Carlos Santana

and spirituality. Songs like Evil Ways, Oi, Come of a Soul, Sacrifice and Europa melded Latin melodies, jazz sensibilities and rock soul in the way that no one had before, and for my money, no one has since. Has A collective career got a boost at the turn of the millennium was Supernatural and Shaman, back to back albums that pairt him with a diverse blend of contemporary artists. Now he's back with a new album that's equally packed with friends.

On Blessings and Miracles, he joins forces with icons like Steve Winwood, Kirk Hammond, and Metallica jazz great Chick corea legendary songwriter Diane Warren, as well as fresh faces like Ali Brook, g Easy and Chris Stapleton. Among the many standout tracks is Move, the album's lead single, which season pair with Rob Thomas for the first time on record since the ubiquitous and immortal smash Smooth. I'm so happy to welcome the great Carlos Santana. I hope you enjoy

our conversation. Oh my goodness, I have so many things I want to talk to you about, but first off, I gotta kick off with Blessings and Miracles. I am such a huge fan. It is such an amazing album. Philip was such a cool, diverse group of artists. I mean from G Eazy to Chris Stapleton to your old friend Rob Thomas. I just wanted to start. How did this begin for you? It began? Uh, let's see, probably when I did forty nine songs in ten days, Rick Ruben, and they were all African songs, and a lot of

them we did. They went on the album called Africa Speaks with Weaka. But then some of them they went a limbo and I grabbed three of those, which is like America for Sale, uh, Peace, Power and Mother Yes, and I put him in here. So but we morphed them. You know, we like everything like a tree that keeps expanding, you know. I submitted a request to God, the Sweet Baby, Jesus, the universe, whatever you want to call it, but call it, you know. And so it's a bit of request. I said.

You know, when we did Africa Speaks, I knew there was not a single within ten thousand miles, you know, but it was okay. And so I said, well, now I want to do something different. I wanted something more like what we did supernatural. So I asked, I requested in the office I think tank within people who worked with me, give me the names of those sisters and brothers who have their fings finger and the polls they can get in the radio. And they said, oh, they

mentioned you know some here. They're about twelve of the one of them was Chris Stapleton. And I said, oh, and they go, but he plays you know, country music. I says, it's okay, you know, I can learn how to play country music. Uh. So, I says, why don't we call his manager and ask him if he would be so gritious to ask Chris if he would have eyes to write a song for us or with us, you know, And that's how we started. You can put it all this in a package. That divine intelligence was

orchestrating all of this to happen. Now, the artists I have yet to meet in person or shakings in person, because we're living in this era now of you know, when I started, it was records and then there was like eight tracks and casseettes and see these that and

now we zoom, you know, and we stream. And so because of zoom and streaming, where we're able to be in London or Kawai or Los Angeles or Sandra Fel and do it all and you close your eyes and we're you're right there anyway with them, you know when you play. That wasn't tough for you not to have to have that in person, you know, feeding off each other's energy. That wasn't an issue. No, No, because I was born with a really highly developed intense imagination, so

I can imagine them right next to me. I just closed my eyes and I did. I hear the music, and I know where where to play and where you know how much how much passion, intensity and fire to put on each note. There was a interview you gave recently where you were saying, you're talking about how all of your playing, and all of your solo starts with your breath, and you're breathing. I wanted to ask you

more about that because that that's so fascinating to me. Yes, you know, I think if there was, I don't know if they do this already at juillior school or any school of music. The first lesson should be how to breathe correctly? You know, how how to be conscious of your next breath, because that's where you find your identity, your your uniqueness, your authenticity, and your fingerprints. You know it sound wise, h A lot of people sound like

a lot of people. Very few people sound like themselves, you know, and that's because they don't know how to breathe correctly? How did you discover this? Who did you have? Somebody in part this to you or just from years of doing it? My father and my mother taught me how to uh feel it, how do how to how to own it, how to be present and lucid and in the first note in this moment in time, you know, I would I would say you know first as God

always that you know as well. My my mother and father, My father and mother, they were supreme instrumental and teaching me how to have conviction and charisma and deep awareness of confidence. Speaking of music being a family affair, I know you have some family on this record. You have your your partner Cindy, and your children Stell and Salvador both on it as well. Uh. It must be so fulfilling to have that kind of bond with with your children.

