Episode 29: Carlos Santana part 2

Carlos juggles being a high school student in San Francisco during the day, flipping burgers at a place called Tick Tock at night and focuses on his music when he can. He impresses Bill Graham, the owner of the Fillmore, when he gets to jam on stage with Jerry Garcia, Mike Bloomfield and Jorma Kaukonen. Bill Graham gives him his business card and says “Call me, I want you to play live again.” But Carlos doesn’t have a band! Listen and find out what happens to Carlos Santana! 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Hello, baby, rock and roll. Thank you for coming back. Thank you so much for coming back. Thank you for coming back to Jay's Rock and Roll Stories. I am your host, Jay. You already know that. I think I'm going to tell you that this, I think this is going to be the last Carlos Santana episode for a little while. What I want to do is I want to get to the point where, you know, the kid from the small little Mexican poor town reaches the top of the mountain. Where he gets to this point. Alright? You'll understand when we get there. Okay, so let's go back a little bit. He's in high school in San Francisco. He has a limited amount of English. You know, his English is not so good, but he meets some friends to help him out. This is 1964. I want to share a little funny story. 1964, he has his first serious girlfriend named Dorian. He talks about how you know the sex was good, you know, the relationship was nice, everything was really sweet and everything. But guess who also had a crush on Dorian? The gym teacher. So when he shows up for PE class, you know, it's uh, you know, Carlos comes to gym and you know he's talking to Dorian, and all of a sudden gym teacher shows up and he's like, hey Carlos, um yeah, man, uh last week you you just you know, we gotta get we gotta get you up a little bit, right? Why don't you go do me a couple laps, all right? All right, man. All right, all right Dorian, hey, how you doing? So yeah, he was like just navigating this way, how to how to like you know flirt with Dorian. That's kind of funny. Anyway, all right, uh 1965, um Carlos meets uh Michael Carabello, who would become one of his main players, you know, plays congos in the band and everything. Stays with him in the band for a long time. Um another friend brings him a record and uh says, You gotta listen to this, and uh this is gonna kick your ass. That's what he says. This record's gonna kick your ass. And it kicked my ass too, because um I love it, I love it when this happens when um something that I read really, really changed me, and I I read about it when it changed someone else too. The album is called Um El Chico by Chico Hamilton. I want you this is uh like we might have a few homework assignments. Alright, so when you get a chance, YouTube El Chico, full album by Chico Hamilton. Chico Hamilton is a jazz drummer, um, but it doesn't like when I say jazz, it doesn't sound like what you're thinking of. It's it's something completely different. So put that on as a as a homework assignment. Like you're cleaning your house, put that on. El Chico, Chico Hamilton. Um, there is a guitar player in Chico Hamilton's band, um, I think he's Hungarian, his name is Gabor Zabbo. This is the quote from Carlos. He says, but it was Gabor Zabo's guitar that hit me hard. I heard that and I could feel my brain molecules starting to expand. His sound had a spiritual dimension to it, and it opened the gates to other dimensions to me. You could tell he listened to a lot of Indian music because he put a drone part to it. It was trance music. He could play the simplest melody, but still sound goes so deep. Gabor took me away from BB King, John Lee Hooker, and Jimmy Reed. And um I need to say that uh when I first heard this, this blew me away too because there's you you just gotta hear this. There's something really haunted or or spiritual or or creepy about the way Gabor Zabo plays guitar. Just put it on. Put it on, alright? Alright, fast forward to 1966. Um he's got a band together, he's um 1966, he's hearing about other uh bands in the bay. You know, we got The Grateful Dead, you got Quicksilver Messenger Service, you got Sly and the Family Stone, uh, you got Moby Grape, and he know and he hears and knows uh Bill Graham. Uh Bill Graham is uh the guy who put these guys to work. Um he's the one who uh opened up the Fillmore, uh Fillmore East New York, Fillmore West in San Francisco. Um so he's playing