Speaker 1: Do you remember your first ever music festival?
Speaker 2: I do, because I think it was the only one
Speaker 2: that I ever went to. It was it was Gloria
Speaker 2: Trevi's La Rossa Blue and it was at Western Playland
Speaker 2: where Celina and I random with them because I was
Speaker 2: obsessed with Gloriat Revi for like a brief. Well I
Speaker 2: still I'm obsessed with her. But what was I know
Speaker 2: that you love music festivals, and also what was your
Speaker 2: first one?
Speaker 3: Okay, first of all, I don't love music festivals. Like,
Speaker 3: who what are you talking?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, you're right, you're you're a concert girl.
Speaker 1: I'm a concert girl. I love music.
Speaker 3: I am not like a big music festival person only
Speaker 3: because listen, I'm gonna just tell it like it is.
Speaker 1: I'm a little bougie, Okay. I don't like Kraus.
Speaker 3: I don't like to be hot and uncomfortable, and oftentimes
Speaker 3: at music festivals you're like side all day, You're like
Speaker 3: super sweaty.
Speaker 1: There's a corda potties.
Speaker 3: Okay, like you you catch what I'm saying here, right, Okay,
Speaker 3: So I haven't been to like a ton of music festivals.
Speaker 1: I don't even remember.
Speaker 3: It was probably something like super local and very lame
Speaker 3: in like Dallas.
Speaker 1: When I was in high school. I'm trying to remember.
Speaker 3: I think there was one that had like a lot
Speaker 3: of like local bands, kind of like almost kind of
Speaker 3: like a battle of the bands.
Speaker 1: That was probably my very first music festival.
Speaker 3: I didn't go to like what kids go to now,
Speaker 3: which is the equivalent like Coachella or Bonnerou, Like, I
Speaker 3: didn't grow up going to music festivals like that.
Speaker 4: What would you say as a first music festival?
Speaker 1: Do you think it was here in the history of festivals? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it has to do Woodstock.
Speaker 3: No, I don't know, no for sure, because Woodstock is
Speaker 3: like what you think of when you hear the word
Speaker 3: music festival, and Woodstock in nineteen sixty nine would define
Speaker 3: the popular image of an American music festival for decades.
Speaker 3: The endless crowds, the peace and love hippie vibes, legendary
Speaker 3: performances of course, and lots and lots of drugs.
Speaker 2: But that's not to say Woodstock was a first music festival, since,
Speaker 2: at least earlier in the sixties, jazz and blues festivals
Speaker 2: had gone up in Europe and Stateside. Woodstock was preceded
Speaker 2: by rock festivals like Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music
Speaker 2: Festival in northern California.
Speaker 3: There was also the Monterey International Pop Festival just outside
Speaker 3: San Francisco, where Jimmy Hendrix and Janis Joplin's Unforgettable sets
Speaker 3: launched their careers on a wave of hype.
Speaker 2: Those earlier festivals drew crowds in the tens of thousands. Woodstock,
Speaker 2: on the other hand, took the festival organizers completely by
Speaker 2: surprise and drew about half a million festival lowers.
Speaker 3: To give you guys some perspective in present day terms,
Speaker 3: Coachella's capacity is about half of that.
Speaker 2: Imagine Carlos Santana staring out over a crowd of five
Speaker 2: hundred thousand people. He just turned twenty two a little
Speaker 2: under a month ago, and the band around him has
Speaker 2: only been playing together for a couple.
Speaker 3: Of months, and Carlos himself, as an instrumentalist, had seen
Speaker 3: little more than the CD bars at Tijuana, the bohemian
Speaker 3: streets of Payde Ashbury, and the moodlit stage at the
Speaker 3: Fillmore this was beyond his imagination.
Speaker 4: In more ways than one.
Speaker 2: When Carlos stepped on stage, he was fully tripping on
Speaker 2: psychedelics he had taken earlier that day courtesy of The
Speaker 2: Grateful Dead as Jerry Garcia, under the impression that their set.