I mean, how did they wind up on on this record? Again? Devine intelligence, you know, sets up this. I heard his song kind of floating up in the ether, you know, and I said, oh, this is the second time I heard that kind of sort of I'm gonna share Salmon and see if I see who that is, you know, so I should Salmon in my son's face appears and I go, whoa, whoa, and I go, so I call, hey, Salvador, I said, you know, I found out that this is your song. I can't stop playing it for the last

two days. I wonder if it's okay, if I can put my guitar in the rest of the band in there and put it on my album. And then I swear, I hear the silence allomside, I hear your kidding. I'm not kidding, man, Please you know again, Okay, you know, that's that we talked about it. You know the same thing with my daughter. You know, she's she sent me this song. Uh, and and I couldn't stop playing it.

It just sounded like I've been to Europe since nineteen seventy and it's sounded like I was in Switzerland or somewhere in Europe six o'clock in the morning, walking the streets, and it's just so hunting. So again, I said, sweet, I can't stop playing your song. Over and over. I looked it, and I want to know if it's all right for me to put my guitar in it and put it on my album again, deep deep silence, and then I here, are you kidding? I'm like, no, I'm

not kidding. I wouldn't kids like that. So you know that's how it happened. Uh. There's defund intelligence who orchestrates for all of this components, including uh personal family, to present themselves in such a way that it's like a divine buffet and just have fun gorging you so we delight delightfulness. That must be so cool just to be able to as a parent, to have the music of your child be able to move you in that way.

I mean, I'm not a parent, and I've never written a song in my life, but I just imagine that was gosbe such a fulfilling thing to know that that that lives on. You've passed that on, You've given that that gift to them, and they're paying it back to you, and now you're all paying it back to all of us, all of us fans listening. Yes, we decided a long time ago by recognition that for us, it's not a job,

a gift, or a profession. It's a way of life, you know, from my father took his father's father, you know, the same thing with my son, you know, So we honor that it's a way of life to kind of like a someone who sells faucets, but the water is the same. People are thirsty, yeah, just you know, every album is different, fast fast facets, you know. But but what's got to be pure. It's gotta be good for you, fresh and pure. And that's how I see music like

pretty much like Bruce Lee said, become water. Where is the best thing that that someone who hears a song of yours can say to you, to to to thank you. What what's the best way, What's what's something that somebody can say to you that makes it all worthwhile. What what you know, their their gratitude, their appreciation. Is there one response that you're looking for when you play a song for someone, when people say your music touched me

in the place I've never even touched before. I was contemplating with intensity to commit suicide, and the melody of your ropo or some ampatit took me into a place outside my mystery, and I was able to I was able to smile and cry at the same time. And I knew that I was meaningful and magnificent, and I was worthy of my own grace and my own life. And I can, and I too can participate in life as a triumph, victory glory, not as a victim. So

they stopped, they stopped thinking like victims. It's really what it is, you know. So the music music pulls people out out of there a mental arrangement that you're not happy and as you're miserable. That's the best thing that people ever said to me, that music. And I hear a lot, you know, especially nowadays, there's a lot of people commuting suit with commutings with specially youngsters, you know,

So this music, especially this song with Ali Brook. If you listened to the lyrics, that's exactly what about This is a poster song for anti anti suicide. You know, if you get to the other side of the suicide, you will see that you are in our change and you can create uh, miracles and blessings at a whole lot of level beyond your mind's comprehension. What is it about music that makes it such an effective medium for

transmitting energy, positivity, and strength and emotion. Sound residence, vibration

assaults all your senses and transmogrifies molecular structure. It gives you chills, your hair stands up, tears start coming out, and you start dancing and you don't even know why, you know, and so music is kind of like the left and right hand of God, sculpturing you to remember who you really really are, not what indoctrination or world programmation is, but actually being liberated from all that and for you to remember and claim you are light, spirit,

and soul, those elements that are in you, and you are indestructible and immutable. You know, that's why music is so powerful, because it reminds you I was making a joke about Beethoven, you know, get out of your way, let God do it through you. You know that, you

know that's that's reutely what it is. But you know, like what you know, there's something about the inner voice when with Claria tells you or invites you, uh to stop investing emotionally on stupid stuff that is very limited, you know, and and uh accept your totality, your absoluteness and in shine and sore. Yeah, that's been a lot hard for a lot of people to do in the last eighteen months, just with everything going on in the world. How have you been able to sort of stay ground