all over the place. Uh there's there's a story where Jerry Garcia from The Grateful Dead and Michael Bloomfield together saw Carlos Santana playing at a park, at a show in the park. And he said that they were both kind of like elbowing each other, like, dude, check this guy out. Um so Carlos is still very dedicated to the blues. He does some uh auditions for other bands, you know. He goes there, he tries out, and he's like, Well, who are you into? They say, Oh, we're trying to sound like the Who, and he's like, Nah, no thanks. Goes to another audition. What do you guys want to do? Oh, we want to sound like the 13-floor elevators. Speaking of, I gotta do an episode on that band. 13 floor elevators from Texas. Anyway, so he's like, No, no thanks. So, um, he's still a teenager. Uh, he's very specific about the blues. Um, he's still going to school. He goes to school, they mark his attendance, but he then he just leaves and does his own thing. Um there is a time when Carlo Carlos is going to shows, he's going to see live bands and stuff, and he sees Mike Bloomfield at like at a show, just like mingling and stuff. And he walks by Mike Bloomfield, and he says to Mike Bloomfield, one of these days you're going to know who I am, and I'm gonna cut you. And he walks off, all pissed off. It's kind of funny because like he talks about later in his life that he apologized to Mike Bloomfield like numerous times. Like, dude, I'm so sorry when I said that. Mike Bloomfield's like, dude, get over the guilt, bro. That was awesome. Like, I want you to cut me. You're awesome. It's it's it's kind of sweet. Okay, so how did Carlos get noticed? How did he really get noticed? All right, so there's a story where one night the Butterfield Blues band, um, if you don't know that, we talked about it with Mike Bloomfield. The Butterfield Blues band was Paul Butterfield playing harmonica, and Mike Bloomfield playing guitar. It's a blues band. Check it out, it's really good. Butterfield Blues band, uh the Jefferson Airplane, and Big Mama Thornton, who originally wrote the song Um Hound Dog, the song that um Elvis Presley got famous for. They're playing at a show. But uh Paul Butterfield, the lead singer and harmonica player for the Paul Butterfield Blues band, has taken way too much acid, and he's just wandering around the venue um looking at the walls, like if they're like televisions. Like he's just that that's it. He's done, he's in his own thing, you know. So a little like impromptu jam gets put together by Michael Bloomfield and Jerry Garcia from Grateful Dead and uh Jorma Kalkonen from Jefferson Airplane. So they're all kind of jamming together. Um, Mike Bloomfield is playing organ because his organist hasn't showed up. They have a lot of good like guitar players. So there's a guitar open like in a stan on the stage. Carlos is at the um at the venue watching this with his buddy Stan. And uh Stan goes up to uh Bill Graham and points to the guitar and is like, hey, can can my friend like join join them? You know, can can he grab a guitar and join? Bill Graham says, like, like uh I'm I'm not in charge of that, man. Go ask Mike Bloomfield. So they get closer to the stage and they and they yell to Mike Bloomfield, like, hey, can can can he play guitar? Mike Bloomfield says, Come on, man, plug it in. So Carlos gets on stage, grabs a guitar, plugs in, and it's just it's this great jam. It's him and Jerry Garcia and uh Jorma from Jefferson Airplane, and it's like it really kicked ass. And after the show, Bill Graham goes up to Carlos and gives him his card. He's like, Hey, like, do you have a band? Like, I I got a lot of open, open, open nights, open shows that you can you can be in. So Carlos is like, oh fucking shit, I really gotta get a band together. So it's like, let's do this, right? So um so he's still in high school, he's still flipping burgers at this uh burger joint called TikTok. And um there's this one time when he's flipping burgers, and this is 1966, and a limo shows up in the uh out of the limo is the Grateful Dead, like they just signed, they got their first album, and they get out and they come inside and they get burgers and stuff. And Carlos is like, I'm I'm not fucking doing this ever again. I'm not flipping burgers. He's dedicated, man. He's like, I'm I'm playing music. So anyway, before that, he's uh he's in he's in TikTok flipping burgers, and this guy comes in, and his name is Tom Frasier. He's a singer and guitar player