QLS Classic: Carlos Santana

0:00Speaker 1:Questlove Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Good people, hello. This is Questlove. And in 2021, on Questlove Supreme, we had a virtual call with Carlos Santana. And knowing how spiritual Carlos is, particularly when it comes to music, I knew I'd learn some things. And boy, did I learn some things. So, Carlos was truly otherworldly in the way that he shared his story, his path, and some of the ways that he views his life in the world. And the conversation is deeply powerful. And it came to a time when I was on my own journey as well.

0:43Speaker 1:If you've been following the show, you know, I've been on this path of enlightenment. So Laia, Fonte, Unpaid Bill, Sugar Steve, and I learned so much from Carlos Santana. And a few years later, of course, we had a, Cynthia Blackman Santana on the show as well. And it's cool to hear Carlos speak so openly here about their connection and their partnership. And throughout this conversation, you get a real sense of what a calling means in music and how Carlos's attitude and worldview has shaped the extraordinary life that he has built. So I want you to enjoy this classic episode of the one and only Carlos Santana on QLS.

1:22Speaker 2:All right. What happened to the roll call, yo?

1:37Speaker 1:Yeah. Okay. Latency has done a sentence.

1:41Speaker 2:Oh, never mind.

1:42Speaker 1:Never mind. Exactly. Just imagine Fallon.

1:45Speaker 3:Are we looking for a solution?

1:46Speaker 1:Yes, we are. Ladies and gentlemen, let me attest that 2021 is the... Yeah, I'm declaring it. 2021 is the year of miracles. And I wanted this platform... this Questlove Supreme platform, so that not only the people, for myself, I wanted to receive the holy scrolls of wisdom from the gods. And let me just say, be careful for what you ask for, because I will declare today on this recording that my God is definitely a God of abundance. as this year has clearly shown, he has delivered to us today one of the most influential creatives in music.

2:40Speaker 1:Not a music god, not a veteran, not, no. Just absolutely one of the most unique, influential creatives in music. And it's super, super, super rare that we get to speak to someone with over five decades of excellence under their belt.

3:01Speaker 2:Thank you.

3:02Speaker 1:No exception. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to Questlove Supreme, the one and only Carlos Humberto Santana. That's how I got the name. Carlos Santana. Yes, exactly.

3:20Speaker 2:All right, all right.

3:21Speaker 1:How are you? Wait, I should also note, Occasionally I dig into the comments on our various platforms, on YouTube and on IG and Twitter and whatnot. And I noticed that whenever we have an axe master or an axe god or just any other instrumental god that's not drum related, I don't go that deep into their craft. And I will admit that I am I'm not that well-versed in asking super deep questions in terms of guitars. So that said, this is a rare... Now we're a six-em once again.

4:06Speaker 1:We have Laia with us. We have Fontigallo. We have Sugar Steve, Unpaid Bill, and I decided last minute to ask my guitarist from the roots, Captain Kirk. Yes!

4:24Speaker 4:I'm super honored to be here.

4:26Speaker 2:I'm very honored to be here.

4:28Speaker 1:I wanted the captain here just so that I don't leave any stone unturned because, you know, when we have Pat Metheny on the show, or even when we had Jack White, cats ask me, like, well, how come you didn't ask him about, like, type of strings he used, or that, like, sort of the The jargon that I wouldn't know to ask. I wanted to make sure that we satisfy you nerds. So that's all. So welcome also Captain Kirk to the podcast.

4:52Speaker 5:Okay.

4:52Speaker 1:Actually, Steve, do you want to start with your question first?

4:56Speaker 6:Oh, well, I narrowed down my thousand questions to two. But they don't really belong at the top of the interview. If you want, I can.

5:07Speaker 1:Because Steve's real first question was hilarious to me. No, we're not going to ask that. I will say that. Oh, you want me to do the joke?

5:17Speaker 6:Yeah, exactly.

5:18Speaker 1:Oh, I see. Let me try it. Go ahead, Steve. What's your first question? It's only a joke.

5:23Speaker 6:Because your career is so long and distinguished that.

5:27Speaker 1:No, you don't have to explain a joke. Just say it.

5:30Speaker 6:So what was it like to work with Rob Thomas?

5:35Speaker 1:Anyway, so time out.

5:38Speaker 2:He's on a new record.

5:39Speaker 3:That joint, bang it.

5:40Speaker 1:I know. I know this.

5:42Speaker 6:We love him. It's just Santana.

5:45Speaker 1:That was our first thing.

5:46Speaker 2:I got it.

5:46Speaker 1:But we start from the top. And actually, normally I ask about your origins, but I always wanted to know the answer to this question. The first hour of your mornings, What do you do?

6:02Speaker 2:Well, it's a joy and an honor to be here with all of you all. And the first thing that I do before my feet touch the ground, I totally connect, ignite gratitude. Because I understand completely that everything that I love about John Coltrane and people that I love, love with supreme and impeccable integrity, there's grace. And grace is, like Maya Angelou said, grace is all around us, but we're the ones that have to get in it. And so for me, you can access and utilize grace, which with grace you can create miracles and blessings and do the impossible. I want to access grace every morning, so the first thing that I do, I make my mind and my heart be a thousand percent with gratitude. Thank you for my next breath. Thank you for my wife.

7:03Speaker 2:You know, I love drummers so much.

7:05Speaker 1:I married one. The one and only Cindy Blackman. Yes.

7:11Speaker 2:Yes. You know, but again, the main thing for me is those two components, grace and gratitude. With that, you can actually create the impossible. You know, you can make the invisible tangible, you know, and so that's, Once you understand that what shamans and people like Jesus and shamans, they create alchemy from water to wine. Well, the alchemy, we musicians, we make people happy because most people are not happy unless they're miserable. And so we rescue people from themselves by sound, resonance, vibration. A melody and a rhythm makes people believe that they also are worthy to receive directly from God. So we get rid of the wretched sinner stuff. We get rid of that unworthy of God's grace. We get rid of that when we're playing music.

8:10Speaker 2:And we invite people to claim your divinity. It's not arrogant. It's not cynical. It's imperative that you claim your divinity so you can get close to to John Coltrane and Wayne and Herbie and the genius, genius, genius.

8:27Speaker 1:Yeah.

8:28Speaker 2:Cause that's what they did.

8:30Speaker 1:I knew that was the answer. And I wanted to give y'all a preview of what I'm going to be like in about five years from now. Goals, especially the period after the third record, especially starting with, um, With like Caravan Sarai, that album? I don't know. For me, I felt the need to ask you that only because there's such a spiritual element to that run of records between 72 and 78 that I felt in my heart that you're more closer to, I should have introduced you as a shaman more than just a musician or that sort of thing.

9:25Speaker 7:Because in that gratitude, what does that look like, Carlos? Like, is that meditation? Is that just a moment just to sit and what?

9:33Speaker 2:Gratitude to me looks like where I live now. I mean, I live in Las Vegas, but I also live in Kauai. And gratitude is a rainbow talking to me. This is There's so many rainbows in Kauai, and they're specifically the ones that are so loud, they go... They're hum. These rainbows are so alive, they hum. hum. And I was watching one early this year, and it tapped me on the shoulder, like, turn around, because I was reading, turn around, turn around, like, oh, and there's this rainbow, as clear as I can see your face, and this rainbow goes, you see me? And I said, yeah, I see you.

10:19Speaker 2:He says, you know who I am? I says, yeah, you're God. And he goes, that's right. And you know what? I says, what? He says, I'm looking at you too. That's grace. That's grace. You know, because all of us need to be validated. You know, everyone in this planet needs to be validated and celebrated because God created us in his image. You know, so I. I'm very, very grateful that you offer me this platform because the things that I love most in this planet, besides the connection with a supreme being, is spirituality, sensuality, and African music. That's it. Because all three of them offer me a door to totality and completeness and infinity.

11:11Speaker 2:You know when you play a solo and gravity disappears and time disappears? And you go into this zone. The basketball players call it the zone. It's called grace. It's called grace. When you get into that grace and you don't even remember what you did after you played it, that's what real musicians got to turn to the other musicians who be posing and capping and jiving and shucking and jiving. You know, no, no, no, no, no. Look, man, you can do better than that. Go deeper and access that thing that you're beyond... Every time you listen to a John Coltrane, A Love Supreme, I play this music in every hotel that I get into. Why? To clean whatever happened the night before. What?

12:02Speaker 7:Yeah.

12:03Speaker 2:Whatever happened, whatever they did, I put A Love Supreme, a lot of some incense that I got from Alice Coltrane, and that room is mine when I come back.

12:11Speaker 3:Sonic sage.

12:13Speaker 2:Yeah. Wow. It purifies me. John Coltrane's music is, if they would play this on CNN, the world would not be so infected with fear and separation.

12:25Speaker 6:Dude.

12:26Speaker 2:But you know that already.

12:27Speaker 5:Come on.

12:28Speaker 1:Here's the thing. Good night.

12:31Speaker 6:Right.

12:31Speaker 1:Yeah, damn. Not to totally. All right. This platform was meant to, like, review someone's. History, but I got to stay here for just a little bit longer. Only because the reason why I was excited to talk to you is because I'm slowly starting my transformation into what they call doing the work. The pandemic forced us to do the work. And I was in a really, really dark place where I wasn't enjoying my creativity. I was squandering it. And it took... not working last year for me to actually...

13:11Speaker 1:Work on yourself. Previously, if you were to say this to me in 2018, I would quickly be on group chat with them. Like, okay, what drug is he on? When people just think spiritual people are crazy, whatever. But it's like I had a moment where... I'm just a year into this, where... Everything that you're saying, I absolutely believe. Like, you got to wake up. You got to wake up in gratitude. You got to meditate in the morning. Things I used to laugh at. And, you know, I tell people all the time, like, I'm literally morphing to the human being I used to laugh at. Because for some reason, you know, I guess when you're most black people in America, especially like my generation, like church is more of like an oppressive thing. religious organizations, like they never teach spirituality.

14:08Speaker 1:And I'm just learning that now, like at this stage of my life, the second stage of my life. And, you know, it's really good. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm happy to get talked to, to talk to a musician that basically uses their, their, their art for that. Cause you know, you can clearly hear, like I hear the work of Coltrane and, and, that spirituality in, in your work. And, you know, thank you. Thank you. I always wanted to know, like how, how did Clive and especially like Walter Yetnikoff, how did they receive you? Cause normally with, with, with, uh, you know, other label heads, it's either like, hand me my hits or, you know, you get dropped from the label and you got to go elsewhere and whatnot. And yet like Columbia sat by you for the, for the longest.

