Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Carlos Santana & Cindy Blackman

Transcript

Carlos Santana & Cindy Blackman · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. Just a quick note here. You can listen to
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: all of the music mentioned in this episode on our playlist,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: which you can find a link to in the show
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: notes for licensing reasons. Each time a song is referenced
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: in this episode, you'll hear this sound effect all right.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Enjoy the episode. Carlos Santana has always been out of
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: this world. As a guitarist, his melodic style and tone
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: is distinctive, and as a band leader, his decision to
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: combine Latin and African rhythms with traditional rock helped to
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: widen the breath of the genre. That's Paraisos Kamados from
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Santana's twenty nineteen album Africa Speaks, produced by Rick Rubin. Today,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: you'll hear Rick in conversation with Carlos and his wife,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: drummer sind Black Men. They talk about Carlos's plans to
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: create what he calls miraculous music. Carlos also shared stories
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: about Miles Davis, his LSD used in the sixties, and
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: a dream where John Coltrane asked him the purpose of
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: the divine. It might sound a little out there, but
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: as Carlos tells Rick, being crazy just gives him more
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: creative latitude. This is broken record liner notes for the
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: digital age. I'm justin Richmond. Here's Carlos Santana, Cindy Blackman,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: and Rick Rubin. What was the music he listened to
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: growing up? My father, my father's played the violin, and
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: his son and he had a brother, played cello. He
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: had a piano player, guitar player and accordion and they
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: basically play European music, you know. He didn't play mariachi
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: music till we moved to Tijuana. In outline, it was
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: basically I was steam Lada, who was like the call
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: porter of Mexico, you know, and uh soon like Bess
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Muccio and all that kind of stuff. So I grew
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: up watching him be enchanting and adored immediately by women,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: men and children. And I said, oh, you know, I
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: want that played professionally. Yes, I didn't. He played violin professionally,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: and he's the one that taught me the value of
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: one note, you know, but not too moved to Tijuana,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: you know, because he had to feed us. So he
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: would play my actu music because that's what the tours
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: wanted to hear. But that's what I learned about childie
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Hooker and Lightning Hopkins and Jimmy Reid and everybody else
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: was listening to Elvison and Beach Boys. You know, I
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: was attracted to I was listening to god Bucket music.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: I thought that even BB King was sophisticated, you know.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Not too late, I learned about Tma Walker and New
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Calendar Man. It's like, oh shit, you know, or Monk.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: You know, here in the Monk for the first time
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: place some blues. I was like, oh my god, this
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: is the blues. You know, was Monk your way into jazz? Yes,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Mink was way into jazz in the beginning, because when
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: you're young, you're ignorant, and I thought that anything I
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: had to do with jazz was boring, sophisticated music for
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: old people. You know. Chuck Berry and Little Bow Didley
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: and Little Richard, you know, that was like up front
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: like what Metallica is because of his energy and a
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: lot of things came from them. Any any guitar players
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: that you would say influenced you early on, like who
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: are the people? When you saw them play or heard
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: them play, like felt like there's something here for me
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: to follow or to practice or to learn. At the beginning,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: in d juana making making the transition from violin to guitar.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: I saw this guy named Heavier about these and in
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: the park. My mom knew what she was doing because
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: my father moved to San Francisco so he can make
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: more money and send us money. He wasn't making money
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: into juana anymore because everybody and their mom had my
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: rache bend in there. So he moved to San Francisco
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: and my mom. My mom saw that I wasn't playing
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: anymore violed and I wasn't practicing. So she took me
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: by the hand and she goes, you're coming with me,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: and says, well, where are we going? And he goes,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: you're coming with me. So she took me to the
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: park and there was a band plane and this guy
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: had a big mop like Little Richard. This guy is
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: kabiet about this and he was a perfect combination of
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Little Richard, BB King and Ray Charles. That's what he
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: was sent to. And he was probably made four or
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: five years older than I am, and he was already
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: in it. He had that sound like Michael Bloomfield, Peter
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Green or like that. You know. He because he got
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: into bb King really got into it. So when I
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: first heard that sound, it was like seeing a white
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: whale or a lion size or something. Man hearing the
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: guitar amplifier and everything resonate to the trees and the
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: cars and the church across the street. I took my
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: breath away. I was like, oh my god, what is this?