that he that saw the jam, he that saw um Carlos with Jerry Garcia and all that, and he comes in and he tells him, like, that was so awesome. Uh why don't you come play with me? Um so they like a tryout, you know. Come check it out. So uh they jam in this like a country house out in this called Mountain View, which is like on the other side of Palo Alto. Um Palo Alto is where the Grateful Dead were originally from. Um so they got a big full room with instruments, like one of those Farfasa organs. And that's where Charlie, um that's where uh Carlos Santana meets uh Greg Rolly, who would be going to play the organ organ for Santana. So um the funny thing is that Carlos Santana is with his buddies, Danny and Gus. They're they're his players, Danny and Gus, are the players from when he was in the mission, they're they're they're together, you know. Um, and Danny and Gus remember Greg Rowley from being in this goofy band called William Penn and His Friends. And the band William Penn and His Friends, they all dress like you know, Paul Revere with the stupid hats and pirate pirate costumes and shit. They're like, come on, man, are we gonna play with this guy? So um Carlos is like, no, come on, let's give it a chance. So they form a band. Uh Greg Rowley is the lead singer, you know, Danny and Gus are still together. Um here's a weird here's a weird one here. Um at high school, he's still in high school, he gets he tests positive for TB for tuberculosis, and he has to stay uh for months, like in a hospital, in a bed, and all this shit, and it's like torturous because like the band is going out without him, and blah blah blah. Finally, he he can't take it anymore. He has his friends come, they rescue him, they sneak him out of the hospital. He doesn't have anything, he's he's clear. Uh it's like a secret mission, they bust him out, and he stays with his buddies Stan and Ron. Stan and Ron are like these kind of like hippie artist types, they're they're not like musicians really. Um, and the hospital is trying to track him down. Where is he? You gotta bring him back. And this kind of puts even more of a distance between Carlos and his mom because it just kind of separates him. He he's really not like getting along, but shit, that's how it goes, right? Um so with this whole thing about the TB being in that hospital, uh, well, number one, he got healthy. He was in the hospital, he got healthy, right? Uh, number two, it brought in a tutor to come in and and really help him out get a get his diploma. And number three, which which really saved the day, is he avoided the draft. Because every young teenage motherfucker was getting thrown away to Vietnam to fight. So, no, he was able to avoid that. Anyway, so he did graduate with that tutor that helped him, and he remembers, he tells his story about graduating, and he sits on the curb with some buddies that graduated with him. He remembers sitting on a curb with some friends, smoking a joint, talking about what they're gonna do next. One of his friends says, I'm gonna help my dad at the factory. Another guy says, I'm gonna join the Marines. What about you, Carlos? What are you gonna do? Carlos says, I'm gonna be on the stage with BB King and Buddy Guy and people like that. The other guys start laughing, like, oh my god, you're fucking crazy, dude. You smoked way too much of this stuff. Alright, fast forward to 1967. It's a big show, okay? Um he puts together a band called uh the Santana Blues Band. And they open for the Who. Uh, another they open um another band playing there called Loading Zone. So they're like the third third band opening, you know, but and they don't get on the they don't even get on the poster or anything, but still in the right direction. Um so from now on, they're notable Santana Blues band. At least they got something going, right? So uh that night he was playing so intensely that he broke three strings on his guitar, and he's on the stage, breaks three strings, he looks around. There's a stratocaster in the corner, and um he looks at it, and guess who? Guess who's watching him see this happen is Keith Moon, the drummer of the Who. That's their opening for. And he looks at Keith Moon, and Keith goes like, go ahead, man, take that guitar, don't worry about it. Go ahead, take it. So Keith saw it. Keith was probably like, I gotta do an episode with Keith. Keith saw this happening, he was like, Oh wow, this guy's fucking good, and broke three strings all looking