Speaker 4: Would be later.
Speaker 1: I mean has that.
Speaker 4: I've been there, done that, but I diago.
Speaker 3: Rest Carlos would describe watching the neck of his guitar
Speaker 3: turn into an electric snake. Still he went on stage.
Speaker 3: What stands out to you the most, besides the trippy
Speaker 3: electric snake being on the neck of his guitar, what
Speaker 3: stands out to you most from Carlos's Woodstock performance?
Speaker 2: Okay, well two things. One, that crowd is is massive.
Speaker 2: It's like it's there's so many people. They they look
Speaker 2: like nothing. I've never seen that, Like, there's so many people.
Speaker 2: It looks just kind of like.
Speaker 4: It's distorted there. They look naked.
Speaker 2: But number two, back to the snake on the guitar,
Speaker 2: is his eyes are kind of closed the whole time.
Speaker 2: He's probably like nervous to look like as he's playing,
Speaker 2: he's like, eyes are really like tight.
Speaker 3: He's not here, Joseph, Yes, he's in another way.
Speaker 1: He's in like in a place of his zuch.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what did you notice?
Speaker 3: I just think the sheer level of raw talent that's
Speaker 3: coming out of him and spilling out of him like
Speaker 3: it's unstoppable. It's like, you know, there's people that are
Speaker 3: meant to do something right, Like certain people are meant to, like,
Speaker 3: you know, like be an amazing chef, Like certain people
Speaker 3: are meant to, like, you know, be a designer. This
Speaker 3: man was put on this earth to play the guitar.
Speaker 4: Like how crazy.
Speaker 3: It's just because if you just know it, like that
Speaker 3: is your purpose, and that is someone's You're seeing someone's
Speaker 3: purpose in front of you. It's really amazing. It's it's incredible.
Speaker 3: He's literally a child, like he's like twenty years old.
Speaker 4: He literally just looks so little on that stage.
Speaker 1: And I also, I can't.
Speaker 4: Even imagine what he was fucking thinking.
Speaker 3: Being in that crowd is my worst nightmare come to life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, and I imagine thinking that your guitar is
Speaker 2: a snake.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm sure people were thinking all kinds of things.
Speaker 3: That was not a sober festival. Let's just let's just
Speaker 3: say what is I imagine that for people that attended
Speaker 3: Woodstock And I've interviewed people about this before, it's like
Speaker 3: a life defining moment, right, Like it changed the trajectory
Speaker 3: of like who they are as human beings, like everything.
Speaker 3: It's like it's a life changing thing that only happens
Speaker 3: to you, like you know every so often. I just
Speaker 3: you know myself, I would have been so anxious, but like,
Speaker 3: get me home. It also took people like weeks to
Speaker 3: get home. It was like a disaster. There was like
Speaker 3: no plumbing, not enough toilet. Like right, I'm just gonna
Speaker 3: stop hating on Woodstock. It is not for me. But
Speaker 3: that does not mean that it was not incredibly epic.
Speaker 3: Let's just leave it at that.
Speaker 2: So we're not going to go back in time and
Speaker 2: do our research.
Speaker 4: There is what you're saying.
Speaker 3: We were not Unless there's a VIP box, I'm not
Speaker 3: going to Woodstock. Santana didn't get what you'd call top
Speaker 3: billing at Woodstock. The biggest draws at the festival were,
Speaker 3: of course, artists like Hendrix and Joplin, but for the
Speaker 3: crowd that got to hear the band, Santana was a revelation,
Speaker 3: and in a stroke.
Speaker 2: Of legendary timing, Santana's debut album would drop.
Speaker 4: The friday after the festival concluded.
Speaker 3: Santana, the band's self titled debut spent two years on
Speaker 3: the Billboard two hundred Pop chart, peaking at number four
Speaker 3: three months after its release.