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: You know? So he was the first one that initiated
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: me into loving the electric guitar and that twang thing
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: like you know, like Lenniemac. And I think the main
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: person who turned me around was John McLachlin. When I
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: saw them and slugs with Tony Williams and Larry Young,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: that put a whole other thing on me. Miles Miles,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: David's favorite guitar player. And there's a reason, his articulation
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: and his imagination, and we became really good friends and brothers,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: and everybody fortunate and blessed. You know that I've been
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: at the right place at the right time, and people
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: adopt me, they trust me. Therefore, you know, except for
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: one guy. I'm not gonna say who, but when when
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: when he caught me looking at his hands see what
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: he was doing, he immediately turn turned his back to
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: me and he looked at me like, you know, like
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: I was going to steal something from him, you know,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: And so that made me realize, Okay, you know, not
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: everybody's going to be giving. You know, some people are
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: gonna be really paranoided by you're stealing their stuff, you know,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: even though it's not their stuff. It's BB King where
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: they're playing, you know. But yeah, I think when I
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: come came to San Francisco because so Michael Shreeve is
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: this rumor, he brought a lot of records of Caulturing
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: and Miles Only, and he says, you need to listen
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: to this, and I go, I do. He says, yeah,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: because this, this is this is human As we said, Okay,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: how old were you at that time, probably in nineteen
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: eighteen nineteen, and you were ready, so you were steeped
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: more in you'd say, at that point, more in rock music,
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: and then at eighteen or nineteen you started getting into jazz. Yes,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: BB King was King Ray Charles, Yeah, that was that
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: was said. And then once, like I said, once I
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: discover a Monk and Coltrane and Miles it was it
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: was like like they say, the genius out of the bottle.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: You know, you can't put it back in, you know,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: and it's the band that the band that we know
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: you as was that your first San Francisco band, first
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: San Francisco band was drummer and a bass player that
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: they kind of took me in because I just came
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: from Tijuana. They had instruments and I barely had a guitar,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: so they helped me get an amplifier. And but we
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: were entering contests like the Battle of the Band sin
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: San Francisco, Kaya and you know like that. And they
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: had like a thousand bands in a gym, in a
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: school gym, and it thin out because they wanted something original.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: They didn't want, you know, another Rolling Stones or the
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Who kind of clones and and we had this black
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: lady name Joey's Dunne, and we were doing different interpretations
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: of heat wave. We got it all the way to
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: number three at the Kyle Palace, amongst all the other
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: bands you know that were dusted. We were in the
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: top three. And the only reason we lost, I think,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: is because my partner's got so scared. They got drunk,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: literally drunk drunk, you know, and I was like, oh man,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: you know, and I was so pissed off it embarrassed,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: you know, because they couldn't play, you know, but it
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: was it was it was the beginning of giving me
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: a confidence that I could fit where the Grateful Dead
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: were and what Paul battlefield was and and and that's
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: Bill graham Sali like, you know, everything that you do
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: begets confidence, you know, in clarity. They're like, well, I
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: can do this. You know. You see Cream or you
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: see Hendricks. They're like, oh, even though a lot of
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: people quit after they see Hendricks, I said, I said,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: it's got to be something that he ain't doing that
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: I can do it, you know. So I discovered Gobor
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Sawo and Bola Sete and guitars with congas. Yeah, when
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: did you first see Hendrix at the Fillmore? And that
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: was a revelation because Jimi Hendris was probably the only
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: guitar player that I knew or ever will ever know
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: that could play in cinemascopes around around with feedback on
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: one note, you know, without being wiped out by it.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: It was, you know, he's like a surfer that ride
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: the big Kahuna and sound waves and knew what he
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: was doing. It didn't control him, he controlled it. So
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: that was a revelation. It's interesting when you say that,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: I never thought about this before. But but normally when
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: you think of feedback, you think of it sort of
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: exactly what you said of it, sort of taking over,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: and he was able to manage it. Never I never
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: made the connection before, even though it's yes, it's time me.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: When you say it's like, of course, it's obvious, that's
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: why he's Jimi Hendrix, but I never thought of it.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: It's a specific way like that before. It's a wave
