Santana

A Woodstock revelation, Carlos Santana has built his life to the rhythm of a spicy rock, imbued with the soft colours of Latin music. With his great guitar flights, it's a certainty: this philanthropist, influenced by John Coltrane and Miles Davis, hasn't finished getting high yet.

"If you can talk to birds, you can talk to men. This luminous phrase, breathed by his father, resounds every day in Carlos Santana's head. Of course, it is impossible to verify whether his guitar flights touch the guardians of the sky. What we do know, however, is that this Californian Chicano, with sounds of a thousand colours, has shaken the free and gently rebellious souls of Woodstock. For on that summer day in 1969, the Latin-rock pope, then unknown to the battalion, conquered and convinced, gracefully mesmerising a crowd as far as the eye could see. Gliding over the ropes: with his snake-eyed Gibson, it is obvious to the world: this guy is a genius.

Since then, the guitarist has cemented his status as a gifted rock musician. Drugs less, wisdom more, the child from Jalisco, who arrived in the States as a teenager, never intended to rest on his laurels. Music is his life, his work, his faith, and he defies time and labels to sculpt sounds full of innovation. 

When you say that Santana is apart, it is not just a formula for style. His instrumental flights of fancy are his prayers, his musical excursions into Latin lands, his ritual. Nourished by spirituality, this rock genius, adulated by the press, idolised by the public, mixes influences as peoples meet. North America embraces Mexico in a utopia where people live together, regardless of their skin colour.