15:03Speaker 1:And so they, and they let you find your spirituality. So I was always curious as to how, how you were allowed to explore those things and not sort of succumb to the pressure. I mean, there were occasional disco moments in 78 and whatnot, but you know, like, was it, was it hard navigating the spirituality that you have and also, you know, remaining a brand name musician in terms of, being a product and being spiritual at the same time?

15:37Speaker 2:It wasn't hard at all for me because I knew since I was a child that this is for me, it's a way of life. It's not a profession. It's not a gig or a job. It's a way of life. We started with the Beatrola, the records, the 8-track, the cassettes, the CDs, you know. Those to me are like faucets. It's the water. Music is the water, the living water. So Clive Davis... Bill Graham and Clyde Davis, when they met me, they realized that I wasn't pedestrian, that I wasn't necessarily a pedestrian guy. And what do I mean by that? Well, pedestrian guy, kind of they settle for you dangle money and they kind of jump over like a little poodle. You jump over things. And they realized that what's priceless to me is committing career suicide. I'm going to go after John Coltrane, Weather Report, Miles Davis, and they say, but man, there's already Miles Davis in Weather Report, whatever. I know, but I need to learn something from them and teach the youngsters this, because I can't just constantly keep doing Oyukonobai and Abraxas and or Supernatural or whatever. You know, by the grace of God, again, I'm able to reach the four corners of the world

16:58Speaker 2:and touch many people's hearts and You know, like Tony Williams says, once you sell one record, you're commercial because you sold one record, you know? So I don't look at, like, being commercial like a negative thing. I look at pretty much life the way the ones that I love and I adore, like Arthur Ashe, Bruce Lee, and Coltrane. People who, Bruce Lee, be like water.

17:24Speaker 1:Be water, yeah.

17:25Speaker 2:A cloud, an ocean, a lake, a bathtub, you know, So what does that mean? It means that you have the capacity to be a multidimensional spirit that can play anywhere with anyone and compliment. So when I go to Africa, they know who I am. When I go to Ireland, they know who I am. When I go to Japan or New Zealand, they know who I am. And they know who I am because they play our music in their living room with grandma, grandpa, and the little kids, man.

17:52Speaker 2:And that's when you enter a whole other realm of like, wow. I go to Paris and the gentleman who's helping us with the luggage and whatever, he says, Santana. I go, hi. He says, and then he points, he says, he points at his tummy. He goes, my wife, Sophia. I go, I beg your pardon? So, Sophia, you know, she, she got pregnant. My wife got pregnant when we were listening to your album, you know, like, Samba Bati. So, you know, and I get that all over the world. So, it means that your music, resonant sounds, vibrations, is able to impregnate not only women but men to believe that they can achieve beyond what religious books or institutions or governments tell them to do. You are a multidimensional being. Let me say it really clearly like this. You cannot behave appropriately unless you perceive correctly. Once you perceive, one more time, You cannot behave appropriately unless you perceive correctly. Once you perceive you are a beam of light that comes from the mind of God, you carry yourself differently.

19:14Speaker 3:Where does all this come from? I mean, I know at some point, Amir, you're going to go, well, let's start at the beginning. But I am so curious.

19:22Speaker 7:I know.

19:23Speaker 1:I don't even want to start the interview yet. This is a pre-interview. Yeah, let Reverend Santana keep going.

19:30Speaker 3:But seriously, though, where did this light come from? Was it a day? Was it a moment? Or was it a week, a month, a study? Where does it come from? What was the moment?

19:44Speaker 2:From being thirsty. I'm always thirsty for adventure, and I'm not afraid of the unknown or uncertainty. I knew that my first band, with the first three albums, we knew that it was fragmented, and some people wanted to journey, some people wanted to do something else and whatever. And so I started reading the Aranda book and listened to Coltrane only.

20:07Speaker 7:Okay.

20:08Speaker 2:So... So I listened to the Oranta book. Later on, I got introduced to J.J. Hurtad's books, and I'll show you what they are. Thank you. And also A Course in Miracles. All these books that I'm going to introduce you to, they have what you call nowadays spiritual data and how to transform your monkey-ness and your donkey-ness into an archangel energy, knowing, knowledge. Because, you know, sometimes we act like, Monkeys and donkeys, you know, which means you succumb to what people say, well, you know, it's human nature. Yeah, but it doesn't have to be corny, cute, clever, and predictable.

20:52Speaker 2:I could be a human being and still say, I'm going to play a melody that is going to make people cry and laugh at the same time. Why? Because they are... On a molecular level, they remember that they also have this gift, imbued gift, before we came out of the womb, imbued to create blessings and miracles. That's what music is about. Their show business, their entertainment, and then there's music to really elevate, transform, and illumine the human consciousness of this planet so we don't have the stuff that's been happening for the last two years, fear and separation and superiority and racism. All that stuff comes from one word, fear. Fear. And that's why I play Coltrane all the time because as soon as I play a love supreme, fear disappears immediately in the room.

21:51Speaker 5:Wow.

21:53Speaker 1:Okay. Now I got to go to the first question.

21:56Speaker 2:Okay. Okay.

21:57Speaker 6:Now will you tell us what it was like to work with Rob Thomas?

22:01Speaker 1:All right. Can you tell me, what was your first musical memory?

22:10Speaker 2:My dad, my father, we were in a yard, in the backyard, in Alcalan Jalisco, a small little town. And it was like five o'clock in the afternoon. Everything's kind of gets gold. You know, when the sun goes down, everything looks golden. And And my father, he was already teaching me how to read and wanted to teach me how to play the violin. So he opened up the violin case, grabbed the violin, put it up here like this, and then he goes, mira, which means look, mira. And then he went. And I'm like, what? And then a bird comes over, lands on the street and he goes.

22:50Speaker 2:He goes, ves? Do you see? He goes, otra vez, one more time. Bird, if you can talk to the birds, you can talk to people. You get it? And I was like, damn. That's crazy.

23:11Speaker 3:My daddy do that, too. He talk to the birds.

23:13Speaker 1:That's crazy. Really? Yeah.

23:16Speaker 2:Wow. See, once you talk to Charlie Bird, Bird Parker, you're in a whole other league, man.

23:24Speaker 1:So your father was a violinist?

23:26Speaker 2:Yes.

23:27Speaker 1:Okay. Where were you born?

23:30Speaker 2:I was born in Outland, Jalisco. It's a little town in between Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta. If you blink, you missed it.

23:41Speaker 1:Okay.

23:42Speaker 2:It's very small.

23:44Speaker 1:And how long, how long did you stay there? Like what was your family situation like? Did you have brothers and sisters or was it a musical family?

23:53Speaker 2:Yes. Thank you for asking. Um, from 47 where I was born till 55, we left because my mom was the one that would always say, nos vamos, which means we're out of here. You know, cause my dad was already living in Tijuana and sending us money from, from Tijuana, you know, cause it got really hard to make a living in outland Jalisco for my dad and feed, feed four sisters and two brothers and my mom and a lady who was working with us. So there was a lot of people to feed. And, uh, So my mom says, we're out of here. You know, your dad sent me some money to kind of like, you know, make up and console me because they haven't seen me for almost like a year. So he sent me some money for me to buy a stove that we're living almost in the streets, you know? And so she goes, I'm going to take this money. I'm going to give it to this guy that your dad knows. He works as a cab driver in the center of town. I'm going to give him half of that money and use that money, the rest of the half to feed you guys. But we're going to Tijuana and we're going to see your dad.

24:52Speaker 2:And if your dad don't want me or you guys, he have to tell us eye to eye in front of us. So my mom was like that. So I was like, oh. So we all got into one car, man. And we took like a week to get there. And it's a long story. But it's a story of this, man. My story is my mother is pure conviction. A pure conviction woman. And my dad, pure charisma. I mean, this dude, man, it was like people look at him like he was like Clark Gable or something, you know? Women, oh, don't say, you know, they just melt and stuff. So I got those two from my mom, charisma and conviction. And it gave me something that is very important for musicians to show up with not arrogance, but confidence. Like Miles Davis, confidence, you know? Tony Williams.

25:51Speaker 3:So wait, what happened, though, Carlos, when she got there?

25:54Speaker 7:She rolled up with confidence, but did she succeed in what she wanted?

25:59Speaker 2:Well, yeah, she had to knock on the door where my dad had sent the address from this letter. And it was 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and nobody would answer the door. And so she knocked harder, and then this woman opened the door. Mm-mm. Yeah, and she was. And so first, before she answered the door, there was like a wine or derelict in the streets. And she says to my mom, who are you looking for? So my mom described my dad. He goes, oh, he's inside.

26:29Speaker 2:Knock again, louder. So she knocked again. And the lady opened the door and she started screaming at my mom and cursing at her. And she was making such a racket. My dad came out. And the first thing he looked at me, the first thing he looked at was me. And he was mesmerized. He's like, and then he looked at my mom and the rest of us like, what are you doing here? And his face looked like the NBC peacock with all the colors in it. And my mom was like, you know, she did her thing. And next thing I know, he left that prostitute that he was staying with, you know, And then she took us into this other place. And, you know, it was the worst part of Tijuana. It was the ghetto of the ghetto. Ghetto, you know? Right. They didn't even have a roof yet.

27:26Speaker 2:They were still building this house, you know? I don't want to sound like melancholy or whatever. But, you know, it is what it is. And all that stuff gave us conviction, you know, because you can only go up from here, you know? Mm-hmm.

27:46Speaker 6:Um, do you ever go back to your original hometown or have you been back there?

27:50Speaker 2:Yeah. Yes. I went to Alclan a couple of times and, uh, we, I started the clinic by the grace of God.

27:55Speaker 7:Of course you did.

27:56Speaker 2:You know, we started a hospital clinic. Uh, we invested, I don't know how many millions I, cause I don't keep track of numbers and records. I don't know how many records I record, but anyway, we're able to, to have, uh, uh, what is it called? Uh, foundation. I, Yes, it is a foundation, but it had a specific name, Santuario de Luz, like a sanctuary of light. And we had the latest. People from Las Vegas and Seattle, they donated brand new ambulances and stuff. So this hotel, I mean this hotel, this hospital is no joke. It's really, really, really state of the art. Wow, that's awesome. But I told them, I think I was doing that for 15, 20 years with them, and I told them, you're like a teenager now.