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: of sounding. It's a wave of sound like culturing, and
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: they call him sheets of sound. But yeah, so being
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: in San Francisco at the right time was a revelation
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: from Robbie Shankar to Johnny Hooker and Jimmy and Coltrane.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: You know. San Francisco was the ultimate album mater U University,
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: and you saw all these guys play, yeah, slide before
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: they were you know, Robbie when they started Freddy, it
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: was Freddie and the Stone Soles before it slide. And
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: so I got I got a chance to see like
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: someone sculpturing pottery, you know, like you can see that
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: slide coming from Johnny guitar Watson and this and Dad,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: you know, and he's I can see where everybody got
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: where they got, you know, because we all we all
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: would come from somebody. Yeah, I didn't see it coming
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: though when my house came out with bitches brew that
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: was really different. And like you said, you said it
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: to all of us. I can go where you go,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: you can't go where I go. But oh, and he
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: said it to you know, it's a blanket statement because
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: where he went, being with Charlie Parker and Coltrane was
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: another realm of harmonic genius. And do you think do
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: you think it was all intuition for him or do
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: you think somehow there was learning involved. Probably intuition a lot,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: you know, through all the books that I read. Even
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: though to some people it seemed like it was complex,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: if you really look at it from a divine point
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: of view, it was absolutely predictable. You know, the only
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: time that it was unpredictable is when he was not
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: like Prince and Michael Jackson, the persona, when he was
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: the spirit of Miles Davis, like Coltrane, you know, because
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: the persona is the ego, and that starts mimicking what
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: people say about him, like, oh, I'm the Prince of Darkness,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: and I'm supposed to, you know, be like that. You know,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: to this day, I don't understand how he could play
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: the way he played under heroin or cocaine. I just
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: hear my mother say this is not for you. And
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: so since she put that in my head, anytime I
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: try to do anything like that, I couldn't play. I
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: had to go to the shower and stay there until
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: I came back to now that I could touch my nose,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: both hands with my eyes closed and makes sense of balance.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: I couldn't balance anything under those chemical things because they're
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: not medicine, they're chemical drugs. Have you had psychodolic experiences? Natural? Um?
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: I started going to the film or and seeing Charles
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Floyd like that, and you know, and seeing Miles like that,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: and a lot of band sound rad you know, it
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: opened it opened. That's opened up, um. And you understand
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: why Jimmy's music sound Rods music and the doors music.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: In certain music, it had a different dimension of It's
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: like watching Salvador Dolly paint, you know, with clocks melting
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: and stuff. You know, I love it. To me being
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Mexican with the ayahuasca and the mescalan, I love brightening
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: and expanding your imagination to the fullest without fear. I'm
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: just thinking about San Francisco in those days. How many
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: people might be at a nightclub. If you went out
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: to a club and you got to see those artists,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: what would the typical scene be like, Well, you go
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: to the Jazz Workshop and it would be West Montgomery
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: with Miroslav Toes. And you go to Matador it would
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: be Calciated with Mungo and Louis Bobo, Armando or Bola
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: said there, you know. And you go to the Both
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Hand and visit Zadero and they'd be Miles or leam Oregan.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: And you go to the Fillmore and you see what
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: was really prescious about Bill Graham that he said to
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: the hippies, if you want to hear the Grateful Dead,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: you gotta hear Miles Davis first. And if you want
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: to hear Santana, you gotta hear Roland Kirk, you know.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: So he made it a mandatory to the minds of
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: the hippies. If you want to hear ten years after,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: you're gonna have to hear Buddy Rich first, you know.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: And he told me that the reason he put body
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Rich in front of him is because he was really
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: annoyed by the drummer we ten years after. He was
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: a little arrogant and cocky, and he says, I'm want
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: to fix his ass man, I want to put so
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: he so he went and got Buddy Rich to open
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: up for the He made him listen, you know, and
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: I was like, then, Bill, your crew, you know, but
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: we need that more than ever now. You know, there's
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: no cross pollenization of greatness with the youngsters, you know.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: So consequently everything everything sounds the same and terrible. What
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: gave Bill the inspiration to put these people together and
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: to want to share these different genres with people who
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: might not have known that they wanted to hear it? Well?
