Latin sound from the hippie capital
Dear Carlos Santana,
They belong to the summer as the salt edge to Margarita glass. There are the beach bars in the world agree, from the speakers even today dudidudeldudelduuuuu spills regularly. Exactly, "Samba Pa Ti", your hit of 1970. Since I have the smell of patchouli and joss sticks back in the nose, the scent of the early 70s. I was 13 when I bought "Santana III", my very first LP. She ran the whole day and sonicated on the weekends the Ties in Papa's party cellar.
Their unmistakable sound had elicited the hippie capital San Francisco. In 1961, at the age of 14, you followed your parents from Mexico to San Francisco. Instead of settling there like your father as a mariachi violinist, you rather experimented with the guitar and, together with your band of blues, rock, salsa, samba and Afro-Cuban melodies, brewed a sweaty mix: Latin Rock. In 1969, you performed at the legendary Woodstock Festival. That you completed the concert in the LSD rush, did not notice.
Too much drug, too much excess
Two-thirds of the audience were on a trip themselves. After all, Santana was hot as chili, sold millions of plates. At that time you also met your wife Deborah (respect: you still live with her and have three well advised children). A happy time? "Too much narcotics, too much excess," they said later.
The Indian guru Sri Chinmoy, who spread a kind of peace-joy-pancake philosophy in the US, promised to see through the drug nebula, and they joined him enthusiastically. I do not want to follow you on this path. Also musically you took off. And with an ecstatic smile, moaning, endlessly meandering chains of sound settled on your guitar. Our ways parted. In some stuffy hippie disco, I left Santana behind me. That you went on tour and brought out moderately successful records, I escaped. I did not rediscover you until 1999, when you released the album "Supernatural".
Hippies have the ability to transform hatred and fear.
The CD has sold more than 20 million copies so far, collecting fabulous nine Grammys. The secret of your unique comeback? According to the principle "I take the best of everything", you missed the Santana sound with the help of prominent guest musicians like Wyclef Jean and Eric Clapton. Even if it was just a marketing ploy to win more buyers, I like the Santana, which finally makes earthy Latin music again. You have reinvented yourself and stayed true to yourself at the same time? only a few have made it out of their old San Francisco days. Her music is still understood today as an active "contribution to peace". Hippies would have pushed a lot, you say. "We have the ability to transform hatred and fear."
They not only talk, but let words follow action. Get involved with Greenpeace, Amnesty International and support needy children with your own Milagro Foundation. The money comes from the women's shoe collection "Carlos", which you have been selling since the 90s and which is even your main economic source of income. One wonders only: How fits your business sense to your Esoterik-Excursions? There are people who make you crazy when you say that an angel has announced that you will return to the charts, the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared on a tour of Mexico and the spirit of your idol, Miles Davis, often comes to visit.
But what should be crazy about this statement: "I do not want all people to think like me, I just want them to think, then we will continue on our way to our goal: unity, harmony, wholeness." You simply have to like the fact that you are still stubbornly believing in a better world today, now 60 years old.
Your Anke Kapels