28:44Speaker 2:I'm going to back off and you need to pay your own now. Cause you can't depend on me. It's like when you tell your kids, man, you know, you need to pay your own rent and you pay the water. You need to put, you know, you know, so I says, so I'm backing off, you know, you in the town, the mayor, here's the, here's the thing, man, you got it. You take care of it. Cause now I want to do one in Tijuana and Juarez and, and, you know, I don't know if you ever heard of three squares.

29:12Speaker 2:it's a place where they have food. This lady, Julie Mary, before she, she was going to die of cancer. And before she said, before I die, I'm going to create big, giant buildings like, like, like Walmart, tall, fill them up with food and feed the kids in Las Vegas. She did that with two buildings. She never died. And we learned so much from her. Now, if you just take your time and go to three squares and you see what's happening with this building and you see people donating the you know the thing about las vegas is that the thing about las vegas there's a lot of people that i call weapons of mass compassion people who wake up to be of service to humanity You don't hear about them. You only hear about the clubs and the streets.

29:58Speaker 2:But there's bona fide people who I call weapons of mass compassion people who they roll up their sleeves, they cook, they pack, they do all kinds of things, and they're always helping in healing, correcting, and curing humanity's mentality.

30:13Speaker 1:How did you know that that was your particular calling, at least for you donating that center? Why not a school? Why not housing development or whatever? Like, what was it about that that you felt that's what the town needed?

30:29Speaker 2:Thank you for asking that. I grew up with Tito Puente and B.B. King, believing that I could be somewhere in the middle. But in the meantime, I was checking out Dolores Huerta, Martha Luther King, Mother Teresa. So I would say, well, I'm going to do this so I can do that. You know, so I'm going to play music and with the energy or money from that, I'm going to give it to $ 2, 500, 000 clean to Mr. Desmond Tutu to help the children with AIDS so they can have uniforms, so they can have shoes. Because if you don't have shoes and uniforms, you can't get into the classroom.

31:05Speaker 2:So I donated. We did a whole tour. I paid my taxes and I paid my band. And what was the rest of that, I gave it to Mr. Desmond Tutu clean. One check. And I did it because... I'm constantly like you and you and everybody here. I'm constantly being nudged inwardly. Do this. Follow that. You know? And so... But I said, but I don't want people to know that I'm doing this. And they said, well, I know that you don't want people to know that you're giving $ 2, 500, 000 clean to Desmond Tutu to help with the kids and the AIDS and everything. But see... If people do find out a little bit, then it will inspire other people to do it. I said, but I don't feel comfortable because it feels weird to do something and then it almost feels like, look at me, I'm doing, no.

31:57Speaker 2:And they said, he said, no, man, it's not like that. You know, trust us or something like, so that's why I did it like that. You know?

32:04Speaker 1:I get it. I get it. Wow. Wow. That's beautiful to hear. Eventually, of course, I know that you moved to the United States. I'm assuming you moved to the Bay Area. How old were you when you settled into California?

32:20Speaker 2:I moved from Tijuana the first time in 1962. And mom and I were not getting along. We weren't getting along for a long time, you know, because she was very domineering, very set. Like I said, a lot of conviction. And I'm not like, with all respect to my sisters and brothers, I'm not that kind of guy that goes like that, you know? Right. I wanted to go back to where I was working. I was working in Tijuana in a nightclub called The Convoy. We would play for an hour. And for another hour, there would be women stripping.

32:52Speaker 2:So they were like strippers. That's still dance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So to me, I was like, oh, this is like better than Cirque du Soleil or whatever. You know, this is, yeah, I play an hour, you know, green onions and, you know, something's got a hollow beat and play it. Etta James and Booker T and all kinds of people. Wow. And for an hour, I get to see ladies, you know, strip and do the thing because they have to feed the kids because they have to do what they have to do, you know? Right. But I was like, yeah, just go to junior high school in America.

33:25Speaker 1:Oh, no.

33:26Speaker 2:Heck no. I don't want to go to junior high school. I want to stay in this joint and grow up watching this thing over here. Wait, junior high.

33:32Speaker 5:School, Carlos?

33:33Speaker 7:You were like.

33:33Speaker 1:He was 15.

33:34Speaker 5:Whoa.

33:34Speaker 2:Okay. Okay.

33:35Speaker 1:Oh, he was born in 47, so now he's 15.

33:40Speaker 2:Plus, they put me back because I couldn't speak English. The only words that I knew was, stick him up.

33:45Speaker 1:And there's the.

33:49Speaker 7:Animation from the most peaceful man on the planet.

33:52Speaker 1:There's our intro.

33:55Speaker 2:Stick him up. Because I saw Roy Rogers, some TV show, Roy Rogers. And somebody said, stick him up. They pulled a gun at me like, whoa. I said, oh, stick him up. Okay. You know? So that was one of the first words in English that I learned.

34:09Speaker 1:Okay. Who taught you how to play? Was guitar your first weapon of choice?

34:16Speaker 2:No, it was the violin. But I didn't like the way it smelled, the way it sounded, or the way it felt. You know, because you got to get really.

34:23Speaker 1:Close to the violin. Oh, the resin.

34:25Speaker 2:Yeah, all that. You know, like, ah. Yeah. And my dad, I didn't want to, you know, make him angry. So I finally told him, you know, I don't want to play this thing, man. And so my mom took me to the center of town in Tijuana, and there was a band called the TJs. And there was this dude named Javier Batis, who had a big conk, like Little Richard, big khaki pants, you know, big, big, almost like bell-bottom pants. And he was a component of three people. I mean, and he had it down. He was like B.B. King, Little Richard... and Ray Charles. That's all he knew, and he played it really, really good. So when I went to the center of town with my mom, because she grabbed me by the hand, you're coming with me, and I was like, I said, you haven't played in a while because your dad is in San Francisco, and I don't want what he taught you for you to lose it, so come with me. So she pulled me by the hand, and she took me to see this guy, and they're playing, you know, they're playing, and the way he hit those notes, he had that twang, like B.B. King, Freddie King, Albrecht, he had that twang thing, and I was like, it

35:29Speaker 2:was like seeing a flying saucer man or a first white whale or something. And I was like, Oh my God, right there. I knew that's the only thing I was going to be right there because of watching a guy play. I mean, you could, when he, when he played the guitar and the notes resonated against the cars and the trees and the church across the street, man, I was like, Oh, my God. The sound of the guitar, man, is very, you know, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray, you know, Albert King. Everybody, you know, it seduces your senses. Lauren Hill says, man, one note from you, it assaulted all my senses. That's what she said. So that's what guitar players do. Because when you bend the note, see, when you bend the note, you know how to bend it? Man, that's when people's hair stand up. And even Miles, I have a lot of pictures of Miles with guitars, because he wanted to get into the guitar and he wanted to know how to get inside that note. There's something very, very spiritual and sensual about the guitar, man. It's just, you know.

36:51Speaker 4:Carlos, if I may, can you just tell us about the moment Or the moments leading up in the morning after when you.

36:58Speaker 2:Received this first guitar?

37:00Speaker 4:Because it's got to be a special moment.

37:04Speaker 2:Well, yeah, it was special. Thank you for asking that. My dad found out from my mom that I didn't want to quit music, but I wanted a guitar. So he sent me a big, fat guitar, sort of like Wes Montgomery, you know? And it had pickups, but I was so naive, I changed the strings and I put nylon strings on. And I said, well, man, I can get a sound from this. And they said, no, you need to put it, you know, so I changed the strings again. Then I got in it, man. When I got in it, people were telling me, you shouldn't play bass, man, because I started with the bass after that. You play too many damn notes to play the bass. You need to play the guitar. I said, okay. So, you know, it's all been a revelation, man, being in this planet and learning how to articulate first electric guitar, and then Olatunji and African music. Because once you get into the drums, like I said, I love drums so much, man, I married a drummer. The drummer. The drummer. The drummer for me.

38:08Speaker 2:That is the closest to Tony Williams alive. Yes. Anyway, so that's a beautiful combination. The guitar... Ciro Puente, Olatunji with B.B.

38:25Speaker 5:King.

38:26Speaker 2:Man, that's a badass combination. Next thing you know, everybody has congas and timbales, man. Next thing you know, the Rolling Stones got congas and timbales. Sly's got congas and timbales. Miles got congas. Why? Something happened at Woodstock.

38:45Speaker 1:Okay.

38:47Speaker 2:Because of what? Because they said that it works. See, guitar and congas... make women dance differently. The hippies ladies, they're dancing like they're catching butterflies like this. But when you play.

39:05Speaker 1:That is the standard white girl dance. I never once thought of it as catching butterflies, but you did it wrong. Fine, fine.

39:16Speaker 2:But then you play a guajira, you know, which is like charango, guajira, reba, reto, tiro, puente, with B.D.

39:22Speaker 5:King.

39:23Speaker 2:Dun, dun, dun, dun, dee, dun, dee, dun, dee, du, dee, dee, ba, ba.

39:29Speaker 5:Mm.

39:20Speaker 2:Look at her. Look at her.

39:20Speaker 1:Oh, sorry.

39:21Speaker 5:See?

39:21Speaker 2:Women just go, oh.

39:22Speaker 5:Okay.

39:23Speaker 2:You know? Hey. Wow. You knew instantly. If you get the women to dance to it, then it works. Okay.

39:51Speaker 1:I had questions, Carlos, about two particular players and their influence on your playing and just you guys' personal relationship. Ma Vishnu, John McLaughlin, and also Peter Green. What can you say about you guys' work together?

40:09Speaker 2:Well, thank you for asking that. You know, I knew about John from Bitches Brew, but somebody told me in between, I was playing at the Fillmore, And a brother who was taking care of like a ballet for B.B. King, he had a day off. And he says, man, you're coming with me. I says, where are we going? He says, we're going to go to Slug's. I said, what's that? He says, it's a club in Harlem. I said, who's playing? He says, Tony Williams' trio, John McLaughlin, Larry Young, and Tony Williams. And that place was small, but they were loud. Right.

40:44Speaker 2:They were so loud.

