The Universal Tone: Bringing My Story to Light by Carlos Santana
Authors: Carlos Santana
Tags: Biography & Autobiography / Rich & Famous, Biography & Autobiography / Entertainment & Performing Arts, Biography & Autobiography / Composers & Musicians
Ads: Link
fifteen, and she had the most amazing tone. Just lovely. I couldn’t move. I remember thinking if I had been able to get that kind of sound out of that instrument, there’d be one less electric guitarist playing today.
So I decided to give music a rest and play hide-and-seek with Rosa and just be normal with the rest of the kids. Of course my mother was not going to let that happen. She always had ideas—making plans, doing something. She was about to do something that would change my life.
CHAPTER 3
The Strangers, with me third from right, 1962.
Music is a force that can divide generations, fathers and sons. It can also bring them together. My son, Salvador, was sixteen, and we were in the car—he was already in that mode when parents are the most uncool people, and so is their music. I was listening to John Coltrane’s
Live in Seattle,
recorded in 1965 with Pharoah Sanders—very challenging music. Salvador was looking out the window, real quiet. That’s one thing Sal and my little brother, Jorge, have in common—you can tell they chew on things for a while before they open their mouths. They think and are considerate of other people’s feelings. I could still learn from that. I say what comes into my mind, and sometimes I’ll read an interview in which I’ve gone and said something about another musician,and I’ll say, “Damn, that was a little harsh.” Later on I’ll have to apologize to someone.
The music started to get real far-out, and suddenly Sal turned to me and said, “Hey, Coltrane’s playing Stravinsky right now. You know, Dad, you can’t just bug out and play like that. You got to know what you’re doing.” I was chuckling inside, but I kept cool. I know that music is not easy to listen to. But he was listening hard, and he had an opinion about what he heard. I respected that.
Not long after that, we were in the car and listening to—what else?—Coltrane, and again Salvador got quiet. Then he said, “You know, for a long time I thought that you and your friends Hal Miller, Tony Kilbert, and Gary Rashid were all a bunch of music snobs.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I thought you guys were overly opinionated about music. But I was in the car with my sisters, and they started playing their music, and I felt just like you guys. I was thinking, “Oh, my God, do we have to listen to the Spice Girls over and over?”
I had to smile again—that made me think right away about my sisters and their Elvis records. It gave me great delight that Sal was thirsty for something more everlasting, and then it made me think of how we don’t connect with certain music when we’re young. Then we grow up and think again about the music we used to turn our noses up at. Like me and Mexican music.
I remember around the time I was disengaging from my dad and mariachi music, American singers were coming down to Mexico for material. Big stars such as Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole did whole albums based on Mexican music—even Charlie Parker did that
South of the Border
album. I can remember when everybody was singing “Quizás, Quizás, Quizás”—which is a song written by Osvaldo Farrés, who’s Cuban, but it was made famous in Mexico. And of course “Bésame Mucho,” which could be the most recorded song of all time next to “La Bamba.” A few years later, the Champs did “Tequila,” and after that, Herb Alpert did “The Lonely Bull” with the Tijuana Brass.
It’s funny, because at the time all those guys were crossing the border and coming south, I was starting to go the other way. It all started withthe songs I heard on the radio. It didn’t matter if I was Mexican or American, black, white, or purple. I could only hear one thing—the blues.
I n the summer of 1961 my dad had been up in San Francisco for almost a year, and my mom could see I had lost interest in playing music. She also knew she couldn’t talk me back into it. But she was smart, and she wasn’t going to let all those
So I decided to give music a rest and play hide-and-seek with Rosa and just be normal with the rest of the kids. Of course my mother was not going to let that happen. She always had ideas—making plans, doing something. She was about to do something that would change my life.
CHAPTER 3
The Strangers, with me third from right, 1962.
Music is a force that can divide generations, fathers and sons. It can also bring them together. My son, Salvador, was sixteen, and we were in the car—he was already in that mode when parents are the most uncool people, and so is their music. I was listening to John Coltrane’s
Live in Seattle,
recorded in 1965 with Pharoah Sanders—very challenging music. Salvador was looking out the window, real quiet. That’s one thing Sal and my little brother, Jorge, have in common—you can tell they chew on things for a while before they open their mouths. They think and are considerate of other people’s feelings. I could still learn from that. I say what comes into my mind, and sometimes I’ll read an interview in which I’ve gone and said something about another musician,and I’ll say, “Damn, that was a little harsh.” Later on I’ll have to apologize to someone.
The music started to get real far-out, and suddenly Sal turned to me and said, “Hey, Coltrane’s playing Stravinsky right now. You know, Dad, you can’t just bug out and play like that. You got to know what you’re doing.” I was chuckling inside, but I kept cool. I know that music is not easy to listen to. But he was listening hard, and he had an opinion about what he heard. I respected that.
Not long after that, we were in the car and listening to—what else?—Coltrane, and again Salvador got quiet. Then he said, “You know, for a long time I thought that you and your friends Hal Miller, Tony Kilbert, and Gary Rashid were all a bunch of music snobs.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I thought you guys were overly opinionated about music. But I was in the car with my sisters, and they started playing their music, and I felt just like you guys. I was thinking, “Oh, my God, do we have to listen to the Spice Girls over and over?”
I had to smile again—that made me think right away about my sisters and their Elvis records. It gave me great delight that Sal was thirsty for something more everlasting, and then it made me think of how we don’t connect with certain music when we’re young. Then we grow up and think again about the music we used to turn our noses up at. Like me and Mexican music.
I remember around the time I was disengaging from my dad and mariachi music, American singers were coming down to Mexico for material. Big stars such as Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole did whole albums based on Mexican music—even Charlie Parker did that
South of the Border
album. I can remember when everybody was singing “Quizás, Quizás, Quizás”—which is a song written by Osvaldo Farrés, who’s Cuban, but it was made famous in Mexico. And of course “Bésame Mucho,” which could be the most recorded song of all time next to “La Bamba.” A few years later, the Champs did “Tequila,” and after that, Herb Alpert did “The Lonely Bull” with the Tijuana Brass.
It’s funny, because at the time all those guys were crossing the border and coming south, I was starting to go the other way. It all started withthe songs I heard on the radio. It didn’t matter if I was Mexican or American, black, white, or purple. I could only hear one thing—the blues.
I n the summer of 1961 my dad had been up in San Francisco for almost a year, and my mom could see I had lost interest in playing music. She also knew she couldn’t talk me back into it. But she was smart, and she wasn’t going to let all those
Similar Books
