The Universal Tone: Bringing My Story to Light (58 page)

Jerry and Diane helped me to get to the other side after Deborah left. Meeting them gave me another chance to see that in my life it’s always been about recognizing the angels who appear when I need them the most. I was able to get back to the point where I could wake up and be happy with myself. I’m sure that one of the reasons Deborah and I came apart was because it had to be tiring for her to start the day with someone who couldn’t accept himself and was creating distance between himself and the rest of the world. Who knows for sure?

It was painful that first year and a half, but life continued. At the start it was especially difficult because Santana was taking a break from the road. I did a few sessions—Smokey Robinson called me and asked me to play on a song called “Please Don’t Take Your Love,” which I did two versions of, and he took the best from both. In 2008 Santana was back on the road, and that helped me to stop thinking about the past, to be present and to get back into my usual swing.

Seven years later I am now at a point where everything that’s left from my life with Deborah, her parents, and my former sister-in-law, Kitsaun, is beauty and blessings. I’m now in a place where I can sincerely give my best to Deborah and say thank you for everything. I can honor her and all that we had and at the same time embrace what has come after—the way I grew and changed and then received Cindy, my love and my wife. I have never been happier in my life than at this moment.

Everything that happened in 2006 and 2007—ANSA and Archbishop Tutu and Deborah—came to mind in 2014, when I went to play in South Africa for the first time. I had visited the country but never played there, and it was incredible. I think the first time playing in South Africa has to be amazing for any musician, especially
those who went through the days of apartheid and boycotts and discovering all the great artists who came from there, including Hugh Masekela and Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

I called Archbishop Tutu and asked if we could get together—well, my assistant, Chad, did. We were playing in Cape Town, where the archbishop lives and is building a center for his spiritual foundation; it’s one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever seen. He invited us to his home, and after we spoke for a little while, I reminded him of something he said recently—that if heaven discriminates against homosexuals he didn’t want to go there. I also mentioned that two months after he said that, the pope himself said the same thing, which shows that the archbishop really knows how to use words so people wake up and get the message.

I embrace knowing that his message is for all people and that he’s still talking about things that need correcting—he didn’t clock out after apartheid was over. It’s like what Martin Luther King Jr. said about no man being free until we are all free.

The night before I visited the archbishop, Stella had texted me a photo of my ex-wife, Deborah, meeting the Dalai Lama, and I loved seeing that we were still both on the same path, even if we weren’t on it together. I was thinking, “What are the chances of this happening at the same time—that Deborah and I would each meet two of the world’s most inspiring spiritual leaders?” Then suddenly I had a vision.

I started to think of who would be able to channel all this energy. What if we could get Archbishop Tutu and the Dalai Lama and the pope and top leaders from the Jewish and Muslim worlds together on a plane? They could travel to places such as Ukraine and Syria and Venezuela—and to places that CNN doesn’t even talk about—bringing light into the darkness and dismantling the hate that’s starting there before it builds up into wars. I would come along with Santana and we would play, and I’d help recruit other headline groups to join in, too, so that we make world news and can stop the carnage before it has time to happen.

I mentioned this idea to the archbishop and asked if he could
imagine doing this and helping us by reaching out to other leaders, such as the pope. His eyes went wide, then he became modest and said, “But why would they listen to me?” That’s when my friend Hal Miller, who was with us, stepped in and said what he needed to hear: “Because when you speak, the world listens.”

The archbishop smiled, and when we left he asked me to stay in touch about the idea. I know—it’s a dream, naive and audacious. But that’s the kind of audacity I want to live with. I have faith in the principles of John Lennon and John Coltrane, Jesus and Martin Luther King Jr. I have faith in those who believe with all their being that it’s never too late to fix this planet.

Releasing the past: Cindy and me on our wedding day in Maui, December 19, 2010.