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: He grew up in the Caskills in New York, working
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: as a waiter Maitre d and the waiter, but when
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: he had free time he would go to uh Courso
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: it was this place, and I bought a block two
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: blocks from the Apollo and it was put Tito Pointe
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: and so he wasn't he was totally dead dead out
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: into Tito Pointe and Mongo. And he was incredible dancer,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: salsa dancer before they called it salts. So when you
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: heard Santana. He says, you are the perfect baby. They
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: came from Baby King and Tito Pointe. I said, I
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: am yeah, and you and so he basically kind of
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: like adopted me more than the band. He was like Miles.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: It would call me, you know, I'm not bragging it,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: but they call me, you know, people who love me
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: call me John Leed and my phone would ring. And
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: I mean I say this all the time for many, many,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: many years. I never got an award at the Grammys.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: But it didn't matter to me because my phone is
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: ringing and it's Wayne or Miles or Jocko or Stevie,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: you know, like that, the greatest musicians are calling me
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: and we're just checking on each other, you know. So
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: that was a validation. So you need man. When Miles
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: called you anytime of the night, you know, and he
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: wants to know what you're into, that's a validation. You know.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: So beautiful, so great, so great that you got to
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: know him any Do you have any funny stories related
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: to Miles, I hear he's quite the character. Anything you
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: want to talk about, well, there's so many, you know,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: some of them are like, um, what was really funny
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: about him? Is that he was funnier than Richard Pryor.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: He really really west and I was just bust up, like, man,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: this guy is like I was just saying, because they're
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: they're not PG at all, you know. But he was
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: fun to be around. Oh. He was definitely if he
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: loved if he liked you, it was really fun. If
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: he didn't like you, he would just say, must you
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: be here? Wow? That was his way to dismiss somebody,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: you know, like these you know, we'll be right back
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: with Carlos, Cindy and Rick after a quick break. We're
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: back with Carlos Santana and Cindy black Man. Tell me
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: about leading up to making your first album. What were
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: you playing in Clouds? Was there a regular a regular
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: gig at that time. Yeah. Once we formed the band,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Bill Graham saw that we were opening and then he
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: he put a stamp on us. He goes, Okay, you're
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: gonna open out for the Who, and you're gonna open
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: out for money, Holly Wolf, and you're gonna happen out
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: for a slide. You're gonna you know, creating us clear
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: Water and we started Stepping Wolf. We opened out for
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: everybody before we recorded, so We were basically playing this
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: this material for about a year and a half before
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: we went to the studio, and we knew it, We
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: knew how to, we knew what we were what to
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: do with Jingo. You know, Jingo was we just heard
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: a bunch of congo players at Aquatic Park in San
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: Francisco and Gary Dells where jing you know, bunch of
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: twenty two congo players one flute and they're all chanting jingle.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: And I was like, oh my god, what the hell
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: is Jingo? You know how didn't know? It's all about
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: ten years ago. The jingle means go with God. Jingle jingle,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: go with go with God. So it's a it's a
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: spiritual it's a spiritual idea from all the tunit. Yeah. Wow.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: So everybody was like, what do y'all call that music
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: you're playing? Stephen and Koreans Clairware like okay, looking at it,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: especially because they're looking at us and looking at the
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: audience and they're seeing the immediate marriage responds. You know.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: So by the time we got to the studio, everybody
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: was fighting to get us in their in their record company,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: h Atlantic and Electra and Sony, so they CBS. They
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: found this um producer at the time. The name is
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: David Rubinson, and he had produce because if at least
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: piano and and I'm as Santamaria, so I said, oh,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: he knows how to record, gone guess so he I
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: don't know if he knows how to record like the guitars,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: We'll see. And we did an album in LA for
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: about two weeks and it just didn't sound it or
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: felt anything like we sounded like. So we said, so
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: we told CBS, we'll pay for the sessions, but we're
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: not going to be He's not our producer. We don't
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: want him, with all respect to him. But it's like,
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: but don't know, you know, I know that some people,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: being the first, you're not supposed to have a say
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: song which which you know they choose for you, and