Speaker 2: By the time the band closed out nineteen sixty nine
Speaker 2: by playing The Ed Sullivan Show, Santana had become a
Speaker 2: household name.
Speaker 3: This is the very definition of overnight success. Fortune had
Speaker 3: completely changed Carlos's world on the world of his bandmates, but.
Speaker 2: This title way those success would just as quickly be
Speaker 2: followed by rough waters and sinking tides.
Speaker 3: I'm your host, Lilianavosquez and I'm Joseph Carrio and this
Speaker 3: is Becoming an icon a weekly podcast where we give
Speaker 3: you the rundown on how today's most famous latinv stars
Speaker 3: have shaped pop culture.
Speaker 4: And given the world some extra level.
Speaker 1: Sit back and get comfortable.
Speaker 2: Because we are going in the only way we know how,
Speaker 2: with buenas bras, unasriesas, some cheesemay, and a lot of
Speaker 2: opinions as we relive their greatest achievements on our journey
Speaker 2: to find out what makes them so iconic.
Speaker 3: Let's rewind a bit after Carlos Santana's fateful Sunday matinee
Speaker 3: filling in for Paul Butterfield at the Fillmore the Santana
Speaker 3: blues band became a hype worthy act.
Speaker 4: A couple years before their historic set at Woodstock, the
Speaker 4: band got the opportunity to open for the British rock
Speaker 4: act The Who.
Speaker 1: But most of the band showed up late.
Speaker 3: Bill Graham, founder of the Filmore and eventual manager for Santana,
Speaker 3: shouted at Carlos, who had arrived earlier than the others.
Speaker 3: Santana would say, these other cats were just blowing it,
Speaker 3: putting Colonna on themselves and all this shit.
Speaker 2: Just weeks earlier, Carlos had been hospitalized for tuberculosis. He
Speaker 2: spent in his hospital stay having a series of bad
Speaker 2: trips thanks to his psychedelics, his friends and mates would
Speaker 2: sneak in for him.
Speaker 3: In other words, he was dying to get back on
Speaker 3: stage and this is the situation that greeted him when
Speaker 3: he did.
Speaker 2: Probably thanks to nerves, Carlos kept breaking his guitar strings
Speaker 2: on stage. The set would saved when The Who's drummer,
Speaker 2: Keith Moon, who had shown up earlier, passed him a guitar.
Speaker 4: Midway through Santana's set.
Speaker 1: It was Pete Townsend's guitar.
Speaker 3: The lead guitars of The Who, Carlos made damn sure
Speaker 3: not to break any strings this time.
Speaker 2: Afterwards, Santana's drummer, percussionists, and bassists were swiftly fired from
Speaker 2: the band. Carlos and keyboardist vocalist Greg Raley remained, while
Speaker 2: Carlos brought in replacements for the rhythm section.
Speaker 3: This opening gig was two years before Woodstock, but it
Speaker 3: would foreshadow just as much about the band's trajectory as
Speaker 3: that fateful festival set.
Speaker 2: We mentioned that the band that played Woodstock had only
Speaker 2: been playing together for a few months. That's because during
Speaker 2: the recording sessions for Santana's self titled debut album, there
Speaker 2: was another line up.
Speaker 3: Chain Damn, he changed his mind more than I do
Speaker 3: when I'm getting dressed. Okay, Carlos and Greg Rowley were
Speaker 3: disappointed with the recordings that came out of the initial sessions,
Speaker 3: leading them to once again shuffle the rhythm section.
Speaker 2: Thus the classic Santana lineup was formed.
Speaker 1: Okay, so here's the band.
Speaker 3: Carlos on guitar, Greg Rowley on keys and vocals, David
Speaker 3: Brown on bass, Michael Strevan drums, and Michael Carabello and
Speaker 3: Jose Cipito Adias on percussion.
Speaker 1: Side note, we know, it's a lot of names.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, so many names.