around. Go, go get it, go get it. Don't Pete won't care. Don't worry about it. Pete, come on, Pete Townsend, you know it. Anyway, so he grabs a guitar, go on, play it, and uh it goes over really well. They they do an amazing job. Um, Bill Graham invites them to open for more shows. They're kind of like uh they kind of are like the guys to open. Like when Bill Bill Graham needs to fill a spot, Santana, get him in there. Alright, but there's one time, this one, one, one time, when uh they were supposed to show up. And Carlos and Danny and Gus, they're three Mexican dudes from um the mission, and they're still young, you know, they're very with traditional families, and there's one night when Danny and Gus's parents wouldn't let them leave earlier than they needed to leave, and they got there late. And um and Carlos Antana talks about how they got to the stairs to fuck, we're late, hurry up, to go up the stairs to the club. Bill Graham is standing at the top of the stairs looking at them. He just looks at him and says, You'll never work for me again. Nope, you're not coming in. Okay, so he uh Carlos Antana talks about how he saw Cream play their their famous show at um the Fillmore and um 67. Uh he's pretty upset about uh missing that that gig um with Bill Graham. He he's upset about pissing off Bill Graham because Bill Graham has been like, I'm helping you. You guys are good, I'm helping you out. And that that felt he felt bad about that. And he he talks about in his book how punctuality is a thing. Like his mom taught him, like, no, if you gotta be somewhere, you're gonna be there 30 minutes early. So it's and and he and he talks about how he practices this even today. Get there early. If you're in my band, get there early. Alright, so um there's like this final nail. I call it the final nail to shut the coffin on any insecurity about the identity of what would become Carlos Santana, Carlos uh Santana that solidifies who the guy is. Uh he talks about this acid trip that he that he had. It's a bad acid trip. Uh he's on he takes acid with uh Gus and Danny and his old buddies, right? And he's just having a bad time. It's just it's not feeling right, you know. So he calls up his his new buddies, uh Stan and Ron. It's uh Stan Marcona and Ron Estrada. They're just like they work, I think one of the guys is like a lawyer, the other guy's just like working in administration or something, but they're but they're they're professional. And but you know, they're they're in they're in the in the scene. He calls them up and he says, Can you please pick me up? Can you please help me out? They're like, Yeah, hell yeah. So they they go pick up Carlos and they take him to the woods, specifically uh Fairfax, which is in the North Bay, just to chill the fuck out. Get out get away from crazy shit and just chill out. The sun is rising. This is like, you know, they got there pretty late. The sun is rising now, and um what what's going on through Carlos' mind is that um the earth is is is dying and he must help it heal. Um he's you know, he's high as fuck, right? So he decides he's gonna dedicate his whole life to music, right? He's telling Ron and Stan, I'm dedicating my life to music. Ron and Stan listen to him and they say then then we're gonna help you. Like that's why they're friends with this guy. That's why they're friends with Carlos. He's like, dude, this this guy's good, he's dedicated, we're dedicated. And they say, We're we're gonna quit our jobs and become your managers. Uh but but they they say under one condition, he's like, Carlos is like, what? You gotta fire Gus and Danny. The Gus and Danny, the old buddies from the mission district. Carlos is like, oh Jesus Christ, why? Why do I fire those guys? Because they're not musicians like you, that they're weekend musicians. You gotta fire them. We'll we'll we're we got you, right? Alright, so he agrees. Let's do it. So um they they fire those two and they put together a really good band with kind of a mixture of talent from all over the Bay Area. Um Carlos has an another epiphany of watching uh BB King live at the Fillmore and just like seeing someone dedicate their love to the music. He's like, I I I I must do the same. I will do the same. Um I I just thought I just want to add this because I thought this was kind of interesting. So Carlos talks about the the fear and control and loss of control, uh specifically talking about uh when tripping on hallucinogenics. So he explains that