40:44Speaker 1:The ego period?

40:46Speaker 2:This is before it.

40:47Speaker 1:Emergency.

40:49Speaker 2:Emergency. Yeah, yeah. And when I first heard him play, again, it's a different kind of revelation because you're going from John Lee Hooker, Lightning Hopkins, Jimmy Reed, B.B. King, Freddie King. You're going to a cat like John McLaughlin who's playing a combination of Django Reinhardt with Ravi Shankar with Wes Montgomery. And he's burning, burning with this dexterity, him and Tony Williams. And I was like, oh, my God. You know, I didn't know people could actually play like this. Here's the word.

41:31Speaker 2:I didn't know people could articulate this kind of language that is beyond superlatives.

41:40Speaker 1:Was Tony, you know, it's weird. One of the very first American, not American root shows, but one of the very first root shows, once we got our record deal, Tony Williams was also at the gig and I'm really kicking myself that I didn't watch him. Like I didn't really start to worship him, even though I knew him well or knew of his work well. But, you know, unfortunately, like, I guess when people pass away, then you really, you start to hear their music differently. And even like this, the next book that I wrote, like chapter one is actually dedicated to, there's a Tony Williams song called There Comes the Time.

42:26Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.

42:28Speaker 1:That, yeah, that's how I met my original manager. My manager used to be like a DJ at a jazz station. And I don't know, like I was really transfixed when I heard that song, and it just always stuck with me. But I always wanted to know, since you got to witness prime Tony Williams' drum, was he, his cymbal playing to me, and I get that Cindy is also a branch of the Tony Williams tree, was he in person during his prime, was he as violently loud as a drummer as I imagine that he was? Because my only testament, you know, besides what I see on YouTube. But, you know, a lot of that stuff is more like 80s Tony Williams, but there's really not much of the late 60s, early 70s Tony Williams archives available. But what was his power like?

43:27Speaker 1:He was just one of the loudest drummers I ever heard.

43:31Speaker 2:I mean, I heard Cream and their peak. I heard Jimi Hendrix at his peak. I heard Led Zeppelin at their peak. I have never heard anybody play like Tony Williams, John McLaughlin, and Larry Young. Not one of them come close to dynamics and just pure energy that these guys have. Plus, the mentality. It's not even mentality because it's not mental music. You can't put superlatives on Tony Williams or John Coltrane because there's just no words on this planet to describe the unknown, but you're seeing it, you're hearing it, and you cannot believe it. Let me give you an example.

44:12Speaker 2:I zoomed in on his high hat, on his foot, and he was left, right, like, like that, but at the speed of a hummingbird's wing. And he locks it. So that's locked. It's not going anywhere. Now he can do whatever he wants to with his right hand, And then with the left hand and with his foot drop bombs. But I never seen anybody lock a high head at the speed of the hummingbird's wings and locked with total confidence and assurance. I looked at him and I was like, oh my God, this is like, my brain just was like, I feel like my brain's getting like stretch marks, you know, That's the best band I have ever seen in my entire existence. And I love Jimmy. I love Cream. I love Led Zeppelin. I love a lot of them. I have never heard anybody with that trio like that.

45:13Speaker 1:I believe you. I believe you. You know, a couple of episodes back, we had Rafael Sadiq on our show. And, you know, to hear him describe the Bay Area... and what it meant to grow up in the Bay area at the time when musicianship was at its absolute peak, you know, with San Francisco, like with the, the summer of love coming into play and into bloom. And especially like in Oakland with funk brewing over there for him, he was just describing it, what it was like to be young, to, casually be a 10-year-old and see Larry Graham or to casually see you or all these musicians that are in the area. I mean, because you're one of the pioneers in the Bay Area. What was it about that particular place on the map that just made musicianship on a whole nother level? Can you just... I mean, I'm assuming by, you know, by at least the mid-60s, you got your chops up. So can you just describe pre-record deal, pre-Santana First record? Like, what is the modus operandi of a musician in, say, 1967, 1968 in the Bay Area? Like, is it jam sessions galore? Is it, like, who are your peers at the time?

46:50Speaker 2:Ground zero. For consciousness revolution. Besides LSD, peyote, mescaline, ayahuasca, you have Charles Floyd, you have John Handy, you have Ravi Shankar, you have Otis Redding, you have James Brown. All of it is in one particular, like a nebula, you know? And then you have B.B. King, you have Albert King, and then you have who else? Yeah, Lee Morgan, you know? Yes. You can go to any club, man, and hear this, you know, George Benson, this cat. This is before George Benson was singing, you know? And he was tearing the guitar up in a whole other kind of way. So for me, when people say, what are you going to do tonight? I say, man, it's hard to decide. I'm going to go to the both-hand club and see Miles Davis, or I'm going to go see Mongo Santamaria or Wes Montgomery.

47:47Speaker 2:or the Grateful Dead, or Sly Stone, you know? And it's all like right there, you know? And so what makes it more delicious is that you can actually understand what they're doing. You know, it's not out of the realm of your understanding capabilities. It's like, if you keep looking at it and hearing it from your inner ear, you can see what they're doing, you know? It's just a matter of like, going home and articulating, getting close to the facility. Because you have to have a certain kind of facility to articulate, you know, I mean, the difference between, I can tell in one note, the difference between Lee Morgan or Freddie Hubbard or Miles or Clark Terry, you know, just trumpets alone. I know the guitar players.

48:39Speaker 2:I know the drummers, you know. And so for me, growing up in San Francisco was like the ultimate university of being connected Do it all. And at the same time, develop your own individuality, uniqueness, and authenticity. Because anybody would tell you, man, don't play my shit. Hey, go get your own, man. Don't come over here playing somebody else's shit, man. And they give you that look. Like, hey, man. They do that in Africa also. They might have 50 drummers, And each one has to play their own thing. They give you a dirty look like, man, don't play my, thing.

49:20Speaker 2:Go get your own thing, you know. And it was like that in San Francisco. You have to find, you know, the difference between Sly, Steppenwolf, and Creedence Clearwater, you know, Tina Turner, Albert Collins, Albert King, you know. And for me, I was like, I couldn't get enough, man. I could hardly... I didn't even want to go to sleep because I just want to soak it all up. I said, man, I must have died because this is heaven, heaven. You know, if you want to just check out John Lee Hooker and The Doors and Coltrane a la Supreme, it's the same thing. Right.

50:02Speaker 5:True.

50:07Speaker 1:Your debut album... also arrives at the same time, right in the same month as Woodstock, which clearly, that's the event that will define that generation. But what I also noticed was that right after Woodstock, it's kind of the turn of a new decade, and things got darker. A lot of cynicism, a lot of darkness, especially in the music of Sly. And I'm conflicted on There's a Ride going on. Because yes, it's the first funk record. And I can't deny something that literally puts food on my table to this day. But I also know that that album to me is almost like Slide falling on his sword, if you will. Like his personal demons also coming to light.

51:04Speaker 1:But I also feel like with the exception of a choice few, you seem to be the only person from the Woodstock, the class of Woodstock that still stayed in a spiritual lane. Like you didn't get dark, you didn't get cynical. I don't know what was happening in your personal life at the time, but can you explain why when everyone else at the turn of 69, 70, 71, when they all went to kind of a darker creative place that you didn't venture there all that much. Like your music, and even though, like, of course, like by the fourth or fifth album, you sort of slid away from, I guess, what Clive would have loved you to keep churning out the hits and whatnot to the level of the first two records. But, you know, you didn't go dark.

52:07Speaker 1:And can you explain why or what was happening, at least at that time, that just caused everyone to go to just a darker, cynical place with their creativity?

52:19Speaker 2:Thank you for asking that. You know, most of it comes from my mother saying to me, eso no es para ti, which means that is not for you. That's not for you. You know, the cocaine, cocaine shooting up. Eso no es para ti. That is not for you. And she said it so loud and so engraved in my thing. So the other thing is that I want to just pause for a second and tell you, I want to offer you my deepest gratitude for bringing out the Black Woodstock from Harlem. Because, man, I just signed this summer and I was like, damn, I got all these questions to ask you, man. Like, you have the whole thing from Sonny Chirac? I want the whole answer.

53:07Speaker 1:So many people have asked about that.

53:09Speaker 2:It's so awesome.

53:10Speaker 8:You're the second very famous guitar player that wants to hear that. You and Pat Metheny can go down on Sonny Chirac, man, all day.

53:15Speaker 1:It was amazing.

53:16Speaker 5:Okay.

53:17Speaker 2:So I'm going to do, I'm connected with Dave Snyder, which is his keyboard player. I made a promise to create a jubilation.

53:26Speaker 7:Okay.

53:27Speaker 2:That's the name of the CD. Now, I'm going to have all the guitar players that I love, and each one's going to pick a song from Sonny Chirac. And so I want to bring him together with his John McCluck and Vernon Reed, everybody, and create a whole CD just on Sonny Chirac's music, his compositions. Wow. So that's why I need to ask you, man, do you have more Sonny Chirac with Herbie Mann?

53:52Speaker 1:I already decided you're going to be my shaman. So yes, I'll share that with you. Something I've never seen.

53:58Speaker 7:Had you heard of that concert in real time? Like, had you heard of what was going on in Harlem?

54:04Speaker 1:Black Woodstock.

54:05Speaker 5:Yeah.

54:06Speaker 3:It's not called the Black Woodstock. We don't do that.

54:08Speaker 1:I know. Sorry. You know what I mean.

54:09Speaker 2:Yes.

54:10Speaker 7:Okay.

54:11Speaker 2:I'm sorry. What do you call it? Summer of Soul? Summer of Soul.

54:15Speaker 7:I mean, the folks that live there called the concert at that park.

54:19Speaker 3:What's the park again, Amir?

54:21Speaker 1:Marcus Garvey. Marcus Garvey Park. Marcus Garvey Park, yeah.

54:24Speaker 2:Okay. I know about that.

54:25Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So did you know about it in real time?

54:28Speaker 2:No, no. I mean, I heard it floating around because- The person who told me about this before anybody was Greg Enrico because he knew it existed. He knew how to get a hold of it. And so those are the two things that I want. Actually, I need a lot because to answer your question again about not succumbing to the predictable victim, pathetic, predictable mentality of being too high to play, which is a contradiction because when you play, you get high. So that means that you're doing something chemically that you shouldn't be doing because now you're putting your light, your spirit, and your soul to the side, and your ego is saying, hey, man, I got this.