and keep an equilibrium throughout the last year and a half. Well, it's like passing through a movie theater and not going in it and not watching that movie pretty much. It's incredible. You know, it's my choice. I mean, you can turn off the TV and only watch basketball and only watch

you know, excellence, brilliance. You know, read books that remind you of you know, uh, divine modum op a random code of conduct, you know, and so you know, there's there's very trying to true test that the things that you can do to not invest emotionally and stupid stuff is gonna hurt you and delay you'r date with date with divine destiny every day. You know, I read that you've been reading Joseph Murphy, the New Thought Minister has

written positive thinking books like Positive Mental Attitude. Who else have you been reading lately? In uh? In Lockdown, it's always Course of Miracles, the Auranta. You know. I take certain things, certain passages from the Bible that are not laced with Godzilla. You know, if there's Godzilla, then you can keep that, you know, my Goddess light, love, compassion and anything that anything that's promoting selling fear, that's Godzilla. And I don't I don't, you know, I respected, but

I leave it alone because it's not it's not for me. Uh. Well, I love when Jesus says, uh, God made you in its own image. Uh. And so if you make the effort, you know, I love this. Someone said that if you takes one step, God takes nine to meet you in the middle. I like that. I like that a lot. I've never heard that. That's that's what's happening. If people would only knew that, they wouldn't suicide as much, they

wouldn't yield to hurtful things, you know. Uh, And so that's what I'm here, man, I'm here to promote blessings and miracles from the point of elevating people to recognize the value of their own gift, which is uh, light and love and the blessings and miracles are within all of us. Yeah, exactly. No, I that that title really resonated with me. I wanted to ask you more about how you landed on that, because it does it that that sense really abused the record what you just said.

I mean, it really sort of kind of shines a light on all of us to remind us that, you know, we are divine and that we are able to have control over our own happiness in our own you know, on a day to day basis. But I do want to ask you more about where that that those words came from for you. Thank you for saying that. I say as much as possible that heaven and happiness are not at destination or a condition. It's a conscious choice daily,

you know. So you and the old thing people used to say, everybody wants to go to heaven, nobody wants to die, you know, at least say that, and we say, now I am mora alized than ever and I'm in heaven and I'm hired in an instruments. But how about that? Yeah, when you're when you're playing, when you're when you're making your music, and when you're sharing your gifts, what do you need to do anything special to get to that space? Is there are there any kind of practices that you do?

Are there any kind of almost hesitate to call them superstitions, But is there something that you need to do to get yourself to that mental space to be able to play? Or is is is it really just something that you can key in and out of. You're asking all the supreme questions. Everyone has a ritual. Every single human being has a ritual. Whether you're a housewife taking the kids to a soccer practice, or the pope or you know,

or the basketball players. Everybody has a ritual. And so I was telling people, you know, why people need a ritual because it is a way to meet up WiFi, hook up to absoluteness and to titity, you know. And what you're asking about when you take a solo, and then after the solo, like what I did was silent pati.

My headphones were like this, and you know they ended happened to my forehead in the background because I was moving around, but I didn't stop, and so I had because I was more conscious of not having the headphones fall off of me. I wasn't thinking about the song, and my fingers just did it, you know. So when I was when the song was fading out, everybody in the everybody in a studio with their mouth was opening. They were going, damn, did you hear what you did? Man?

And I'm like, what was it? Good? You know, because to enter the state of grace, you cannot remember it after you do it. If you do, probably not that good. Yeah. So so we invite people to learn like you learn scales, records and theory, and learn how to get in it, how to get into that state of grace. Uh they as they say nowadays, in an organic way. Never Dad, oh Man, you hear it again and again on this album. So many incredible tracks. I mean, I I loved your

work with Kirk Hammond on America for Sale. That's that's such an amazing song. I heard this story. I don't know if this is true. Did he bring Greeny? Did he bring Pretty Green's guitar? Yeah? You know, Greeny Greeny, and you know, we go back to seventy when Peter Green used to come over and hang out with us, you know, and he let me touch it, you know once in a while and he let me excuse you, expression you let me smell it and touch it, you know. And I knew that that guitar was like Merlin's uh

what do you call it? Caliber? Yeah, Sally exactly. You know, Yeah, he brought it, let me let me play it again, and uh, you know, I miss Peter Green so much and Michael Bloomfield so much, and of course the one where we all got it from just be the King, you know, he said, uh, he's the one that created the template, you know, bb King and Auber King and

