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AS ONE OF THE MOST CELEBRATED GUITARISTS ON THE PLANET FOR MORE THAN 50 YEARS, HIS EPIC CAREER IS ALSO A SPIRITUAL JOURNEY. “SOME PEOPLE PRACTISE CHORDS OR THEORY,” SANTANA SAYS. “I PRACTISE MAKING MELODY BECOME ETERNAL...”

Interview Jonathan Horsley Portraits Jay Blakesberg/Maryanne Bilham

People often speak about left and right-hand technique, but for Carlos Santana, playing the guitar is an act of mind, body and soul. He made his bones in the San Francisco music scene of the late 60s, his cresting genius consecrated with a legendary afternoon performance at Woodstock, whereupon he leaned into the psychedelic dimensions of an ill-timed acid trip to deliver a jaw-dropping set, bejewelled by a helter-skelter jam during Soul Sacrifice that opened up rock’s third eye to musical possibilities beyond blues-inspired sounds.

You can spot his guitar playing within seconds, that warm, quasi-horn tones of saturated overdrive, the conversational phrasing and instinctive modulation between major and minor. And yet it somehow accommodates all who collaborate with him, as proven on his new album Blessings And Miracles, a Zoom-facilitated all-star jam featuring Chick Corea, Steve Winwood, Kirk Hammett and more –a trick he pulled off to brilliant effect back in 1999 with the multi-million selling Supernatural.

African rhythms, Spanish guitar, Miles Davis and John McLaughlin, Hendrix and Beethoven – for Carlos, it is all one continuum. A true artist, he says, takes inspiration from it all. “As a musician, you have the nutrients and ingredients of many things in one note. In one note, you hear infinity’s breath.”