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: I don't. We don't care. He says, well, who are
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: you going to get? I said, we'll find somebody. We
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: literally went to here to Ashbury and find one of
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: the first hippies that we saw, and we heard that
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: you could engineer a little bit as herd about it.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: You know, I forget the same and so that's what
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: the album sound is so horrible. You know, when we
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: first heard it in Cambridge, Massachusetts, one week before we
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: played with Stuck. I would came out a week before
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: we came out playing with Stuck, and we said, whoa us,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: but it sounds terrible. The cone gets in the drums,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: I'm so fan in the guitar, like, oh my god.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: You know, it's unusual that you were that you again,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: at that age, had the confidence to say this is
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: not my this is not our album when you recorded
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: that first one, because so many young bands in that
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: position just go with it and feel like because they
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: they have gone through the process that that's what it's
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: supposed to be. It's funny how your confidence changes when
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: you're able to play I wouldn't say under but over
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Murray one on LSD. You know, you either become a
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: wimpy or you become really really treacherous in your convictions.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Like give you an example when we when I heard
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: on LSD on Friday night party time are any time
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: you know this guy, this dig and he's playing Latin
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: music and all kinds of music. Because at that time
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: it was like you know, from A to C and
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: radio and they were playing oh You're coming boy, and
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: I said, man, this is a great Saturday night party
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: song like Louie Louie or whatever. You know. I wanted
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: to get those songs that that every time you play
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: it's like Friday and Saturday after school, you know, you
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: go to a play, somebody has a party and the
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: guys some band were like, this ain't rock and roll.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: I was like, man, I don't care when we're playing
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: this thing, you know. And so a lot of a lot,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: a lot can be said about conviction, not organs, but
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: you have to have the conviction to go for your destiny. Sound. Yeah,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: I was reading about that this morning, coincidentally, about the
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Star people. Star people have They're like ascended beings that
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: transformers of consciousness, bringing new ideas, visions, and solutions and
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: inspire artists musicians to elevate, transform illuminate consciousness to a
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: higher state. They serve as conduits, mediums, and channels. They
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: have special gifts and heavenly powers. Everyone's imbued with that,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: but I think that if you're not careful, the world
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: will program you to be less than that. Absolutely, absolutely,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: because everyone's got it, We're all born with it, and
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: some of us just get get it beaten out of us. Unfortunately. Yeah, yeah,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: and where we are today. You know, with Cindy, it's
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: a very special not even special, especially when something's on sale.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: This is divine when you find a person that matches
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: the fervor of the vision. Yes, yeah, amazing. Well, when's
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: the first time you guys played together. The first time
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: we played together was when Carlos needed a drummer and
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Dennis Chambers was in the band at that time and
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: had I guess something else booked on a gig that
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: was off the schedule that Carlos Scott and he called me.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: I had met him just briefly. I was with Lenny
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: Kravitz and it was a festival in Germany, and I
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: know Dennis. I've known himselves like fourteen so we were
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: hanging out in the back and I met Carlos really briefly,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: like hi, how are you, and went on to watch
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: videos or whatever I was doing, so I didn't really
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: interact or talk to him at that point. But then
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: when he needed a sub for Dennis, they somebody called
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: me and before they could finish the question of whether
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: or not I would do it, of course I was
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: saying yes, so cool. Yeah, it's it's amazing that I
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: first met you when you were I guess auditioning to
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: be in Lenny's band. Yes, in your house in my
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: house in Los Angeles a long time ago. Yeah, nineteen ninety.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: It was in the nineteen ninety two because it was
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: I went there right before, um, right after Christmas, and
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: stayed through New Year's Yeah, and um that was the
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: house that you had just purchased. So there was really
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: like nothing in it because you weren't even living here. No,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: we were doing construction on it. And I remember Lenny saying,
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: can I stay in your house. It's like, well, it's
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: under construction. He's like, now, we'll stay in it anyway,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: and yeah, everybody and I basically he was staying upstairs
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: and I was basically down in that basement. Yeah. I