um the reason why a person would have a bad trip, you know, would feel like paranoid and all that kind of shit is because they're not letting go. Just just let the trip take you. Instead, they're trying to exert control. I I I can I can control this, and that which will which leads to a bad trip. And he's saying the same happens when playing with live music. When playing live, don't take control, just let it happen, let it groove, let it go with it. I think that all kind of goes into the whole feeling of the universal tone. Let it happen, you know, it's right there. Woo. So um around the end of 1967 and uh the summer of 68, there's a place in San Francisco called the Strait Theater. Um it gave the Carlos uh the Santana Blues band like a Friday through Sunday. Uh that was like that was their spot. It's like a dingy little place, they show like movies, you know. You come in and sit on a beanbag and watch like a Fellini movie and then watch a band and smoke a joint, that that kind of shit. Um, but they do they Carlos says he does notice regulars coming in to see the band, you know? Like, and it's it's pretty cool. So um Here's a funny story here. So a kid comes up to uh Carlos and he says, You guys Santana? He says, Yeah, that's us. He says, You know, you guys are in the Sunday Pink section. And what that is, is that is the enter entertainment section of the San Francisco Chronicle Chronicle. This guy, Ralph J. Gleason, who was a newspaper's uh top um music writer. Uh, he also helps start uh the Rolling Stone magazine. He would name the top new like local bands, right? And uh like new new local bands coming up in the city, about 12 bands, right? But Santana was mentioned first, and this guy Gleason saying, Santana has the X factor of excitement. You know, the X factor, like you can't really pinpoint or place it. What is it? So after reading that, Carlos he he has like no idea what that means, and he goes to Michael Carabello, his buddy. He was like, Hey man, uh I'm still learning English, so cancel X Factor. Like, what is the X Factor? Michael laughs. He's like, Man, I fuck, I don't know. Like, uh, but who cares? We got it, we got the X Factor. Um around this time, uh they sort of worked music around the congas, like as like an instrument in the cent in the center, working around it. They create this sort of like Latin African blue sound, really embracing the uh the African clave percussion. Okay, what is the clave percussion? I think the easiest way, the easiest way to explain this to any ear, if you've been alive for the last 50 years, is uh listen to let's say I want candy by Bo Diddley. The clave is this. Listen, I want candy, bum but I want candy, bum but klave is one, two, three, one, two, I want candy, one, two, three, one, two. That's clave. So there's like a conflict though. So um, you know, they have the clave in their music and everything, but there's like there's also those rock and roll bands are saying, like, what the fuck you doing? What is that? That's not rock and roll. And then there's like clave, like, you know, um, like peerists saying, like, what the hell? That's not even what the fuck are you doing? So on this note, um Santana says about what he's doing. He says, Santana, the band, was never a peer bred. When it came to music, we were a mutt. We were a mutt. Um, at this point, they changed her name to Santana. No more Santana Bluesman, just shortened it to Santana. He goes on to saying that um they were you know using a lot of the clave, but not like the complete conception. Uh they were using other forms of like Latin music, you know. And he he he talks about how it took like 10 years to like get over this. Like, that's not clavic. Oh, that's not Latin, like that, like yeah, and it's stuck in this middle. That's not rock and roll, that's not Latin music, like that kind of shit, right? Anyway, 1968, they go by the band, they go by the name Santana, and they become they're still pretty tight with with Bill Graham, they won him back. Um, so they're opening for all kinds of bands, right? They're like like Bill Graham would call him like, oh man, these fuckers didn't show up. Can you open? Or oh, these they got busted. Can you open? So um Bill, like you know, Bill appreciates their music, Bill, Bill likes their hard work, and he gives them a place to rehearse, like a warehouse. Um, and he also emphasizes like you guys need to get a lawyer, get an accountant, and look at the band at like a business