I always loved the sound of Carlos Santana’s fluid guitar with rattling Latin percussion and flowing Hammond organ runs.
In January 2000 I was invited to a ‘secret’ gig by Santana at a tiny club. I had not listened to him, or heard of him, since my school days when Abraxas was a popular album.
It was an invitation-only gig at the Tabernacle in Notting Hill in 1999, filled with celebs like Kate Moss, who had probably never heard of him, let alone listened to his records, and journalists like me and my friend Matthew Wright, who were both fans from our youths.
In the bar before the gig began I was excited to spot a Latin-looking man with an impressive moustache and curly black hair, assuming him to be Senor Santana three decades after I had last seen a photo of him. He wasn’t.
He said he was a Santana superfan who had seen their first ever UK show at the Albert Hall back in 1970, and said he had been lucky enough to get invited to this one on account of his daughter.
“Oh, are you a fan too?” I asked the early-20s woman beside him, wearing baggy combat trousers and a halterneck top. “Not really, but Dad loves them,” she replied, rolling her eyes. “He played their records every day when I was growing up.”
At this point I realised that not only was her father not Carlos Santana but that she was Melanie Blatt of the then popular girl group All Saints. I also remember that she stood directly behind me during the show as my companion and I indulged in a little mood enhancement, and nudged me at one point to say she wished she could join us, were her father not with her.
It was a fantastic little show that brought back many memories of listening to Santana some 30 years earlier. And after I published my enthusiastic review of the evening, Santana’s people sent me a framed gold disc of the subsequent album, Supernatural.
Carlos, whom I had always assumed to be Brazilian but turns out to be Mexican-American, didn’t play this but it would have been lovely if he did.