Blues

Secrets of the Guitar Heroes: Carlos Santana

From the latest issue of Rolling Stone which has a special feature on great guitar songs and guitarists, an interesting (as is usually the case) interview with music legend Carlos Santana.

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You were born in Mexico, your father was a mariachi violinist, and you played the violin before taking up the guitar. Did you feel torn between the old and new when you discovered electric blues?
I don’t disrespect tradition. But it is not going to hold me back. John Lee Hooker, Lightnin’ Hopkins and Jimmy Reed — that was something I needed. I started with those three gentlemen, because they were the ultimate in simplicity. They make it look simple. But if you try to play like John Lee Hooker or Jimmy Reed, it’s not that easy.

I joined my father in the streets, playing boleros. But I had my ear on Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Bo Diddley, on B.B. King and T-Bone Walker. There was nothing plastic about those guys. They went deep, and each note carried something important. I knew, from a long time ago, the difference between notes and life. I’d rather play life than notes. It’s OK to learn how to read music. It’s not going to hurt you. You can go to the Berklee College of Music. But they do not teach you how to play life.

As a teenager in San Francisco, you went to many early Fillmore shows. Who were some of the guitarists you first saw there?
The same people Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page were into — Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, Freddie King and Albert King — and Michael Bloomfield and [Fleetwood Mac's] Peter Green. Even before Jimi Hendrix came out in ‘67, Bloomfield was hitting it hard with Paul Butterfield’s band on things like East-West. It was a different kind of blues, even for white people. When you closed your...

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