Speaker 3: Remember we're in the almost famous part of the story,
Speaker 3: so there's as many names as there are substances, big
Speaker 3: egos and dramatic gigs.
Speaker 4: Flash cards are encouraged, but we digress.
Speaker 2: All in all, the self titled record was the culmination
Speaker 2: of a total of three attempts to record a debut.
Speaker 3: Bill Graham, the scene promoter who had screamed at Carlos
Speaker 3: for his absentee bandmates during the gig opening for the
Speaker 3: who came on as the band's manager for the debut.
Speaker 4: Graham advised the band to record songs, not long instrumental gems,
Speaker 4: resulting in hit singles.
Speaker 3: Like evil Ways, You've got to change your evil Ways,
Speaker 3: bab something like that.
Speaker 4: Are you trying to tell me something.
Speaker 3: Early on nothing I haven't already told you at Happy Hour?
Speaker 4: Well you're going to get an earful at the next one.
Speaker 4: Moving right along.
Speaker 2: Santana, the record was a collection of punch your singles
Speaker 2: and free flowing yet self contained instrumentals.
Speaker 3: The band rocketed to success, but by the time the
Speaker 3: band had recorded their follow up Abraxas, Carlos had come.
Speaker 1: To find that success wasn't all it was cracked up
Speaker 1: to be.
Speaker 4: Abraxas gave us two more stone Cold Santana classics, black
Speaker 4: Magic Woman and the Tite cover Oyava. Listening to those now,
Speaker 4: you'd hardly know the band behind them was circling the drain.
Speaker 3: Carlos would reflect on the time, say saying I would
Speaker 3: turn on the radio and ABD Access would be on
Speaker 3: every station just about and I found myself more and
Speaker 3: more depressed, and I'd found myself crying. The band was deteriorating,
Speaker 3: and my friends who I grew up with were total
Speaker 3: strangers to me.
Speaker 1: We started sounding like crap.
Speaker 4: What is sitough? I hate when the friend group starts
Speaker 4: to fizzle.
Speaker 3: Well, the band did more than fizzle, as certain members
Speaker 3: of the band got more and more into harder drugs
Speaker 3: and Carlos continued to use psychedelics. There are Once legendary
Speaker 3: live shows started to deteriorate.
Speaker 2: Carlos would share that he would wake up screaming from
Speaker 2: recurring nightmares about his manager shouting at him saying quote,
Speaker 2: You're nothing, You're unprofessional, You're a piece of shit. He
Speaker 2: would walk around in a cold sweat.
Speaker 3: I gotta say it sounds like that opening gig for
Speaker 3: the who definitely left a bigger impression on him than Wouldstock.
Speaker 2: And yet the band is on record as saying Carlos's
Speaker 2: head had gotten quote as big as Humpty Dumpty, and
Speaker 2: Carlos agrees. So it's not like Carlos was the only
Speaker 2: non diva in the room. It was to borrow the
Speaker 2: hippie parlance a bad scene.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 3: I've seen enough movies about rock bands in the nineteen
Speaker 3: sixties and seventies to know that the toxic cocktail of drugs,
Speaker 3: egos and record deals is like puts a nail in
Speaker 3: your coffin, Like that is it that you're done?
Speaker 2: Right, especially because there's just so many cooks in the
Speaker 2: kitchen and everyone thinks that they're like important. You know.
Speaker 3: Well, obviously personalities I think play a huge role in
Speaker 3: that conflict. But I really think it was the rock
Speaker 3: star lifestyle that dominated the music scene in the sixties
Speaker 3: and seventies. I mean it's not like that today, like
Speaker 3: it is. It's just first of all, it can't be.
Speaker 4: Well, but there's also not really bands.
Speaker 1: There are what are you talking good yet? What there
Speaker 1: are bands?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 4: Who named five bands right now?
Speaker 3: The White Stripes okay, I mean that's a band. Okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 3: Mumford and Sons.
Speaker 4: Name good band?