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: had the drums down there. I was, you know, after
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: I played and in kind of audition. Then I just
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: stayed down there and learned the songs. Um. I basically
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: lived in there for two weeks and then we did
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: the are you Gonna Go My Way? Video? Yeah, um,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: and then then I went home after that. But yeah,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: that was the first time we met as well. Amazing
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: We're sitting setting our eyes towards the new frontier. It's
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: natural to reinvent yourself at this point. For us, there's
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: one word that is bringing it all together. That words
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: called miraculous. Just this word. We are really going to
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: call our tour miraculous. At twenty twenty, we haven't even
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: played one song yet or even written. But I have
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: total faith, you know, Rick, that that that this is
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: the way to like, you know, people make the thing
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: about a Love Supreme or Abbey Road or you know,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: we Supernatural was pretty mean. You know, I got to
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: say perunatial. Supernatural was pretty mean. But I'm ready to
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: create something that it reaches the four corners of the
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: world with a different kind of consciousness that makes people cry, laugh, dance, especially,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: and remember their own light. Beautiful. How do you see
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: the relationship between spirituality and music. It's like breathing in
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: and breathing out is the same lungs. You know, the
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: spirituality in music and sensuality is exactly the same thing.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Because everyone says, oh my God at that point. Yea,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: even even atheists say oh my God, because you can't
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: say oh me or whatever. Yeah, did you ever get
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: to point they play? Oh yeah, we played many times together.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: He was my dad's favorite. I got to see him
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: play as a kid several times. Yeah. He collegiator and
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Buddy Rich were awesome leaders who brought to the masses.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: I forgive music black music. They all play black music,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: you know. I mean they play all music, but you
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: know the best part of Buddy Rich, you play black music.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Did did Fiana music happen at a similar time to
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: your music? Yeah? Yeah. They came in because they saw
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: that it was working. They you know, they said, oh,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: who is this Mexican from San Francisco and Tijuana. It
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: doesn't even know cloud it. And but it was Reberetto
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: who said, ladies and gentlemen, there's a there's a musician
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: in the house. And I went, oh, and he says,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: there's a musician in the house. Was taking our music
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: to the four corners of the world. This is Santana,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: and I want you to give him a nice hand.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: That was Reberetto. Not everybody was so nice. Some people
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: were really jealous, pissed off and insecure because we were
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: taking so called their music. And I said, well, it's
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: not your music, it's African music. Before Puerto Rico or
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: Cuba was invented, they were already playing this music like
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: like you know Wahita, you know so so I immediately
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: would go, well, what do you mean, it's your O music?
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: You know. Like for me it was easy to I'm
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: just grateful to be in the center of it all.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: And if we to this day, man, if we play
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: with Jimmy Hendrix, when we do play with Jimmy Hendrix
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: and about Marley and Coltrane, they're going to open their
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: arms to us because we're coming from exactly the same place,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: which is multi dimensional collective consciousness commonality. We'll be right
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: back with Carlos, Cindy and Rick. After the break, we're
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: back with Carlos Santana and Cindy Blackman. It was thrilling
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: for me to be in the room when you were playing,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: because it really felt like there was a presence at
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: the space beyond any of the people. There is that
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: ability to call up that presence is that always been
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: there for you pretty much pretty much. So, you know,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: I had this dream on my birthday, John Coltrane came
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: to visit me. I had this visitation. I don't even
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: call it a dream. I went to see in my
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: dream and to hear John McLaughlin, the Catalyst, this funky
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: club in Santa Cruz. And I was getting ready to
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: get him close, as close as possible, to sit in
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: front of the stage as much as possible while he
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: was fixing his shoes and tuning his guitar, and I
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: don't know where parting the crowd was John Coltrane and
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: with his hand stretched out to me, and he grabbed
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: my hand and looked at me in the eye, look
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: at me in the eyes, and he says, Carlos, what's
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: the purpose of divine intentionality? And I immediately said, to
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: uplift those into the awareness of their own light. You know,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: when I woke up and I said, Sammy and I
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: leave this energy season. You know, it's like, what is Sindy?
