussing the new group. Drummer Leon "Ndugu" Chancler had worked in studios and with George Duke before joining Carlos, Tom Coster (keyboards), David Brown (bass) and Armando Teraza (congas) had all worked in earlier line-ups with Carlos at some time, while Leon Patolli (vocals and keyboards) is a recent discovery. Carlos heard a cut of his four years ago and has been after him to join his band ever since.

"The line-up only changes when things conflict," said Carlos in his Spanish drawl after a question about why so many personnel changes over the years. "And it only conflicts with people when they're not being sincere and when they haven't a 100 per cent commitment to the band as far as not drinking and not taking drugs.

Help

"It's not that I'm a hard boss, it's just the standards I set myself. But this is the first band in a long time where I feel we have all become one. We're all the boss and when somebody is not playing 100 per cent we'll let him know the next day, and we'll help him out.

"But if we feel that he's not giving 100 per cent because of drink or drugs or abusing himself then we'll tell him and he's out. Being in a band and touring and playing a lot of double shows requires a certain consistency, and right now we have that consistency even when there's technical things going wrong."

So I mentioned two players who appeared to me to epitomise all that Santana had stood for over the years: drummer Mike Shrieve and timbale player Chepito Arias, both of whom are currently out of favour.

"Mike has a domestic problem," explained Carlos, "and it was really affecting his playing as far as what he could see and feel. It was affecting his conviction and -- and I hope he'll forgive me for saying this -- he was getting wishy-washy on his drums.

"Chepito left because he just didn't fit in this group any more. He was conflicting totally with the band, and he really thought that if he left the band, the band wouldn't continue. That was really wrong on his part because now the band has never sounded better."

Carlos agreed that there was less accent on the percussive side of the band. "Yes. It's good I get to play more," he said, laughing. "I like it better this way, playing the way Mahavishnu sounds. The less people in the band, the better. Look at Cream...with a band like that you can't go over and hide behind your amplifier and not play, but six on stage is the lowest I will get down to.

"But I have a strong vibration to do a record totally on my own. I may not be very good technically on bass and drums and keyboards...well, bass and drums, I'm pretty cool, but keyboards it's taken me a while to get the coordination together...but I have a strong conviction to do everything myself."

First, though, will come a Santana album which, according to Carlos, will be aimed at the discotheque market. "I want to put something out that people can dance to and have fun with," he said. "I can always do my own album for the puritan follower of my music who wants one sort of thing and doesn't care about anything else. I mean, I like both types of music.

"It's inevitable, because there's four black people in the band. You've gotta get funky, and I like it that way, but the thing we have to connect more is the lyrics and the happy feeling...playing music that makes you forget about the rent and want to dance and have a good time. Right now that's what spirituality means to me, to have fun and reach the sea of joy without stepping on anybody or hurting anybody. Spirituality is nothing strict or weird, it's all very natural."

Carlos acknowledges that his spiritual life plays a strong part in his music, but only on his records produced outside of the Santana band guide lines.

"When I do albums as Devadip, it does play a part, but when I do albums with the band I am more on the level of practical environment. I can't just jam with this band on a spiritual level, but I'm doing a concert next month with Mahavishnu that will be on a spiritual level, a very different thing."

During the London concerts there were occasional cries from the audience for Santana to play new material, but Carlos maintains that each evening presents a fresh approach, a fact confirmed by his listening to recorded playbacks after each concert.

"I listen to these tapes objectively and I really find that we could be playing the same song for the rest of our lives but it always blows in a different way, like a flower. The energy the people give you...the audience...they make a song bloom in different ways and that's good.

"When you take off and play some improvised music some will maybe like it but the masses will start yawning. The majority just like to boogie and you have to give them something to dig. If you play a lot of jazz music, you put yourself in such a bag and I became like that, putting down all other kinds of music, and I became a kind of snob. The people who play rock and roll embrace a lot of things.

"People who are more aware listen to rock and roll, they listen to Weather Report, they listen to David Bowie and everything. They don't just think that if you don't listen to John Coltrane and nothing else, you're not hip. That's ridiculous."

Throughout the summer Carlos has toured the US with Eric Clapton, but he denies that any Clapton influence has rubbed off, on stage at least. "He doesn't influence my playing because both of us prefer to be inspired rather than influenced. Musically he hasn't taught me anything at all because the things that he listens to when he goes to his room are the same things I listen to, like Freddie King, B. B. King and reggae music and gospel music.

"The thing that he does inspire me with is the way that he carries and conducts himself off the stage. He's an extremely kind and beautiful person.

"Sometime I think when I'm playing that I've done something the way he would, like holding a note longer or stopping a phrase to get a certain sound. A few years back he influenced me a lot with Cream, which was inevitable because he was taking so many chances. He used to influence me musically but now he influences me with his soul."

Which brought us on to the subject of the sustaining power in Carlos' left fingers, a subject dear to his heart for he shuns the use of electronic aids to hold notes.

"My first instrument was the violin, which taught me to hold down strings, but now that I play the guitar I very rarely consciously think about it. I rarely listen to other guitar players, but prefer voices. My goal is to sing with my guitar, to sing like Aretha or Dionne Warwicke or even Minnie Riperton.

"Guitar players, man, they bore me to tears. They play so many notes they sound like typewriters. There's a lot of great ones like George Benson, Mahavishnu and others, but I can't listen to it...their creativity and imagination sometimes impresses me but after a while I realise it's not what I am.

"That's not what I want to become, a bebop soloist. That all reminds me of the crowded room, the cocktail party and the smoky atmosphere and the click of voices. That's what I really don't like. I like the open air, the way the clouds flow, long melodies.

"I also have this reality about keeping my feet on the ground, and I never feel I'm competing with anybody."

In this respect Santana have opted to bring Earth, Wind and Fire as their opening act to this country. EWF, to say the least, do their utmost to upstage the billtoppers -- and all credit to them for it -- with a mixture of funk and theatrics that almost borders on the ridiculous as their bass player flies across the stage on a wire and their drummer revolves in a 360-degree turn.

"If you're really sincere and soulful you can follow anybody with an acoustic guitar. If you're in tune with your soul it doesn't matter whether you play the beginning or at the end. I used to be really insecure about these things, when I was on drugs, but now it doesn't matter any more whether we play first or last because we're not competing.

"Before I used to have nightmares because there were cats dragging themselves on stage because of hangovers or too many chicks or too many of this or that. When you go on stage like that you know you are not going to play your best. Then you can't blame things on anybody but the band. Doing two shows a night I don't get tired if I'm playing right, but if things aren't happening, then I'll get tired.

"Temptations come up along the way and then, if I get tempted, I'll get tired. You have to follow a straight course, like a horse who knows which way to run."

Carlos was introduced to Sri Chinmoy through another musician and pupil, Larry Coryell, though it was John McLaughlin, whom Carlos always refers to as Mahavishnu, who sowed the seeds for what was to alter the Santana life style dramatically. His devotion is absolutely resolute, as reflected in the almost boyish appearance of Carlos today compared to the early days in the band.

"My life style was changing already as before I came to him I was already free from drugs," said Carlos. "I was free from a lot of things but my hair was still long and I wasn't for giving that up until I saw him.

"That was important in a way because I know that when I leave my hair longer I start attracting certain vibrations from certain ladies that I really don't need because I am married and have a set thing. One thing was that I started looking in the mirror too much. I was relating to my body rather than my soul."