Speaker 2: No, but you know what I mean, Like, I feel
Speaker 2: like there's just not a lot of bands circulating like
Speaker 2: there used to be, like everyone was in a band.
Speaker 2: There wasn't really like a lot of of solos. So
Speaker 2: like now I feel like there's.
Speaker 1: Mus is it muses a band? I don't know.
Speaker 4: I mean, are these people even relevant? Still? Bands don't exist?
Speaker 4: Who is a band now?
Speaker 1: Form about the Strokes are a band?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, okay, okay, Green Day's a band?
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, okay, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Are you modest mouse? I'm like trying to think of
Speaker 1: like old bands.
Speaker 2: Oh, you're right, but those are kind of old bands.
Speaker 2: But I'm saying, you know, you're still talking about like
Speaker 2: you know, Matchbox twenty, like you're still there. I'm talking
Speaker 2: about now, who's a band now? What new band has performed?
Speaker 2: They're all kind of individuals. Like a new band.
Speaker 1: Like Kirvana, not Pearl Jams.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, a new band like this time imagine Dragons.
Speaker 1: That's like a new band, isn't it.
Speaker 4: Gosh? Yeah, that's still like true.
Speaker 2: That's two thousands so I feel like Top forty used
Speaker 2: to have a lot more bands back in the day,
Speaker 2: and now it's.
Speaker 1: Just even like solo case.
Speaker 4: Now it's more single people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, Like nobody's like, Oh I love like the
Speaker 3: artists band's song.
Speaker 2: That is exactly what I'm talking about. More like that
Speaker 2: where you know, then the bands would break up.
Speaker 1: The band, I really do. I love a band. I
Speaker 1: love a duo. You know, I love Hollan Oakes.
Speaker 3: Oh there is a lot of drugs and there's massive ego.
Speaker 1: They just broke up. Saddest day of my life. I know,
Speaker 1: I know, no what.
Speaker 4: Wow, finally you're right, there's no more bands.
Speaker 1: I told you ends up being right. You're always right.
Speaker 3: And recorded one last album with the classic Santana lineup,
Speaker 3: Santana three. The album saw seventeen year old guitarist Neil
Speaker 3: Sewan joined the band and gave us the single No
Speaker 3: One to Depend.
Speaker 4: On, Oh Cut Steep.
Speaker 3: Santana three reached number one on the Billboard two hundred,
Speaker 3: a first for the band, but amid the band's peak
Speaker 3: success came peak pressure, and by the time the tour
Speaker 3: for Santana three was set to kick off, Carlos staged
Speaker 3: an ultimatum.
Speaker 2: He insisted that Carabello, the band's percussionist, leave the band
Speaker 2: or else Carlos.
Speaker 3: Would walk, and the band sided with Carabello.
Speaker 1: Bay started the tour without Carlos.
Speaker 2: Okay, I don't know what the beef was. You might
Speaker 2: have to hear about it from your local aging hippie.
Speaker 2: But when the namesake member of your band threatens to walk,
Speaker 2: how do you think the shows are going to go?
Speaker 1: I mean, your band is literally named Santana.
Speaker 4: It's you, it's your band.
Speaker 3: Too many drugs, bro, too many drugs, and the show's
Speaker 3: were terrible. Santana played several shows without Santana. La crowd
Speaker 3: understandably was pissed and shouted for the band to bring
Speaker 3: out Carlos.
Speaker 2: When Carlos finally returned to the band, he found that
Speaker 2: the two percussionists had quit, along with their manager at
Speaker 2: the time, Stan Martin.
Speaker 3: The rock band that put Afro Cuban rhythms on the
Speaker 3: map for American rock fans, found itself without a percussion section.
Speaker 2: But in a stroke of luck, not unlike Heath Moon,
Speaker 2: handing Carlos a new guitar. A percussionist who had recently
Speaker 2: seen the band live offered his services. The band would
Speaker 2: play another.