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: And I'm telling her to dream in my phone rings?
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: And as John Mclocklin from Monaco, and so I told
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: John the dream and he says, wow, brother, that's really
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: something else. He says, I had a dream too. I
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: had a visitation too. My house came to visit me.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: I swear, you know, so for him and I and
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: and Stevie Ray does that a lot to me? Baby,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: you know, Jocko, I'm okay with people thinking that I'm
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: crazy because I have more latitude. You know, people people
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: who are not crazy, they don't have any latitude at all,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: that their normality is like really boring. And you know,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: with a ceiling. You know, I don't have a ceiling.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: So this visitations, you know, Cindy has her own you know,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: and there's clues in there. Yeah, there there. It's like
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: reading a book and you outline certain things that are
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: like a love letter to yourself. And so I can
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: see that this miraculous thing has a lot to do
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: with possibly calling John to help us here and there.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: You know, maybe it's your career in certain plays. But
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: I wanted so that a child can understand it. It's
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: important that a child can, you know, just be mesmerized
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: and be uplifted from herself or himself into a place
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: of total wonderment. If it's if it's too complicated and
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: you have to go to college to understand it, it's
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: no good for me. But you do that when you
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: when you when you play melodies, because your melodies are
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: so uh intense and and and the tone is so
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: beautiful that you you capture that. You know, um like
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Miles Davis, you know, he plays one note and everybody
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: is yeahsteeing it, you know, so you have that with
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: whatever you're playing. I am here in this planet disincarnation
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: to bring healing and you raise the distance illusion between
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: you and your high you beautiful. That's it. Yeah, to
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: end this album miraculous. I want to end it with
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: do do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: Do Do Do Do do do do do do do
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: You know the rest life is but a dream. That's fantastic,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: you know, because that's that's I say. You gotta reach
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: the children many of all ages. You know, you do
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: everything that you do do do do do do do
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: do do do. Sometimes I'll play something in the set,
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: you know, in front of a lot of people, like
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: when we play with the Dewey Brothers and uh let
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: them I'll do that Doo doo doo do do do
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: Do Do do the whole audience goes. Life is but
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: a dream. Okay, see you later. You know at that
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: point there's no republican or Democrat or disordaptment. It's just
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: you know, that's what's happening. Beautiful, Thank you, No, so
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: great to hear you, hear you speak. I always feel
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: like I um, I always feel like I've grown when
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: I get to spend time with you. Likewise, like was
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: your signus is really profound man? But I really learned,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Like damn, this kid, I learned so much. But hin
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: that's saying nothing like my else, you know. Thank you
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: thanks to Carlos Santana and Cindy Blackman for sharing their
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: vision with Rick. You can hear our favorite Santana songs
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: in the full Africa Speaks album by checking out our
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: playlist at Broken Record podcast dot com, and be sure
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: to subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: slash Broken Record Podcast, where you can find extended cuts
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: of past episodes and also a new once. Broken Record
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: is produced with help from Leah Rose, Jason Gambrel, Martin Gonzalez,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: Eric Sandler, and its executive produced by me rebel I.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Theme musics by Kenny Beats. Broken Record is a production
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: of Pushkin Industries, and if you like Broken Record, please
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: remember to share, rate, and review our show on your
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: podcast apt. I'm justin Richmond, Peace,