Freddie King, you know old kings, you know. Uh So, anyway, being with Kirk and we were having fun because I said this to air Clapton one time when we did a Supernatural. I said, hey man, we're just gonna you're gonna have a conversation, all right, We're not gonna do We're not gonna do dueling banjo's. And he started cracking apt douling banjos because I've never heard that before. Because you're right, We're not gonna do doling banjo fain. We're

gonna have a conversation, you know. So it's the same thing with Kirk. And Kirk came out smoking man. He came out like a gun slander man. I was like, oh ship, you know. So I had to square myself up, you know, uh and keep up with his youngster, you know, because the stuff that he was putting put putting down was very vibrant, very very uh, you know, very fiery. So we had a ball, you know, and especially you know Mark. Um. I said, well, listen, we're we're gonna

call this other artist. I won't tell you who because I don't want to get any problem. But he couldn't do it, or he didn't want to do it or whatever. So I said, um, Kurt, do you know anybody who can sing this song? Because the one that we called he for some reason, he's not calling back. And he goes, yeah, I got just the right guy. And he's a it's

a good friend of mine. So with Marcus, a get up, and you know, I wanted something like because I love Metall like an ac DC, you know, I like that kind of energy, and let's separate you know, uh, you know I want that kind of yeah, you know that kind of you know. And and so so after Marcus to get us sing the first layer, you know, like America for sales, So I go, hey, man, can you sing it higher and more? Like mean like he goes, oh, yeah,

no problem, you know. And so when I hear it, I go like, man, we you know, I am so great that we found the singer who could do the two dimensional, the three dimensional thing and four dimensional thing um act with actives, you know, and believable because his his stuff is believable. Believable. You know. That's a bad.

So we're not we're talking about doing another album, all three of us, you know, but we're about doing an album with Eric Clapton Derrek Trucks in the Mexican about UFOs and Western music kind of like Good Bad and the Ugly No No No singles, just instrumentals. I told us to Eric, and he says, I mean I want to do that, you know. So so we want to enter a place where his Aero Clapton Derrick Trucks in Santiana doing soundtrack soundtrack for spaghetti movies and UFOs. How

have you started on that yet that sounds incredible. So you know I gotta no, I gotta submit the moths to them, you know, I just want to you know, I don't want tell anybody what to do or anything, but you know, you you you submit certain places, certain ponds that we can spawn. How do you do that when you're when you're um setting a mood for somebody for what you want? I mean, do you do? You send them words, you send them images, you send them

other sounds or or some combination they're in. I send them a mood basically like an eight bar mood. You know, you look, you loop apart from something that you love. You know, there's a lot of groups that I love, for Miles Davids or The Doors, you know, or Eddie Candricks, you know, from Marken Gay. You don't take the whole song. You just say certain eight bars and you say, okay, jump on top of this and make it north southeast

and west and this eight bars. Man, you know, like what I meant to say this earlier, I loved what you did with Wider Shade of Pale. Compotally reinvented that song. I mean, you and Steve Win, what I mean, see Win was one of my favorite vocalists ever. I love what you did with that track. It's was such It's one of my favorite tracks on the album. It sounds so great. Thank you for saying that, you know it's

it's really impressive to me that that I requested him. Uh, specifically, I said, Stevie, I hear you singing why do shade of Pale and Daniel Oregon? But when I want us to do it like African Cuban and Puerto Rican wahita really sexy, sexy, sexy, but do do do do sex? You know what? I And he was like, first he wouldn't look at me, just kept looking at Gary Clark. We were on stage hide Part front of ninety thousand

people with Eric and you wouldn't look at me. And finally when he did here, he was like, Carlos, I hear it. Are here exactly what you're saying. Yes, So we call our brother and I are Michael World and and you helpe is make the bed. You know. Uh, that's a very sexy sexy song and making them really happy is amazing. I mean it totally reinvented it. It's like here and for the first time, it's so great Oh, I love what you did with that. I mean, so many amazing tracks on the album. I mean to you.