Speaker 3: Day until December nineteen seventy one, the group arrived in Lima,
Speaker 3: Peru for a much anticipated gig at a university, only
Speaker 3: to be detained by the police.
Speaker 2: During Prue's military dictatorship of the seventies, rock music was
Speaker 2: cast as an alienating and Yankee art form, leading the
Speaker 2: police to crack down.
Speaker 3: On the show, so the band's equipment was confiscated and
Speaker 3: they were banned from the country.
Speaker 2: Band in Peru would be a sick album title for
Speaker 2: a different group, but.
Speaker 3: For Carlos, the experience was a wake up call. He
Speaker 3: began to take more and more ownership over the band
Speaker 3: in its creative direction, beginning with nineteen seventy three's Caravan Sarai.
Speaker 2: More on that in a bit, but for now, suffice
Speaker 2: it to say it's a stranger, more experimental album than
Speaker 2: the record Santanna had put out until then.
Speaker 3: And Greg Rowley, the last remaining classic member of the
Speaker 3: band other than Carlos, decided that this new direction wasn't
Speaker 3: for him.
Speaker 2: Along with recently added guitarist Neil Shown, he took his
Speaker 2: leave and the two of them went on to form
Speaker 2: a Journey Don't stop believe.
Speaker 1: Like that's fucking crazy.
Speaker 3: I think they left the band and then went on
Speaker 3: to start journey. Like there's like certain cities that I
Speaker 3: want to go back to at certain times. I want
Speaker 3: to be in San Francisco during this era, like what
Speaker 3: is this nineteen seventy three, Like I want to be there.
Speaker 1: I also want to be in New York City at
Speaker 1: Studio fifty four, and so take me, let's go together.
Speaker 3: And Carlos didn't stop believing, but he and the rest
Speaker 3: of the band didn't forget either. The bad blood from
Speaker 3: the implosion of the classic Santana lineup would linger for years.
Speaker 2: Obviously, no one likes getting fired, but this was deeper
Speaker 2: than that.
Speaker 4: For some of Carlos's bandmates.
Speaker 2: This confirmed a sneaking suspicion they'd had all along that
Speaker 2: Carlos thought the band was his and his alone.
Speaker 3: I mean it's right there in the name Santana and.
Speaker 1: Two self titled albums to boot.
Speaker 2: All in all, the original lineup wouldn't reunite for another
Speaker 2: recording until four decades later.
Speaker 3: For the moment Carlos was alone before the break, we
Speaker 3: mentioned Santana's last album with the remaining members of the
Speaker 3: classic lineup Cara van Sarat.
Speaker 2: Starting with this album, Carlos began to embrace more free
Speaker 2: form jazz, fusion and the tradition of heroes like John Coltrane.
Speaker 1: He also let his spiritual flag fly.
Speaker 3: The inner cover of the vinyl album carried a poem
Speaker 3: from Hindu American monk Para Mahansa Yogananda, reading.
Speaker 2: The body melts into the universe, The universe melts into
Speaker 2: the soundless voice, The sound melts into an all shining light,
Speaker 2: and the light enters the bosom of infinite joy.
Speaker 1: Career Suicide.
Speaker 3: That's what the Columbia Records president told Carlos Santana upon
Speaker 3: hearing the record.
Speaker 2: Okay, this feedback was a bit harsh and not totally accurate.
Speaker 4: The album reached number eight on the Billboard two hundred,
Speaker 4: a step down from the chart topping success of Santana three,
Speaker 4: but not quite Career Suicide.
Speaker 3: Still, Santana's complete departure from pop rock soundcraft did put
Speaker 3: him in a lower rung than before.
Speaker 2: But hey, maybe that's okay, right. The band got way
Speaker 2: too big, way too fast. A smaller spotlight can be
Speaker 2: a good thing. Sometimes, you know, you don't need the
Speaker 2: spotlight on you because you just feel like you also
Speaker 2: just are alienated and it's okay, I take a step yeah,
Speaker 2: but there's more even light on other people.