I was in Sweden recently. It was my birthday, and I was shaving, and in my eyes in the mirror I could see my parents. “Hi, Mom,” I said. “Hi, Dad.” Both of them are gone, but they’re still with me and still with each other. I still get a lot of strength from the loyalty they had to each other. I remember the way they looked at each other across the room at their fiftieth anniversary party: the rest of us could have been chopped liver. That stuff was still there, even after all that went on between them. You can ask any of us kids—my sisters or my brothers. I don’t think any of
us can remember my parents smooching and hugging. But Mom did get pregnant eleven times.

One time I walked in on Mom and Dad. I was seventeen, and we were living in the Mission District. It was after school, and I was in a hurry to get to my job at the Tic Tock. I opened the door, and they were in bed. They gave me a look that said, “Not now.” I quickly closed the door, and suddenly everything went in slow motion. Of course! They do that—there has to be intimacy. I walked out feeling like there was a warm blanket over me. There is nothing that makes you feel more secure than seeing your parents in love with each other. Then the whole world is cool. That’s the foundation I wish every child could have and the kind of love that I hoped to have in my life—a relationship that will endure and feel like it did on the first day, even on my last.

Around two years after my divorce, I finally took a deep breath and told myself, “Okay, let’s get to the new day. I have no doubt that God will send someone my way, because I have got to have a queen.” I have all these achievements and a big house and I travel and stay in wonderful hotels—I still receive a lot of blessings and honors. I enjoy abundance and incredible beauty. But it’s incomplete unless I have a queen to share it with.

I
n 2009 I was in Las Vegas, and it was a Sunday night. I got a call that my mom had fallen down and was in the hospital in a coma. I chartered a flight, and the whole family got together at her bedside. Everybody took turns sitting next to her, whispering in her ear and saying what we needed to say. “Mom, it’s Carlos again. I’m holding your hand, and I want you to know that I remember everything you told me. I remember you saying that everything I have belongs to God—my guitar, my music, my sound, my body, my breath. It’s all just borrowed, and when he wants it back, I must open my hand and give it to him. Remember you said, that, Mom?”

My mom had talked with me about dying a few months before—she asked, “Are you afraid of death?” I said, “Absolutely
not.” She thought about it and said, “Me, neither. But some people die before they’re done because they’re already petrified by it. They give death too much power.”

I asked everyone to hold hands, including Mom’s, and form a big circle. Then I said, “Mom, we are all here, and we give you permission to go if you want to go.” A few minutes later, she left.

I know lots of people and have lots of friends and relatives, but I have very few
friend
friends—people with whom I share a deep, sincere level of closeness. That’s not a complaint. Those few friends are what I call my spiritual support system—they know me and my heart sometimes better than I know myself. The key word is
trust
—I trust them to see things I may not see, and I’ve learned to pay attention and listen to what they tell me.

After the divorce, I really came to lean on my best friends, and they did not let me down. It’s important for me to acknowledge their presence in my life and the fact that they’ve opened me up to all kinds of fun possibilities with dignity and benevolence and funkiness, depending on their nature—they’re all so different.

Gary Rashid—Rashiki, as Armando decided to call him—I’ve known the longest. He started working with Bill Graham in ’73, which meant he was around Santana a lot, and at that point he was just starting to really listen to music and find his way around. By ’79 he was one of my best friends and was checking out Little Walter and Slim Harpo and John Coltrane, hearing things in the music I had turned him on to that I had never picked up on. I loved watching him develop to the point where he was teaching me. To this day, when I’m in the Bay Area, one of the most enjoyable things I can do is get into the car with Gary and take an hour’s drive along the coast and just listen to Miles.

There’s something else about Gary that I embrace: he has a purity and innocence about him—he’s childlike, not childish, and he’s never callous or overly opinionated. I know I can be like a lion sometimes and roar. He’s also like a dove, and I need that around
me. And he’s a killer tennis player, and nice enough to let me win sometimes.