55:17Speaker 2:In the meantime, you don't sound so good or look so good or smell so good. So what I did is I pay attention to the staple singers. Because I hang around with them in Pop Staples, and I hang around with John McCluck. So basically, I joined in a West Point type of spiritual discipline path with Sri Chinmoy. And that kept me from self-destruction. Because here's the thing before we move on. There is such a thing as self-deception and self-discovery.

55:58Speaker 1:Okay.

55:58Speaker 3:Talk about it.

56:00Speaker 2:So self-deception is this. Self-discovery is like, I'm going to open my heart and let God in the universe, like Art Blakey said it. Here's Art Blakey. From the creator through us for you. That's for me. That was higher than heroin, cocaine, or any of the other substance like that, man. From the creator directly. Through me, for you. And once I heard about that one, then you're not going to bamboozle Santana into thinking less than my light, my spirit, and my soul.

56:41Speaker 3:So no, no weed, no ayahuasca, no.

56:43Speaker 1:I was about to say, yeah, it sounds like self-deception is cocaine, but self-discovery is shrooms.

56:48Speaker 3:There we go.

56:49Speaker 1:That's what I was wondering. I would like to also make clear that, yeah, I think with ayahuasca and weed, like, I don't, I never considered those drugs.

56:59Speaker 2:It's plant medicine.

57:01Speaker 1:More than, you know.

57:02Speaker 7:Maybe the FDA does, but no, you're right about that.

57:06Speaker 1:Yeah, because they don't want us enlightened.

57:08Speaker 3:I'm with it. I mean, I was just curious.

57:10Speaker 5:I'm curious.

57:11Speaker 3:I'm in the baby stage.

57:12Speaker 1:Do you often do like sound baths or rituals or those sort of things like sound, spiritual sound journeys or those sort of things like with a spiritual community or anything?

57:29Speaker 2:The closest thing that I do now to any of that is get a heartfelt hug from Cindy and stay there.

57:36Speaker 1:Yeah.

57:37Speaker 5:Wow.

57:38Speaker 1:What else do you need?

57:39Speaker 3:I would take one of those.

57:41Speaker 1:There you go.

57:42Speaker 3:Not to be creepy, but your wife is amazing.

57:46Speaker 1:Go ahead, Steve. Oh, okay.

57:50Speaker 6:Well, I really want to get to Kirk's questions, but I'll ask one of my two questions now, since we're short of in this time period. I wanted to know if you could tell our listeners about Luis Gasca. You were on an album in 72 with him. He's a trumpet player. The album's called For Those Who Chant. And I just wanted to put a little light on that name, if you could tell us about him.

58:20Speaker 2:Well, thank you for asking that, man. When the band broke up, there was a period, a specific night, when I said to certain musicians, I need so-and-so to be out of the band because they're supplying the rest of the band with heroin and cocaine. And we sound like crap. We don't practice. And this is not the band that I want to be in. Our platinum albums are collecting dust and we're not moving forward. So I want this guy and that guy to be out of the band or I won't be on the plane. And they said, well, then it's not your band. You won't be on the plane.

58:55Speaker 2:I said, okay. So they left without me. And so what I did to console myself, I went to the Basin Street West in Broadway, San Francisco, hung out with Luis Gasca, Joe Henderson, George Cables, and this drummer, a drummer who played Marshall. And they allowed me to come in and sit in, man. I was like, they said, go ahead, Santana. You know, so when they went.

59:25Speaker 5:Do-de-do-do-dee... I was like, oh, this is different.

59:37Speaker 2:So I wasn't afraid to not be in Santana anymore because the whole world was embracing me to learn from Joe Henderson and Luis Gasca and everybody else like that. Eddie Marshall, I think is his name. And so God found a way for me not to feel sorry for myself or be tripping on You know, what's going to happen to poor me? I don't think like that anyway. You know, so I just went to the clubs and started sitting in with people. And they were so gracious enough to be patient, though I didn't know a lot of the changes, but I knew when to play and when not to play.

1:00:17Speaker 1:But even if it was your band, you were willing to leave an organization that had your namesake as its name?

1:00:25Speaker 2:Yeah, because at that time it was more like a lot of bands. It was democratic bands. you know, until I realized, no, it has my name and I can't have somebody wearing a Santana jacket going to the wrong places in town, doing the wrong thing. Cause then there's going to come back on you. Yeah.

1:00:40Speaker 5:Yeah.

1:00:41Speaker 2:You know? So anyway, to me, all that stuff was a blessing in disguise, man. Everything that has happened to me, like the so-called career suicide, which I'd done three or four times, you know? Uh, but at the meantime, I'm hanging around with Herbie, you know, or Wayne, or I hanging around with Alice Coltrane or, Or Larry Young, you know? So every time I commit career suicide, I'm learning from the master's masters. And so, hey, man, this is just le creme de le creme, you know, hanging around with them.

1:01:13Speaker 7:You got to tell us about your Alice Coltrane encounter and the first time you met her because it must have been spiritual at the least.

1:01:22Speaker 2:Okay, so I got this one that a lot of people are going to roll their eyes because they're not going to believe it. But I don't care. Because I was there. So she invited me to stay in her house for a whole week. And I was hanging around with the children because at that time they were children. And we would wake up like around 1.30 in the morning and we would meditate first. And then she would play harp. And then she'd play piano. And then she'd play, the world is her piano. And then we meditate again.

1:01:51Speaker 2:And when we were meditating, it got really, really deep and quiet. And all of a sudden, I swear to you, I see John Coltrane coming right at me, one of many times. But this one's coming right at me, and he's got a snow cone with three flavors of ice cream, right? And this is all inwardly. And so she's just next to me, and she goes, go ahead, try one. How did she knew what was inside my meditation? She goes, go ahead, go ahead, try one. So I licked it and she goes, that's a B-flat diminished seven. Try another one.

1:02:36Speaker 2:So I licked it again. Man, I was like, oh my God, I'm an Alice Coltrane and Coltrane's here offering me a snow cone with three flavors of ice cream. And each flavor is a guitar. I mean, they're chords, you know?

1:02:51Speaker 1:Were they a specific color? Did it correspond to a color?

1:02:55Speaker 2:Yeah, they were like yellow, green. in orange.

1:02:59Speaker 1:And what was B flat diminished? Do you remember?

1:03:02Speaker 2:B flat diminished was at that time, at least, but that particular night was the yellow one. Okay.

1:03:13Speaker 1:So you, you, you believe in a synesthesia. This is a clear case. Yeah, absolutely. No, I, I believe you look, I, I, I believe, I was going to say, you know, oftentimes when you have this level, when you're at this level of this particular plane, a lot of inexplicable things start happening to you that average mere mortals would just think like, oh, that didn't happen or whatever. But, you know, it's, no, I absolutely believe that human beings are, regular human beings are just very limited in their three-dimensional existence.

1:03:53Speaker 7:Yeah, but in your higher thought, I don't think you're supposed to think of people like that, though.

1:03:56Speaker 1:Are you? Well, no, no. I know they're mortals, mere humans. Well, I'm trying to paraphrase it because we're not a visual show, so I can't, you know.

1:04:05Speaker 2:But it's like a house. It's like a house. You got the first floor, second floor, you know, the roof, and you have the basement, you know. So we're not putting anybody down. Right. It's just a building.

1:04:16Speaker 7:Right. And so many people want it. They just don't know how to get it. So it's fortunate when you can find it.

1:04:22Speaker 1:Kirk, did you want to ask something?

1:04:23Speaker 2:Uh, there's, there's plenty.

1:04:25Speaker 1:I realize we don't have a limited amount of time.

1:04:28Speaker 4:And, uh, I want to talk about some gear too, and that side of things. But before I get to that, I have to say, Mr. Santana, I got to meet you one time. It was on, I think on, uh, where's, where's that guitar shop? Uh, Matt Umanoff guitars, no Matt Umanoff guitars.

1:04:49Speaker 7:Yeah.

1:04:49Speaker 1:We used to be there on West fourth street.

1:04:51Speaker 2:It was in the village. Yeah.

1:04:54Speaker 4:I was with my son and you walked out of a store. You walked into us and I was like, Carlos. And you said, hello. And you looked at my son and you said, hey, Angel, one day you're going to heal the world.

1:05:07Speaker 2:Whoa.

1:05:10Speaker 1:One battle rap at a time.

1:05:11Speaker 8:Wow.

1:05:14Speaker 4:The night before this encounter, we were watching a movie called Soul to Soul, ironically enough.

1:05:21Speaker 3:Oh, my mother was just talking about this.

1:05:22Speaker 2:Yes.

1:05:23Speaker 4:And- And I said to my son, it's the guy from the movie. So I'm wondering in Soul to Soul, was that your first trip to Africa? And can you speak on that experience, whether it was your first time or not?

1:05:39Speaker 2:Yes. To go to Africa in Ghana, Accra, Ghana, to be in a place where I get to learn about the shaman who was so profoundly powerful and that the mayor would move out of the way and the police department would get out of the way. I mean, everybody would get out of the way when this guy would come to the streets, you know? And Wilson Pickett would say, don't tell me anything about it. I don't want to hear about it. I don't want to hear that stuff, you know, because he didn't want to be put into an X kind of thing, you know, because he was afraid of, like, he was afraid. He was locked. He was locked. You know, so Willie Baldwin was playing with us because our regular Timbala player, Chepito, had an aneurysm.

1:06:22Speaker 2:So we took Willie Bobo with us. And Willie Bobo had collares, you know, to protect himself from, you know, the Buddha from Africa. So he thought. And so he got really, really sick, my brother Willie Bobo. And so Michael Carabello said, hey, man, you need to go to his room. I said, man, it's 2 o'clock in the morning. He said, yeah, but I've been here all night. It's your turn, man. Just grab some towels and wet them and and put her on his head, you know, cause he's sweating a lot, just help him out. So I go over there to his room and the guy knocks on the door. It's a regular doctor, doctor. And he looks just like Ossie Davis. Right. And I'm like, okay.