level. Alright, so here's a funny story. I I I gotta tell you this story. So this is 1968. Santana is playing at the film all the time. Whether they're opening, whether they're closing, they're just there. You know, Bill Graham loves them, right? Alright, so uh Carlos's sister is on the bus, right, going through San Francisco, and she sees a big billboard saying, Santana, live at the Fillmore at this date, whatever. And she goes home and tells mom and dad, and like, oh my gosh. And they get dressed to the nines, and so they show up at the Fillmore. Um, mom and dad go in. Carlos's mom, Carlos's dad go in, they see their son play. And you know, they're old school, you know. They they when they dress up, they probably look like they're from the 50s. This is 1968, right? So they're watching the band play, and they're they're proud of them. They're probably thinking, oh, this is way too loud, whatever. And they see um, okay, so you you you've got to imagine, like at this period in time, there will be, there was a person lighting a joint and just passing it around, right? So mom sees a guy light something, pass it around, and the mom says to the to her husband, she's like, Oh my god, they're so poor, they can only afford one cigarette. Please be in water, give them some cigarettes. So the husband takes out his pack of cigarettes and he's like handing out cigarettes. Come on, guys, we can all share. I thought that was really funny. Alright, so moving on. Come on, wasn't that wasn't that good? Alright, so Bill Graham is uh Bill Graham is working really hard to get the band signed. Um he likes Carlos, Carlos likes him, uh they work, they work together, and um and he Bill Graham complains about how, like, listen, you guys are great, but it's like you only play long jam songs. You you just play these long songs. You gotta have an A song, you gotta have a song that's like an intro, a verse, a chorus, blah blah blah. So he says, listen to this. I never knew this before. Alright, so he plays them a record. The song he plays for them, the song is called Evil Ways by Willie Bobo. Alright, do that. That's another homework assignment. YouTube Willy Bobo Evil Ways. There it is. That's what happened. Okay. So um Bill Graham also got Carlos Santana to play with Al Cooper when Al Cooper was making that live album and Mike Bloomfield couldn't do it. He got too sick, blah, blah, blah. And uh he was like, Carlos, you want to play with Al Cooper? He's like, Fuck yeah. We talked about this. If you don't know what I'm saying, go back and listen to Michael Bloomfield. Alright, so um, so do you want to hear the good news or the bad news? I you're gonna hear the good news first. Alright, so the good news is Santana signed with Columbia Records in 1968. Bam. They got it. The bad news is their Conga player, Marcus, the magnificent Malone, is in jail. Why? What happened? All right, who is Marcus Malone? Alright, Marcus Malone is a different cat to all the other guys. The other guys are like, okay, Carlos always talks about how he says, we're not hippie. We're not hippie, we're street. Uh, but you know, they still party, you know. But this guy, Marcus Malone, was like he had like like a fancy Eldorado. You know, he he he complained, like, oh, you stupid hippies, all you do is smoke weed and do LSD. I got my bitches to take care of. He was a pimp. He would like end like uh he would he would like have to leave practice early, like, man, I gotta get out of here. I gotta go check in my bitches. He's a pimp. So anyway, so um, what happened was Marcus Malone was fooling around with this Mexican lady, and this Mexican lady was not divorced but separated from her husband. So Marcus Malone went over to her place, fooling around with her. The husband shows up, big fight happens. Uh Marcus Marcus Malone ends up stabbing the guy to death and uh goes to prison. Um The sad thing is that the band, like Carlos talks about how the band was like, dude, the yeah, I mean that's expected, man. That's that that's his lifestyle. It was kind of like eventually that's gonna happen. But I wanna I want you to I wanna point out something here. About 10 years ago, that this was this was a touching story. About 10 years ago, there was a a news, a news story on live on TV, and where Carlos Santana was just like in a neighborhood, whatever, and he ran into like he heard something that triggered something, and he said, Hey, who are you? Car uh Marcus Malone was homeless, and they