COVER STORY
“I play music to heal myself and heal
other people and bring the world
closer,” is the way he starts to answer
my Charlie Rose-esque question of why
do you play music? “I play music so
people become aware that everything is
in harmony – the planets, the weather,
the birds. The only thing in disharmony
is greed and lust, which is peoples
egos, which is not the soul. So I
play music so that people will dance
together in Jerusalem – Palestinians
and Hebrews. People can rejoice
together in San Quentin – blacks,
Latins, American Indians, and whites.
I play music for that. That’s when I get
the greatest joy. Most people on this
planet are dealing with duality – good
and bad, the virgin and the whore. In
music, whether it’s by Peter Green or
Eric Clapton, B.B. King or myself, we
remind you that there’s another gear:
compassion and gratitude. Those are
gears on a truck or in our lives and
very few people shift to those gears.
That’s why I like playing music, man.
I don’t like playing music for this or
that. Anybody can do this or that.
I like playing music because you can
actually change the rhythm, or the
psyche, or people’s lives. That’s a
great responsibility.”
That responsibility is powered by one of
the most recognizable guitar voices in
music. Carlos Santana’s guitar speaks
with an authority the way James Earl
Jones commanded his acting. That is
to say, we buy what he is selling. And
the result, as Eric Clapton has noted,
is that “Carlos Santana can make you
feel what he is feeling.” Yet he does not
take this super power for granted. “I am
really grateful that guitar players before
me made a voice out of the guitar,” he
explained. “Because before the guitar
– was just background music. It was
stomping chords, and then the trumpet,
or the saxophone, or the singer would
sing. Not until T-Bone Walker, or Charlie
Christian, or Django Reinhardt did all of
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