1:07:01Speaker 2:And he goes, come on in. And so I'm looking at Willie and how you doing, man? He's just, oh man. You know, and so there's another knock on the door and it's the voodoo man, the main voodoo man, the guy who put him, he put the thing on him and he, and he looks at me right in the door. And I had an inner conversation like I did with Alice Coltrane. So I'm having this conversation with this shaman. And I said, I know who you are and I know what you got, but if you want to deal with me, you have to go through this. And I had a t-shirt with Jesus in it. I said, so if you can kick his ass, I'm yours. Otherwise you have to leave me alone. Just like that. He looked him in my eyes. and went right around me and left me alone. So I knew that we had an understanding.

1:07:55Speaker 2:It's all about energy. And he knew that I wasn't intimidated because I'm holding on to sweet baby Jesus. And I have a confidence, again, that sweet baby Jesus is going to let this cat know he's okay, leave him alone. He's not a threat or anything like that. Just leave him alone. And so being in Africa and learning how to articulate, you know, the rhythm of, check this out. So we were invited to a dinner where everybody's there, the mayor, everybody. And then they said, will you guys please take off your hats and stand up because we're going to do the national anthem. Here comes the national anthem.

1:08:41Speaker 2:National anthem. Which is a cool answer. Men go... Women go... Together. Together. Uri, uri. Women go. Uri, uri. Uri, uri. Together. And I said, wait a minute. That's Mongo Santamaria's national anthem and cultural play. They go, no. We were playing this song before Santamaria was ever in this planet. What?

1:09:12Speaker 5:This is our.

1:09:14Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right.

1:09:15Speaker 3:In Ghana?

1:09:16Speaker 2:In Ghana. There's a national anthem in Ghana.

1:09:18Speaker 1:Oh, my God. I'm so jealous.

1:09:22Speaker 3:Teach me more. I'm going to get that one.

1:09:25Speaker 2:You serious? Yeah, man.

1:09:27Speaker 1:End of your life, man.

1:09:28Speaker 3:We always did it first.

1:09:30Speaker 1:We always, always.

1:09:32Speaker 3:That's the foundation.

1:09:35Speaker 2:That's crazy.

1:09:37Speaker 1:As a drummer, too. As a drummer boss, you should be there. Yeah.

1:09:43Speaker 4:The time when you start to come into the world's consciousness is kind of simultaneous with when loud electric guitar starts to come into our consciousness and souped up amps and stuff like that. There's a rumor that Mesa boogies are called Mesa boogies because you tried out an amp from a cat, and you're like, man, this thing boogies.

1:10:16Speaker 1:And now they call it boogies. Is that true?

1:10:22Speaker 7:Yeah.

1:10:22Speaker 2:I'll tell you the other half of it. The other half of it was like, look, man, I need to bring your amplifier back. I want to know if you can do something for me. Well, what kind of amp was it? It's a Princeton, souped-up Princeton. Souped-up Princeton. It's a souped-up Princeton before it was a boogie. He says, what can I do for you, man? I says, I need for you to put another value in control. He goes, what? Put another value in control. He goes, what for? So I can turn this one to 10 and this one to one, and I can sustain and not drive people crazy in the hotel. Oh.

1:11:04Speaker 1:See, Kirk, this is why you're on this episode, because I would have never known to ask that question.

1:11:09Speaker 2:Copy. Copy.

1:11:10Speaker 1:Wow.

1:11:11Speaker 2:Hey. Happy.

1:11:12Speaker 4:And who is the cat you took it to? I should know this because I work with Boogie.

1:11:16Speaker 2:His name is Randy. Randy Smith. Randall Smith. Randall Smith. That's right. Sorry, Randall, if you hear this.

1:11:26Speaker 1:It just hit me. Wow. I can't believe I'm about to ask this question. I believe it is your albums that the world got to know the artwork from. Of Marty Clarewine.

1:11:42Speaker 2:Yeah.

1:11:44Speaker 1:Marty Clarewine. Yeah. Like the infamous, you know, he did Bitches Brew. He did at least three covers for Herbie Hancock. He did Last Days in Time for Earth, Wind & Fire. Had a very distinctive... Part collage. I mean, again, for our listeners out there, just look up Bitches Brew. Look up Abraxas. I mean, I believe Abraxas was the one, right? Abraxas is, I think, his first cover. How did you discover Marty Clairwine and how did he wind up just designing for practically eight other artists on Columbia? And did you feel some sort of way when everyone wanted to use his artwork? after you used them first?

1:12:33Speaker 2:To be with precision and specificity, it was Miles Davis with Bitches Brew. That came out in 69. Ours came out in 1970. Now, the Abraxas album, the black naked lady, that's Mary. And the angel with the conga, that's Gabriel. So that's the annunciation that she's going to get pregnant with Jesus. So the whole... a cover of Abraxas is actually called the Annunciation because Gabriel with the conga between his legs, the beautiful angel is telling Mary, you know, you're either about to, or you're pregnant with Jesus. That's what that thing is about.

1:13:13Speaker 1:Wow. Okay. Do you have the, were you, do you own the original piece?

1:13:20Speaker 2:I almost bought it, but I did, I'll tell you what I did buy in perpetuity. I bought the conga, the angel with the conga. every time you see that angel with the conga between his legs, that one is mine. I bought that one from him in perpetuity, in perpetuity. Cause that's what Santana is. As soon as you see that angel with the conga, you know, that's, you know, right. That's, that's the logo. That's Santana logo.

1:13:43Speaker 1:Okay.

1:13:44Speaker 2:Yeah.

1:13:45Speaker 1:Um, I think at electric lady studios, um, they didn't realize that they had, uh, Stevie wonders, uh, artwork for music of my mind, at least the inside that, uh, Marty put together. They found it in the closet, like after sitting in there for like 45 years and they finally like framed it and hung it up. But yeah. So, I mean, what was it, what was it about his work that spoke to you?

1:14:16Speaker 2:Acid.

1:14:17Speaker 1:There you go. All right. Since you brought it up, what is it about acid that, And do you recommend it? Absolutely. And how should it be partaken? I would assume in spiritual circumstances or what visions do you see? I've never asked a person what it's like to take acid.

1:14:41Speaker 2:It's a very personal experience, a very personal experience, and I do recommend it under supervision. So they have, believe it or not, they actually have people's, tours that they go to South America in the jungles of Peru and Brazil. And they spend a weekend or a week and they do the ayahuasca thing. And, you know, it's a form of getting rid of a bunch of personalities that you invested emotionally that is not you.

1:15:18Speaker 5:Oh.

1:15:19Speaker 4:Oh, tell me.

1:15:20Speaker 7:Oh, I'm in.

1:15:21Speaker 2:You know, because... Because your friends see you this way, and then your teachers see you that way, and then your mom see you this way. But who really? Here's the question. The main question about LSD. Who really are you when you stand butt naked in front of your own light? Wow.

1:15:38Speaker 7:Now, I can do this with peyote or ayahuasca or acid, or is there one?

1:15:44Speaker 1:Or there are levels to this shit.

1:15:45Speaker 6:Yeah, thank you.

1:15:47Speaker 2:Levels.

1:15:47Speaker 7:Thank you.

1:15:48Speaker 1:Yeah.

1:15:50Speaker 2:You know, all of those things are just like portals. Portals.

1:15:54Speaker 5:Thank you.

1:15:55Speaker 2:They're just spheres and portals that you walk into. And if you're a nice person, you're going to have a great time. If you're an a-hole, don't try it. Because some people, when you do it, they make the mistake of getting under the sheets because they don't like what they're seeing. And that makes it worse. Because now you've got to deal with you.

1:16:16Speaker 1:I've heard this. I've heard this.

1:16:20Speaker 2:I had so much fun. I thought I was a kid, man, in Disneyland. And I had free tickets for all the rides. Because I wasn't afraid. And I'm still not afraid.

1:16:30Speaker 3:And you're a nice person.

1:16:32Speaker 2:And I'm a nice person.

1:16:35Speaker 6:Can I ask my second question? Speaking of what you were just saying with regards to taking acid, you played on a song called Pretty As You Feel with Jefferson Airplane in 1971.

1:16:48Speaker 1:Wow.

1:16:50Speaker 6:And played with Jorma Kalkinen on that song. Can you tell us anything you remember about that session or about playing with Jorma? And do you still talk to Jorma?

1:16:59Speaker 2:We haven't seen each other in a while. The last time we did something was, I think, called Blues for Salvador with Jerry Garcia and Wayne Shorter and Bunny Ray. No, I haven't seen him. You know, it was... That was like a beautiful way for me to be accepted because... Santana wasn't totally accepted, you know, in the San Francisco scene because we were rough. You know, we're from the Mission District and we're rough. We're not necessarily like groovy, far out, whatever, man, hippie. You know, we were like, no, man, we don't, you know. So it was different until I started smoking weed and taking the LSD. Then I said, oh, yeah, now I know what they're talking about. Let's go to Montemayor Pius and hang out with Quicksilver and the Grateful Dead and Jorma and Jack Cassidy, you know. But in the beginning, it was kind of like a ripe rival conflict kind of thing. And basically because of the mentality of Marin County versus the Mission District in San Francisco, which is like like the Jets and the Sharks.

1:18:03Speaker 6:Oh, do you remember that session for that song?

1:18:09Speaker 2:I think I smoked a lot of weed that day, so I don't know if I remember it that year.

1:18:13Speaker 1:You remember everything else, though.

1:18:15Speaker 2:Man, right?

1:18:16Speaker 3:You were a hope to stoners.

1:18:18Speaker 2:Listen, goals.

1:18:20Speaker 1:I wanted to ask you, and this is a little further in the timeline, what do you recall about the song Whatever Happens with Michael Jackson that you played on?

1:18:29Speaker 2:Oh, that is so sweet, man. That was so sweet. They told me, hey, Michael. Because at that time, after Supernatural, everybody was calling, you know, Prince and Michael and everybody wanted to find out if we could interact, you know, in exchange.

1:18:48Speaker 6:And.

1:18:50Speaker 2:you know, being a fan of both Prince and Michael Jackson, I mean, to the max, you know, who isn't, you know? And, I mean, I got like a bunch of stories to share with Prince, but I won't do it right now. But the one with Michael Jackson, I received this phone call and and it was from his last arranger producer. Uh, right now I forget his name. He was the main guy.

1:19:15Speaker 1:John McLean?

1:19:17Speaker 2:Huh?

1:19:17Speaker 1:John McLean?