like reunited. You know, he was a homeless man. Marcus Malone was a homeless man, like eating food out of the trash. Carlos Santana found him and was like, Hey buddy, and like you know, I helped him out. And okay, there's another thing of Hallmark, YouTube uh Carlos Santana, homeless drummer. Look that up. It's it's it's it's pretty touching. Okay, so wow, we're going all over the place, aren't we? Alright, so they find a new player. I mean, Marcus Malone's in jail for killing someone, right? They find a new player named Jose Areas. His nickname is Chapito, he's from Nicaragua, and he really just settles in. He just plays the fucking congas like a motherfucker. He's just like, bam, he's in there. And they begin uh to record at uh it's called Pacific Recording Studio, this uh new facility in San Mateo. Uh that's where Carlos uh Santana meets uh Michael Shreve, who would become their uh new drummer. And uh this this right here will be the lineup for the first like three albums. Like the bam! Now we got it, solidified, got it, right? All right, let's wrap it up here. How did that band, how did Carlos, how did that band, how did Santana get to play at Woodstock? Woodstock 1916. That's the top of the mountain, my friend. Alright, so here's what happened Michael Lang. Michael Lang press pause really quick. Have you ever seen like the Woodstock movie? Just watch it, right? Give it a shot. Because like uh you you you have all right, you have to see anyway. Michael Lange, who is uh producing the festival, he approaches Bill Graham. He was like, Listen, uh, can you help me out? Like, I I I'm not really sure how to do this. Bill says to him, Bill Graham says to him, Okay, uh, you got a big endeavor here. I'm gonna help you with my connections, I'm gonna help you with my people. I know they they know how to do this, but you need to do something for me. What? You need to let Santana play. Bam! Santana's in there. Alright, so uh the this this was really cool. In the book, um Carlos talks about how so sweet. How how Bill Graham kind of sat the band down and was like, listen, listen, you guys, uh you guys are gonna become famous. You're gonna become really famous. And when you become famous, it's gonna be so weird that you're gonna you're gonna feel like you were always famous. Like so he kind of prepared them mentally, they he prepared them psychologically. This this is going to happen to you guys. So um they get uh flown to New York City, um, you know, they stay at a nice hotel, uh, there's like limos waiting for them and stuff, and they get to visit New York. And uh so the yeah, the concerts the concert's coming. Woodstock, right? So they're flown by helicopter out to Woodstock, and they see all these people. Holy fuck, look at all these fucking people. Um it's the same thing when we talked about the when we talked about uh Altamont, like traffic for miles, people are getting out, ditching their cars, walking. It's the same thing. So they get flown in to the venue. I mean, not venue, but you know, to the freaking field. So they land, and they're told that um when we land, don't worry. Uh there's like you're gonna go like three bands after the Grateful Dead. Uh it's gonna be cool. So when when they land, uh they get out of the helicopter and Carlos uh sees uh Jared Garcia. He goes up to Jerry Garcia and he's like, hey, what's up, buddy? Carlos explains, like, yeah, we're probably gonna go on like within a couple bands. And um Jerry's like, oh well, yeah, we're we're not even going on until like tomorrow. Like, oh well, they told us we're gonna go two bands after you guys. Like, oh well, alright. So in that case, let's party. So Jerry hands him uh something, and uh it's mescaline. And Carlos takes it. He's like, fuck it, I'm gonna be here for a while, let's let's do this. So uh Carlos is enjoying his high. It gets to the point where you know things are melting, things are turning elastic, you know, that kind of thing. And um it turns out that most of the bands that were supposed to be there at that time were were in that fucking traffic, they're trapped way the fuck out there. So the pro so the people like running the show are like, all right, raise your hand if you're in a band. All right, you're going on. It's kind of like that. Like they we don't want to have any gaps. Like, like get up on stage if you're here. So, wow, Santana is asked asked to play. All right, go ahead, guys, get up there. So without without any uh further