For Chicanos, his music is like a family celebration. You meet. Drink beer. Hear “Oye Como Va”. And throws the barbecue. Carlos Santana was the pioneer of Latin-Rock’n’roll. His music came out of nowhere. Even if it was fed from Sixties rock, Latin jazz and other styles of the time. We tried something similar with the Los Lonely Boys. Have merged different influences for a new identity. But Carlos deserves the honor of being the first. He not only integrated Spanish into his English texts. He let his entire cultural background flow into the music.
Everything fits on a song like “Black Magic Woman”: the keyboards, the congas, the drums, the vocals. Carlos Santana Is not the lead singer, but he is always the undisputed Maestro. And his guitar is of course the highlight of every album. He has a sound that is as unique as a fingerprint, and he only needs to play one or two notes to articulate this identity. Carlos has a vocabulary that is understood in all languages in all countries.
The first three albums – “Santana”, “Abraxas”, “Santana III” – mean a lot to me. You can hear his Latino origin, even if he plays the blues. The fact that he became jazzer in the 1970s certainly irritated some of his early admirers, but it was a time of the experiments for him: he expanded his horizon-and then successfully returned to his roots with “Supernatural”.
Carlos Santana was always interested in the spiritual questions of humanity. He once said to us: “Always try to be ambassadors of light. You are the tool through which this light can reach everyone. ” For me, the light has a name: Carlos Santana.