1:19:19Speaker 2:No, I don't think it was.

1:19:20Speaker 1:It was producer. Or Jeremy Lubbock? Was Jeremy Lubbock?

1:19:24Speaker 2:No, getting closer. Anyway, he called and he called and he, and he, they sent, they sent me the track and, and then I, I played on it and, and I was like, wow, you know, um, I'm just honored, you know, that I'm able to be with Michael Jackson. With Prince, we did a lot of things live, but we never recorded it. And same thing with Miles, you know. So I feel very validated and celebrated because while it took him a long, long, long, long, long time for the Grammys to acknowledge me in anything, and they finally give it to me with Supernatural, like, 11 nominations and I won the same and I won nine Grammys like Michael you know and what was really crazy is like a Supreme LSD the last one is Bob Dylan and Lauryn Hill giving me the last one you know and here's Barry Balafonte and Wayne Shorter and that's all I could see man I just seen Wayne Shorter and And Harry Balafonte and Bob Dylan. And I remember saying, I am so grateful. Thank you for this beautiful night. Long live John Coltrane and John Lee Hooker. You know, because that's my foundation. John Lee is like, he calls me and he says, Carlos. I says, yes, John. He says, I

1:20:55Speaker 2:loves God and I loves people. You know? And he called me one time for his birthday. And he says, I said, hello. Hey, man. Call me sometime. I says, how you doing, John? He says, man, when I hear your voice, it's like eating a great big piece of chocolate cake. And I have it. I recorded it, you know. Because, see, I'm just, I'm showing that right now because this is my validation, man. Yeah, you should. From John Coltrane to Johnny Hooker. That's what Santana's about. You know, with a lot of drums.

1:21:43Speaker 1:Okay, so in 85, when Prince said, you know, like, everyone keeps comparing me to Hendrix, but that's basically because we have the same skin color, but they really listened to my work. They would clearly say that I'm from, you know, the DNA of Santana, which is true. But this is what I want to know. Especially with your work with both Lauren and Wyclef. And the thing is, is that, you know, when you're on Zion and the thing is, is like, and again, I know that, that, Marachi playing, you know, that's your roots and whatnot, playing acoustic guitar. However, I'm almost, are you worried that people aren't really grasping what your artistry is? Because the thing is, is that, and I'm not going into typecasting, but if I'm getting Santana on my record, I would have probably had you do something that's closer to the guitar solo that's at the end of X Factor.

1:22:59Speaker 2:X Factor, yeah.

1:23:00Speaker 1:Which sounds... Yo, I thought that was Santana. When I heard that he was on the album, I thought that was him at the end of X Factor. And the thing is, because of, you know, this is like CD streaming time, you know, you don't live with liner notes the way that you used to when it was cassettes and LPs. So I just always assumed that you were on X Factor. And then one day when I like just sat and read her liner notes, I'm like, wait a minute. Did she get him to play acoustic guitar?

1:23:27Speaker 1:Because like, Oh, Mexican, Santana. We get him to play acoustic. And I was like, I wonder if she knows that his sound was really the sound of the song that came before that. And also with the product, GB, and with Wyclef, the same thing. Do you sometimes wonder?

1:23:50Speaker 3:You're really about to make me look up his album. What's the song, Amir?

1:23:52Speaker 1:What's the song?

1:23:54Speaker 2:I forget. What?

1:23:55Speaker 1:On Laura's album?

1:23:56Speaker 2:Yeah.

1:23:57Speaker 1:Oh, Lauren was Zion. It's Zion, but the one we're talking about is X Factor. Yeah.

1:24:02Speaker 2:Right.

1:24:03Speaker 1:So what I'm just saying is that, what was the creative process like when you did Lauren and when you worked with Wyclef on your solo record and when you did Miseducation of Lauren Hill?

1:24:15Speaker 2:Let me explain to you how I arrived at getting the sound. Okay. So there was a picnic in San Jose, like around the summer. And I went there, and there was a park. And in the park, in the afternoon, they were playing like a picnic. They were playing mariachi music. They were playing Afro-Cuban music, which is like charanga, cha-cha-cha, danzón, merengue, you know, from Dominican, Republican, and guajiras, like rey barreto. And then you have a rock and roll band. you know, like a bunch of surfers. So I'm hearing all music at the same time when I got out of the car.

1:24:58Speaker 2:I'm hearing three different sounds, and I went, oh, okay. So it's like, it's just like grabbing all of it and making one sound. And so now when people, they're still trying to define me sometimes, and I just tell them very politely, well, I am a multidimensional motherfucker.

1:25:26Speaker 1:That's a good answer.

1:25:28Speaker 2:That's hard.

1:25:29Speaker 1:That's something up for you. It was by design.

1:25:32Speaker 2:Or a Mexi C-A-N with capital C-A-N. Mexi-Can. But the reason I say that, man, is because I have the confidence after being with Tony and Herbie and Wayne and Miles and they invited me into their sanctum you know, and all of them, B.B. King, Freddie King, Albert King, you know, so it has given me a confidence that all I need to do now is just compliment whatever gets in front of me because I'm not going to let myself or anybody encapsulate me or put me, define me or redefine me because let's go back to Bruce Lee.

1:26:17Speaker 2:Let's just be one of them, you know?

1:26:21Speaker 1:Okay.

1:26:22Speaker 7:So Carlos Santana has never played a lick that Carlos Santana ain't want to play and ain't playing out himself.

1:26:27Speaker 2:No, no, no, no, no. There's a lot of artists that, you know, I will respect. But if they would call me, I would say, I'm kind of busy. And thank you right now. But my plate is full and I got to do time with my family. And the only criteria that I wouldn't play with someone is if I don't feel it. If I don't feel it, I'm not going to play.

1:26:50Speaker 1:I was asking just from the standpoint of... Okay, for example, I'm probably guilty of the same thing myself. Not because I told him to do this, but because this is what we chose to use. But the one time that we worked with Prince on a record, Prince only played keyboards, which... It's almost like, wow, you got Prince to play on an album that you produced and he didn't touch the guitar once. You got him to play tambourine, that sort of thing. I don't know. I just felt like once I found out that you weren't playing the signature style that I know you for, I was just wondering why they didn't use that to the hilt on those particular records.

1:27:37Speaker 2:Yeah.

1:27:38Speaker 1:Granted, yes, you're water and you can't be typecast and there's nothing that you don't do that's not you. So I respect that.

1:27:50Speaker 2:The whole thing about this interview, you can just summarize it in two words.

1:27:55Speaker 1:Hit me.

1:27:55Speaker 2:Impeccable integrity. That's it. Because everybody that I love, they have that sound of impeccable integrity. And with that sound, you get a standing ovation from God, the angels, and the devil. There is such a thing. I don't believe in Satan, Lucifer, and the devil. I believe in E-G-O. I believe that ego creates the boogeyman and the wolfman and Dracula. But since I'm a spiritual adult, that stuff don't bother me. You know, I, I, I never seen the exorcist and I don't want to, cause I don't, I don't want to assault my, my subtle nerves watching stupid movies that, that people sell to, to sell you fear.

1:28:45Speaker 2:There's enough people selling you fear and every channel already, you know? So I go when I, when, when, when I, when I'm thirsty, you know, when I'm thirsty, I go to Coltrane immediately and miles on the corner. You know, on the corner is like, man, it's, you know, it's what's happening. That's New York City on the corner right now.

1:29:06Speaker 1:There's one question I do have to ask you about your 70s catalog. One of my favorite record of yours is Borba Orletta.

1:29:14Speaker 2:Yes.

1:29:15Speaker 1:Now, for that period of your life, What is the creative process that leads to the crafting of those songs? Is it just you guys jamming? Is it dumb bitches Bruce style where you just play whatever is in your heart and then you edit later? I'm not certain who does your editing or whatever. Whoever your T.O. is. Is it pre-planned or songs pre-written or are you guys just jamming spontaneously?

1:29:50Speaker 2:We just jammed spontaneously. We didn't have the knife yet, so we never knew how to edit back then. I take pride in saying most of the stuff that I ever done is a one take. If I got to go to the second or third take, let's go to another song. So the one take allows me to feel confident that I called Ndugu to play drums and Stanley Clark and Armando Pedraza and Ayrto, you know, Because I can read how people look at me, man. If they don't want to be in the room and they don't feel like they want to play with me, then they won't.

1:30:28Speaker 2:But I can see when somebody says, well, this is going to be interesting. Let's see where Santana want to go. You know, do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do- And so when we hit it, we just gave him a little sketch of a clue. And then we hit it.

1:30:59Speaker 1:Okay, so that said, how are you able to miraculously at least engage in the patience factor with your respective label bosses, with Clive Davis, and with Walter Yetnikoff? in terms of sticking to your artistic vision and not giving into what I'm clear that every time you play them, this is the final album where they're telling you, please, just one, just, just work with this one songwriter. So you can have a top 10 hit, please. Just one more. Please one, you know, but evil ways or whatever, like how, cause these, these albums are closer. It's closer to on the corner of, Live evil, bitches brew. You're in that creative zone. So how were you able to sustain that magic, at least for the two decades that you were with Sony, Columbia?

1:32:03Speaker 2:Okay. With the exception of Clive and Bill Graham and Chris from the gentleman who produced Bob Marley.

1:32:14Speaker 7:Right.

1:32:15Speaker 2:Okay.

1:32:16Speaker 1:So Chris Blackwell.

1:32:18Speaker 2:Okay. With the obsession of few brothers like that, while people like Walter Yednikoff, I don't know where he's at and like, I thought, I don't care. So I have an attitude that I say, I'm going to be here long after you're gone.

1:32:31Speaker 1:Okay.

1:32:33Speaker 2:Cause I seen nine of you come and go, I'm still here, you know? And so I'm going to do what I'm going to do. And you can either, uh, And I went to this stuff with Donny Einer and a bunch of CEOs or whatever, you know? Right. Because I tell them straight up, man, there's artists and con artists. And I know who I am. And you know who you are. I don't have to say, let me do this. Because, no, I'm just saying, I'm going to do this. And if you don't like it, well, then I'll just be with another record company. You can talk to my lawyer and Bill Graham or whatever, but you have to have a certain conviction determination that you're bigger than the company.

1:33:23Speaker 5:Ooh.