ado, they grab their shit, they get on stage, they plug in, and um Carlos talks about this experience, and um he says how uh they were all close together, what he liked, because like you know, and sometimes in a concert, like everyone's spaced out, they were close together, which because that's how they did it out of concerts. And um, but right when they started playing, like that's when he hit really hard. So he's playing uh a Gibson SG, and this this guitar comes out of tune all the time, and this guitar that comes out of tune in his you know mescaline stone mind turns into this wild snake, and he's trying to keep the strings together. Oh my god, he's he's praying to God, please, God, I just want to stay in tune, stand in time, and he's trying to play the snake, and the snake's all over the place. And uh he does a pretty good job, and then you can see this. Um he talks about how this moment is is in the movie. Uh YouTube Woodstock Carlos or Carlos Santana. Wood Woodstock Santana. So he's playing the Carl the Gibson SG, it's all over the place, it's a crazy wild snake, it's like a rodeo. And they play for about 45 minutes. Carlos said that he doesn't remember like the first half of the set, but he does remember the end when they played a soul sacrifice, which was in the movie. You can you can YouTube uh excuse me, YouTube Woodstock uh Santana Soul Sacrifice and uh he says that uh when they finished that song, like the crowd was cheering, and they're walking off to the stage, and he looks back at Greg Rowley, and he sees this look of victory on Greg Rolley's face, like we did it! And he looks around and he sees Bill Graham looking at him and looking at the band and motioning to the crowd, like, look, guys, you did it. You did it. He looks at the like thousands of people. And uh he remembers Carlos says he remembers leaving that stage and telling himself, I'll never, I'll never trip again for something like this. I will dedicate myself to music. And uh that's where we're gonna leave it at. When he conquered that mountain, when Bill Graham proudly said, look at look at what you did, guys, you did it. So that's it for now. That's all for Santana right now, you know. Um I'm gonna tell you the truth. Uh oh, holy hell. I've had a lot of Santana throughout the last two weeks. Um, I'm very DIY. I got a lot of stuff from the library. I've been listening to every single damn Santana record. I bought, I found this uh Santana early recordings box set. It's like I'm done. I'm not saying it's bad, I'm just saying I gotta take a break. But I will come back. I will come back to Santana episodes later because his life goes through another change where he has this like uh religious uh spiritual change in him. Um he makes okay, I don't know if you ever seen it. You ever seen Carlos Santana wearing all white? He like cuts his hair really short and wears all white, and he's with this guy named John McLaughlin, and they're making albums together. It's like this, it's like this uh spiritual thing that they did. And you know what? I want to find out what the hell that's all about, and I will come back, I will come back and report on it, but right now I'm taking a break. We got to the mountain. We got to the mountain of Woodstock. So I'll end it here. Thank you for uh joining me. That was a long one. We went all over the place. Um you got a lot of homework to do, don't you? That's good, it's worth it. It's really worth it, you know? Um it's always good to visit the buffet of music. Speaking of the buffet of music, we're going to go on way on the other side of the buffet next time. I sp oh. You will not believe it. The next episode, it's gonna knock you out of your shoes. You're like, wait, wait, what, what, what pod? What is this? What are we doing here? No, it's gonna be great. Thank you for coming. Thank you for being with me. Thanks for being around and listening to Jay's rock and roll stories. Um I appreciate your emails. You know, I want to make a quick shout out to uh one of my listeners who sent me a nice gift. Uh this this little uh crafty little microphone I'm using right now. Um I want to protect his uh you know his persona here. So I'll I'll just say uh thank you, thank you, Casey. Thank you, Casey, for sending me this cool microphone. Anyway, you want to contact the show, you can contact me at uh Jay's Rock and Roll Stories at um what's it called? I don't know, you know what it is, right? Thank you so much. I'll see you next time.