I guess here's a broader, uh metaphysical question. Uh, do you find yourself making better music with people that you have a personal connection with or does that not really have anything to do with it? Can you just you can you bond bond musically even though you've never met them before, and it's just something that happens chemically in that in the moment when you have your instruments. You know, this this very important question because I am not wrestling

with that, but I'm crystallizing it. There's a lot of knowing now that I'm entering without leaving the body, the fifth dimension and the way I pursue everything. Then so then I'm aware that we are really are we really are, we really are all one. However, I'm still having a difficulty sharing music with someone who's deepest spool and self absorbed, egotistical, and there's no room in the room for both of

us or in this planet. So people like that, I can't I can't share because I can tell you know, if somebody, uh, if somebody is um not not feeling absoluteness he's just feeling me me me me me. It was like music. So see though music eagle me me me me me. I can't play with them, you know what I'm saying. Any anything like that, then I respect it, but I will not be in the room with that kind of frequency. Oh, I mean that makes a lot of sense to me. What was it like being back

with with Rob Thomas? I know you have a relationship that goes back quite a while. Is that like, you know, the old expression, just like riding the bike again? How that feel? We're writing something. I don't know if it's a bike. Uh, but it's fun, you know. He uh, I got a call I was telling you listen, I'm supernatural. Smooth was the last song. I'm blessing in miracles. Move

was the last song that was submitted. Again, you know, it just came out of the ether and Rob Thomas, hey, you know, American authors and I were writing the song together and and we pretty much completed and we won't know if you want to play guitar on it, I go, oh, I'm very grateful and honored. Thanks for keeping being in mind. Send it, let me check it out. So sure enough, here comes that seventh wave again, you know, and we

both get to right. I love the metaphor of being a surface that rights the way past the beach, all the way to the lobby, all the way to the parking lot, you know, and it feels like we did it again, or something did it again through us. Oh. Absolutely, I mean it's such an incredible track. Are you guys close outside of the studio. Do you guys talk a lot when uh, you know, when you're not working on music together. Yes, we we do, uh, Madissol and my

wife send it. They're very close, and and and so Rob and I we constantly, um, you know it just exchange uh exchange ideas, ideals, and you know, we have fun uh discovering the things that uh uplifted and motivations and inspiring sis. Do you feel that being curious is a is a crucial part of being a musician. I feel like there's so much emphasis somewhere to put your hands on the instrument, and I feel like being curious isn't something that's that's discussed enough. Yes. What you what

you call curious? I call it thirsty for adventure. Yeah, thirst thirst thirst per adventure to dive into the unknown and unpredictability. With enthusiasm that keeps you young. Really really enthusiasm that word people should teach in schools, music, music schools, you know, or any school, any school, university, or institution. Without enthusiasm, you're just sucking up there, like my teacher used to say, you know, usually by space and sucking

their man. So enthusiasm is something that we need, not only a church, but in the streets. Enthusiasm. Thank you. That's a that's a beautiful sentiment. I know this. This last year and a half, actually coming up on two years now, has been a really transformative time for a lot of people. Uh has it taught you anything new about yourself? The last year and a half of kind

of being more? Still, I suppose it taught me that with discipline again in devotion, I can acquire balance, equilibrium, and confidence to a whole other level, will be beyond being seventy four years. So I don't have to walk like I'm seventy four years, So I don't have to think like I'm seventy four you so, and so what I learned is that I have within me light, spirit, soul. It is very very uh I abrant with divinity and I'm able to do the impossible. Uh, what's the impossible?

You know? Jesus apparently, Lord Jesus um created alchemy, like from out to wine, you know, the greatest alchemy, and one of the most impossible things to do is to go from fear to joy, from miserable mystery to victory, you know. And so that's that's what I learned when when people were an incubation. I learned to master my thoughts to work for me, not for me to work

for them. I got a lot, I've gotten a lot closer to my subconscious than my predictable monkey don't key, Uh monkey and donkey they're they're really very predictable and pathetic pretty pretty much, you know, because they they always get in trouble because they insist on, uh going towards a misery ditch and thinking like a victim. And I find that boring, you know. I want the saving year old child that is still uh accessing, retaining purity and innocence.

Thank you so much. I think we're at a place where we want to just say that I'm very very grateful for you, you taking the time to invite me to be in your show, and we do invite people to how do they say, Maybe the heavens open up and the angels blessed each and everyone with the deep awareness of your own life. There it is the deep awareness of your own life. There, it is thank you, thank you so much, Sirrier inspiration to us all. It has been such a joy and honor speaking. Thank you

very much, bless you. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Inside the Studio, a production of I Heart Radio. For more episodes of Inside the Studio or other fantastic shows, check out the I heart Radio app. Apple Podcast four over you listen your favorite podcast