1:33:24Speaker 1:Damn. Y'all hear that? Dude, man, this might have to put Matthew Knowles in second place. I mean, I respect that. This might be my all-time favorite interview. Yeah.

1:33:39Speaker 3:That's such an education in so many subjects.

1:33:41Speaker 7:Thank you.

1:33:42Speaker 1:Hit it quick. I know I interrupted you. I'm sorry. No, no, no, please.

1:33:45Speaker 2:Mr.

1:33:46Speaker 1:Sinister, why the PRS?

1:33:47Speaker 8:I feel like the Woodstock was the SG and the Gibson stuff, and you're so defined by that sound of the PRS.

1:33:54Speaker 1:Why is that?

1:33:56Speaker 2:Because it stays in tune and it sings really good. The SG.

1:34:01Speaker 1:I want it to be a bigger answer than that, but if it's just that, that's cool. Okay.

1:34:04Speaker 2:The SG neck, that's what I was saying, that it was like playing... an electric snake because it was moving around like a snake when I was playing it. You see me making ugly faces, I'm trying to make it stand still because the neck of the guitar is literally moving like this. It used to go out of tune a lot. I said, one more time, I need to have confidence that my guitar is going to behave. I stopped playing the SG's because the neck wasn't conducive to being in tune as I wanted to. So I got the Les Paul, and after the Les Paul, I went to Yamaha, and after Yamaha, I went to Paul Rees-Smith, came to me, and very graciously said, hey, man, I made this guitar, but right now it belongs to the guitar player. He belongs to Heart, you know, the group Heart.

1:34:55Speaker 2:But I'm going to send it to you for a week, and you can't have it. You can just play it, and if you like it, then I'll make you one.

1:35:01Speaker 1:And so.

1:35:03Speaker 2:I love people with conviction and determination. And I liked it so much. I've been with him since 78, 79.

1:35:13Speaker 1:How many axes do you own? Or is that just....

1:35:18Speaker 2:I don't know.

1:35:19Speaker 1:It's in the gajillions? No, no, no.

1:35:21Speaker 2:Once it gets to like 50, I get rid of them and I donate them. You know, to feed people here in Las Vegas or to do this for schools, like you were saying, you know, or hospitals or whatever. Because I don't want to pay insurance on something that I don't play.

1:35:39Speaker 3:I didn't think about it like that.

1:35:42Speaker 1:God damn, now you're making me feel bad, man.

1:35:44Speaker 2:Yeah.

1:35:46Speaker 1:Carlos, I'm still keeping my drum sets.

1:35:48Speaker 7:How do you navigate culturally with the African continent? It's so interesting because I'm wondering, like, with all the different sounds, all the different cultures, all the different countries, and mind you, you're dealing with other cultures and stuff outside of the continent, but how do you navigate through finding and discovering sound in that huge continent?

1:36:07Speaker 3:And have you navigated it fully? Do you feel like you have?

1:36:11Speaker 2:Thank you for asking that. It's my favorite subject. In music, which is the drums. The drum is the best. If you would, I swear to you, if we would just make it possible for the drums to be in the hood, the favela, the barrio, in the shantytowns, you know, you wouldn't need psychiatrists. therapists, analysts, pips, or drug dealers, you know? Because once you play the drums, once you get into it, it's like it's in your DNA, you remember that it's the language, the language of light, you know? So I would remind doing with Brother Quest, a mission, you know, to bring the drums back to the hood. We close up the parks, you know, with fences, and we put police in there, one way in, one way out, okay?

1:37:10Speaker 2:And you get a ticket. When you come in and you have a gun, you get a ticket, you know, they put it, you know, put the gun over there and we'll give you a ticket, you know, and there's like about 50, 60 drums and badass drummer players. And then you have one drummer, Congo player, dressed up like a police, you know, so they can feel comfortable. And he's playing his ass off, you know? And so after about an hour and a half that they're playing, you say to them, okay, man, before you go, if you like the drum, you can take the drum leave the gun.

1:37:44Speaker 2:So we call it drums for guns, okay? And once we have enough guns, we melt them and we turn them into this beautiful angel with a fro, you know? Beautiful angel. With a fro. With a fro.

1:37:58Speaker 5:Yes.

1:37:58Speaker 2:In Congress, in Congress.

1:38:08Speaker 1:You know, you just had a download right now, man. It's in the world now. Drums for guns. I might have to do it.

1:38:16Speaker 2:It's an invitation and it's an invitation to do something that the police need to have, because once we get the drums and people and we say we go to the mayor and say, we need for you to allow the drums to be played from 11. in the afternoon.

1:38:32Speaker 1:New York needs this bad.

1:38:34Speaker 2:You know, and in certain parks where people can just.

1:38:40Speaker 3:All over the country.

1:38:41Speaker 1:This is an issue right now in New York city because, because of gentrification, um, A lot of spots in Brooklyn that, I mean, Kirk can attest to this. He said go to the hood. Those parks that, you know, that were known for their Sunday, Saturday, all-day drum-a-thon.

1:39:00Speaker 3:The Malcolm X parks, yes, they're gone.

1:39:02Speaker 1:Has been stopped. Yes.

1:39:04Speaker 4:Wait, in Prospect Park, they stopped that?

1:39:06Speaker 1:Well, yeah.

1:39:07Speaker 4:I think we still have our drum circle in Prospect Park.

1:39:10Speaker 1:You have it, but I'm seeing a lot of, like, you know, The first instance of Karen-ing was noise complaints of like.

1:39:19Speaker 3:That's happened all over the country. It already happened in D.C.

1:39:22Speaker 7:It turned the park from Malcolm X back to Meridian.

1:39:24Speaker 1:Wait a minute. Let me ask the question before I got to ask my follow-up question with your guitar. Is there a seminal guitar that you'll always keep? Like your Woodstock guitar or your... Are you sentimental with your children or. It's just like, you know, what you get, you get, and then the rest just wind up in storage or you give them away.

1:39:50Speaker 2:I got two or three main quarterbacks, but I'm not attached emotionally to any of them.

1:39:57Speaker 1:You too. Kirk does this too.

1:40:01Speaker 2:Yeah, no, no. I don't let sentimentality or my ego tell me that I can't do it without this. No, I can grab any guitar as long as it stays in tune.

1:40:13Speaker 1:Yeah.

1:40:15Speaker 2:And sound like me. You know, just like you. You're going to sound like you and your drums. Cindy's going to sound like Cindy and her drums. Although she prefers Gretch only.

1:40:25Speaker 1:I see. I see.

1:40:26Speaker 4:Just to get into the mood for tonight. It's been a long time, but I listened to Europa, Earth's Cry, Heaven's Smile. Way back, even before I met The Roots, that was like a song that I would always go to for inspiration and still remains an inspiration to this day for me. I haven't heard in a long time. I listened to it today on the subway and I kid you not, I'm sure it has a lot to do with things in this life I'm going through, but I wept. I wept openly on the subway, listened to that song. So I thank you for that moment. And the other side of that, I want to know what, uh, What guitar was that?

1:41:15Speaker 2:What amp?

1:41:17Speaker 4:Do you remember what combination was? This is the version that was from Moonflower.

1:41:22Speaker 2:Okay.

1:41:22Speaker 1:Do you remember?

1:41:25Speaker 2:Yeah, it was the Les Paul that Neil Sean and I got at the same time at Don Weir's music shop. That was kind of like the mayonnaise of San Francisco. And I was playing to a twin, just straight up to a twin. But the song, the melody came from watching somebody Next to me, she was going to have a bad acid trip, you know. And so she was starting to freak out and get like a little, not little, a lot, really, really paranoid. So I went, bam. Do, do, do, do, do.

1:42:01Speaker 2:The mushroom lady's coming to town. So it's a song about a mushroom lady, which is a shaman. You know, I never put the lyrics on it. But my favorite one is Gato Barbieri. Gato Barbieri played an incredible version of that. Oh, yeah. My mother told me, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but I like his version better than yours. I said, thanks a lot, Mom.

1:42:26Speaker 1:Wow. Did you ever play with Gato?

1:42:30Speaker 2:Yes. Yes, we played in Chicago. We played a couple of times, man. He knew I love him. I adore him. I adore him and Pharoah Sanders. They both got that sound, you know, that sound. But, hey, man, before I leave, I do want to let you know that I'm going to invite you to please know that I'm going to do my best to put this thing jubilation, an album for Sonny Chirac only, you know, with the baddest guitar players out there. And I feel really, really enthusiastic about it.

1:43:07Speaker 2:You know, when you feel enthusiastic, you get a lot of energy. So I want to honor and celebrate my brother, Sonny Chirac, because I totally adore him. Thank you so much.

1:43:18Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you for doing our show. Damn. You dropped a lot of knowledge on us. Yeah. And you know we're gobsmacked because this is totally out of the format that we've ever done this show, but. Thank you for letting us know that. I like it. Forever. You drop knowledge, and now I want to drop acid.

1:43:39Speaker 2:Yes.

1:43:39Speaker 3:At least some peyote, something.

1:43:40Speaker 1:On the next Questlove Supreme, we all drop acid. Oh, yes. We're doing that.

1:43:45Speaker 2:Yes.

1:43:45Speaker 1:I would love to.

1:43:46Speaker 2:We're doing one.

1:43:47Speaker 1:All right.

1:43:47Speaker 2:Put John Coltrane on Left Supreme, and you'll be all right.

1:43:50Speaker 3:I believe that.

1:43:51Speaker 7:Yo, can I just apologize to everybody? Because this should have happened a while ago. But Carlos, true story, I saw you and Cindy in Cafe Gratitude down the street from my house like about a year ago, and I froze, and I couldn't speak.

1:44:02Speaker 3:So I'm glad everything happens for a reason.

1:44:05Speaker 1:It's always supposed to.

1:44:06Speaker 7:So big ups to Leo and Aaron for making this happen, because it may should have happened a little sooner. But y'all look amazing together. It's just a beautiful rock and roll fucking just.

1:44:16Speaker 1:Ladies and gentlemen, this is a quiz. Love Supreme. Kirk. Thank you. Kirk Douglas. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Captain Kirk. We will see you on the next go round. Thank you. Yo, what's up? This is Fonte. Make sure you keep up with us on Instagram at QLS and let us know what you think and who should be next to sit down with us. Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast.

1:44:43Speaker 2:All right. Peace.

1:44:52Speaker 1:What's Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.