Tony Kilbert—Brother TK, as I call him—is my anchor in Hawaii. We can hang together at the beach, and he’ll snorkel for hours and hours. That’s his meditation. He’s a tall, good-looking guy who was one of the golden-voiced radio DJs in the Bay Area when we first met in the ’70s. I remember the care he put into his questions when he interviewed me. I think his interview with Bob Marley from around the same time should be required listening for any journalist because of the respect and awareness that TK put into it. You can feel how Bob just opens up his heart to him.

TK had a good life and was living in San Rafael, but then most of his family—his mother and aunts—passed away within a five-year period, and he decided to step away from the career stuff and move to Maui. He still works with music and teaches, and he gets involved in fighting for causes that support the natural integrity of the islands and rights of local people. I admire the way he follows his inner voice. We love the same musicians, the same music, and the same life principles.

Hal Miller is my buddy who lives in Albany. He was a doo-wop singer and a drummer, and he’s originally from New York City. He saw and heard both Coltrane and Miles playing around town—I love it when he talks about growing up at a time when he got to see these legends and others. I met Hal in the 1980s, and these days he’s one of the world’s leading jazz video collectors. He has such a dry sense of humor that you can’t light a match around him or things will all go up in smoke. Actually I think the word is
irreverent
—nothing is too sacred or holy for him. One time Dennis Chambers got all emotional over the music we were playing and got up from the drum kit for a minute, which was the first time I’d ever seen him do that. Later we were talking, and Hal said, “Oh, that’s not the first time I’ve seen Dennis crying. The last time was when he came home after a tour and walked in the house and said, ‘Honey, I’m home,’ only to find me sitting in his living room in his favorite chair and wearing his robe!” Man, we were all on the floor
after that, including Dennis. Hal comes up with those one-liners and pops people with them all the time.

That’s one of the reasons I like to have Hal come on the road with Santana. Sometimes he’ll sit in on congas, but he also knows our history and all the musicians personally. He can hear the band with precision and elegance from year to year. I love his ears and the way he finds the words to describe what is working with our music and what can be better. One thing, though—Hal does not hang with anything too spiritual or metaphysical. If the conversation gets too cosmic, he’ll say he needs to leave the room, and that’s okay. I know his spirit, and that’s good enough for me.

One more best friend I have to mention is Chad Wilson, my first security guy, who came to Santana around the time of
Supernatural,
when everything exploded and got so big. He’s from Ohio, and I remember the first time we went to Paris and had a day off, we were walking around, and he was like Dorothy out of Kansas, just frozen when he saw the Arc de Triomphe for the first time. Then he’d snap back, like he needed to be alert, and I was looking at his eyes and laughing. “Go ahead, man. Eat it all up—I’ll watch out for us.”

Chad’s been amazing to watch. At first he was a Metallica fan—which I am, too—but now he’ll put on
Kind of Blue
and really get into it. Like Rashiki, he came a long way, and he had to be the band’s punching bag for a while but he caught on in so many ways. By being around us, he realized that there are many dimensions to expansion, and he’s allowed himself to grow fearlessly.

Chad does much more than security now. He’s my personal assistant, companion, and part of the family—he’s godfather to Jelli. The funny thing is it took me around six months to be able to say his name right—my mom never could, so she just called him Ramón. When he came with me to visit her she’d say,
“Oye Ramón, quieres unos chiles rellenos?”
—you want some chiles rellenos? And that was it—he’s been hooked on Mexican food and he’s been Ramón ever since.

They say that if you go swimming in the sea and get wiped out by a big wave and you’re all confused, the thing to do is find the
light and swim toward it. When I kept going up and down after my divorce, the strength and gentleness that Chad, Rashiki, TK, and Hal all showed me kept me from going the wrong way and getting lost in myself. I learned to recognize how fortunate I am to have these friends, and their constancy and their strength of character, around me. From them I learned to take words of advice even when I may not have wanted to hear them.