Speaker 3: I think for somebody who has that like big first
Speaker 3: brush with fame, it can almost like get in your head, right,
Speaker 3: and it can create some like roadblocks.
Speaker 1: And I also think just some like Foster syndrome moments
Speaker 1: for you. And I think that taking.
Speaker 3: A step back and kind of being like wait, as
Speaker 3: I let me figure my shit out, let me like
Speaker 3: try and like go back to what I love and
Speaker 3: who I am. Let me like let me center, right.
Speaker 3: So I think that's all it is. Like taking a
Speaker 3: step back isn't back. It's like lateral, right, because they're like, oh,
Speaker 3: they took a step back, Like nobody went back, like
Speaker 3: you have the success that you're going to have, like
Speaker 3: you have the raw gifts that God gave you, Like
Speaker 3: no one's going a step back. I think it's a
Speaker 3: lateral step and I think it's more of like a
Speaker 3: centering type step versus like a step back.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense totally?
Speaker 2: And also yeah, and I think that at that time,
Speaker 2: you know, he didn't have anybody to kind of talk
Speaker 2: to remind him of the greatness that.
Speaker 1: He could just kind of abandon by.
Speaker 4: Really level out and start again.
Speaker 1: He was he was literally.
Speaker 4: Well for probably for a reason. You don't leave that.
Speaker 2: Not everybody is going to fucking leave you, you know, like everybody,
Speaker 2: So he needs this time to start.
Speaker 4: Everyone does.
Speaker 3: As a famous figure, Carlos had been to the mountaintop,
Speaker 3: but emotionally and spiritually he had been under the ocean.
Speaker 1: He was ready for that to change.
Speaker 2: In the early seventies, he began to practice a fasting
Speaker 2: and praying. He read every book about Eastern mysticism and
Speaker 2: philosophy he could.
Speaker 3: Get his hands on, and around the same time he
Speaker 3: would meet the woman he'd call his wife, Deborah King.
Speaker 4: The daughter of blues musician Sanders King.
Speaker 2: Debra spotted Carlos from across the room at Tower of
Speaker 2: Power concert.
Speaker 3: Carlos would say that the first time she came to
Speaker 3: his house, she smelled like something he wanted to wake
Speaker 3: up next to for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1: Wait, that's all get cute.
Speaker 4: A lot of people tell me that I'm serious.
Speaker 2: Well wait, but Deborah wasn't the only person Carlos would
Speaker 2: meet who would leave an impact on his life.
Speaker 3: In nineteen seventy two, Carlos and Deborah together embraced the
Speaker 3: teachings of a Guru three chin Mooi.
Speaker 2: Under Chinoy's regimen, Carlos and Deborah cut their hair, took
Speaker 2: on spiritual names Deva Deep and Urmila, respectively, and followed
Speaker 2: a strict regimen of vegetarianism and abstinence from drugs.
Speaker 3: Carlos would describe it as a West Point approach to spirituality.
Speaker 3: Followers of gin Mooi would wake up at five o'clock
Speaker 3: in the morning to meditate on a picture of the Guru.
Speaker 2: Debora and Carlos would compete with each other to prove
Speaker 2: their devotion, seeing who could run longer, who could sleep
Speaker 2: the least and still function.
Speaker 1: If this sounds a bit alarming.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean yeah no, that's a call.
Speaker 3: Yo, That's like a Netflix special ready to play, right?
Speaker 3: And what's more, when Carlos volunteered his guitar playing to
Speaker 3: help with meditation sessions, Ginoy's group would promote the sessions
Speaker 3: as Santana performances.
Speaker 2: Despite all this, Carlos considered Chimoy to be a divine figure,
Speaker 2: literally at the seat of God.
Speaker 3: His words, Carlos and De would remain a part of
Speaker 3: Chinmoy's following for nine years.