If you had asked me about Las Vegas even a few years before I started playing there regularly, in 2009, the only thing I would have thought about it was that it was home to the Rat Pack and was a place for square people hanging in lounges. Later came performers such as Donnie Osmond, Wayne Newton, and Tom Jones. I would never have equated Las Vegas with the music of John Lee Hooker. The first time we played there was in 1969, with the Grateful Dead, and it was scary because you could feel what people who lived there thought about long-haired people—they weren’t letting hippies get anywhere near the casinos back then. It was a place to do a one-nighter and then get the hell out.

But things have changed in Las Vegas, and most of the people visiting there grew up with Santana—it’s their music. That’s the thing: I didn’t realize that people who would come to hear us play in Las Vegas didn’t necessarily live there. They would come from all over the world. Also, when we play there now it’s not like the old days, when you were nothing but background music that people could talk and drink over. Now we’re the main attraction, and what better place to deliver a dose of a spiritual virus that people can bring home with them along with the T-shirts and caps and whatever they win in the casinos? I really find no more of a barrier to what I’m doing onstage with Las Vegas audiences than I do anywhere else.

The Las Vegas thing for Santana started in 2009 at the Hard Rock Hotel, and by 2011 the House of Blues offered us a deal to do our show there. The House of Blues honors us by presenting us in
a way that is not shallow or synthetic—the facilities and technical people are professional, and they give us the kind of promotional support that the top acts in Las Vegas get. The same was true of the Hard Rock Hotel. The audiences are able to get up close, and I like that. In some ways it’s better than the stadiums and arenas because I can hear it if they want to get intense or request songs—I can know how they’re feeling.

When we moved to the House of Blues, we realized that the city could work not only as a headquarters for the band but also that it made sense for me to start living there. There were a number of reasons—we could save money by not being on the road all the time and not having to pay travel costs. The Mandalay Bay casino, which is in business with the House of Blues, provides hotel rooms and meals and airfare to get us there. Also, as a Nevada resident, I’d be paying a lot less tax than I did in California. The point again is not just about saving money but, as with the Milagro Foundation, to control where the money goes so that it doesn’t just feed the government but invests in real people and real institutions that can be of service to humanity in general.

The person who discovered this and made it all happen is Michael Vrionis, who’s now my manager. After the divorce, when the position of CEO of all of Santana’s business needed to be filled, Michael was able to step in and not be overwhelmed by the job. I knew his plan was a good one, because our lawyers and accountants immediately called me to say that I had lucked out—that this idea would save us a lot of money. Michael’s a veteran of the business world and speaks that language really well. He’s also married to my sister Maria, and together they make a really great team and keep Santana’s standards high. In 2011 we reformed the group’s management, based it in Las Vegas, and called it Universal Tone. In the end it’s not just a monetary thing. Michael’s been very good at maintaining relationships: he’s constantly staying in touch and keeping things strong with the main people at HBO and Sony Music—even with Clive Davis. In 2012 he helped start Starfaith, our new label, which the Santana album
Shape Shifter
came out on.

Today Santana is blessed with musicians who bring conviction and consistency. Benny Rietveld’s still our musical director and bassist, and his featured solos—like his blowing on John Lennon’s “Imagine”—are a big part of our shows. Karl Perazzo has been with Santana the longest, and his power and grace is our link to that incredible San Francisco Latin scene—he played with Sheila E. and even Prince for a while. I love turning around and facing him when we trade riffs on guitar and timbales. Bill Ortiz and Jeff Cressman make up the Santana horn section and also come up out of that incredible Bay Area jazz tradition. Bill’s recorded an excellent album playing trumpet over hip-hop tracks, and Jeff’s expressive solos on anything with a Caribbean flavor remind me of great ska trombonists like Don Drummond. Andy Vargas and Tony Lindsay are the voices of Santana, and between them they cover the full range of flavors—from gospel and gutbucket to clear and smooth—and they help hold up the energy, since they’re always right up front, on the edge of the stage.