Speaker 2: Until one day the Guru said something Carlos couldn't abide.
Speaker 2: In the middle of preaching, CHINOI went on a homophobic
Speaker 2: tirade about champion tennis player Billy Jean King.
Speaker 3: You know those gurus are always trouble hating.
Speaker 1: Avoid them always, and that's not.
Speaker 3: Carlos right out of it, He and Deborah left Chinmoy behind.
Speaker 2: Then Chinmoi forbid all of Carlos's friends within the following
Speaker 2: from contacting him. The Guru said that Carlos quote was
Speaker 2: to drown in the dark sea of ignorance for leaving him.
Speaker 3: Okay, coming out of a non toxic person's mouth, that
Speaker 3: would be a hell of a breakup.
Speaker 4: Line death, saving that one for next time, Damien.
Speaker 3: Having been excommunicated from the cult of Chinmoy, Carlos was
Speaker 3: again alone.
Speaker 2: He had released a number of studio albums under the
Speaker 2: Santana Moniker following the exit of his classic lineup. The
Speaker 2: first four records, Welcome, Barboletta, Amigos and Festival, expanded on
Speaker 2: the more experimental jazz fusion sounds of nineteen seventy two's
Speaker 2: Cara Mount Serai.
Speaker 3: Despite the more modest commercial success, these four were well
Speaker 3: praised by critics. Then came nineteen seventy eight's Inner Secrets,
Speaker 3: which was a return to rock.
Speaker 2: It did a bit better on the radio than its predecessors,
Speaker 2: but as Santana entered the eighties, Carlos saw the group's
Speaker 2: relevance fading.
Speaker 3: Santana's album slid farther and farther down the charts. Come
Speaker 3: eighty five, the group attempted to emulate the popular synth
Speaker 3: driven rock of the time with the album Beyond Appearances.
Speaker 3: When I listened to the first track off this album,
Speaker 3: I was so confused.
Speaker 1: It was like, this can't be Santana.
Speaker 3: If I wasn't doing research for the show and listening
Speaker 3: for that purpose, i'd have been like, Oh, that's some
Speaker 3: like long forgotten about eighties band that no one cares.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's what exactly it's giving.
Speaker 1: You know, It's just that I hear it.
Speaker 3: But it just goes to show you, like authenticity is
Speaker 3: so important and central to your success, Like, don't be
Speaker 3: Santana trying to cover eighties scynth, Like, just be Santana.
Speaker 1: The people will find you.
Speaker 2: They you know, because your sound is unique and people
Speaker 2: want you for you, and I feel like this, this
Speaker 2: does not.
Speaker 1: Do him service. It's like a just service.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: If he would have made this, I hate you if
Speaker 2: he would have made this for like the Olympics, almost right,
Speaker 2: like the Olympics commercial.
Speaker 4: It just sounds so sporty, don't you think?
Speaker 3: It's just definitely not what I think of when I
Speaker 3: think of the classic Santana sound like.
Speaker 4: It's just this should have been on Rocky or some
Speaker 4: like weird cheesy.
Speaker 1: Movie, some eighties cheeseball movies.
Speaker 4: He totally.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, beyond appearances, was Santana's worst performing album yet. On
Speaker 2: the next album, nineteen eighty seven's Freedom, Santana attempted a
Speaker 2: course correction and returned to the original Latin rock sound,
Speaker 2: but the public wasn't interested.
Speaker 1: Carlos Santana was once on the mountaintop. Now he was
Speaker 1: wandering the desert.
Speaker 2: And it would take a mystical vision to show him
Speaker 2: the way out.
Speaker 3: On the next Becoming an Icon, Santana gets supernatural and
Speaker 3: re enters the charts. Becoming an Icon is presented by
Speaker 3: Sonoo and Iheart's Michael Durda. Podcast Network Listen to becoming
Speaker 3: an icon on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Speaker 1: Podcast or wherever you get your podcast.