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]]>Alex Ligertwood grew up in Glasgow. Scotland, in a musical family. Though he didn’t have any formal training in music, he soon found himself caught up in the music scene, and in a band with the late Robbie McIntosh (drummer and founder of the Average White Band).
“Robbie and I went to Italy with an all-Scottish band,” Alex explains. “We had a soul band in the early ’60s The city I came from was a big R&B city. It was pretty violent, and it spawned the blues. A lot of musicians got very involved in the blues and R&B, and it just seemed to fit the lifestyle that they had.”
The names of Alex’s earliest bands may not ring many bells on this side of the Atlantic, but groups like Piranhas and Ceccarelli were among the finest progressive European bands of the day. Alex also spent some time with Jeff Beck.
“When I left Piranhas, I heard that Jeff Beck was looking for a bass player,” he recalls. “I play bass as well, so I went down to audition. When I got there, someone had already gotten the job, so they asked me if I could sing. That was more in my line, so I got the gig as a singer.”
Alex stayed with Beck for only five months before Robbie McIntosh helped him land a job with Brian Auger & the Oblivion Express in 1971. Playing with Auger held an extra incentive for Alex. As he explains, “Brian was coming to the States, and that had always been an ambition of mine. Especially for a musician, if you really want to do anything and progress, this is really the only country where you can do it. It’s very difficult in Europe.”
The Oblvion Express toured all over the U.S., traveling to every state except Maine and Alaska. Alex recorded four albums with Auger, including Second Wind, Live At The Whisky, Reinforcements, and Happiness Heartaches. During the band’s touring, they opened shows for Return to Forever and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, among others. Alex met Mahavishnu drummer Narada Michael Walden during this time, and later, when Walden was forming his own touring band and learned the Oblivion Express was dissolving, he immediately called Alex to join him.
Alex spent much of 1977 touring with Narada’s band, opening shows for the CBS All-Stars. Then. in 1978, Alex got a call from composer-instrumentalist David Sancious, former keyboardist for the E Street Band. Sancious had been unable to find a vocalist capable of handling the range of melody and tone needed for his album, True Stories. Alex was up to the challenge, and completed the vocal tracks in one week.
“To be able to do something for a musician of this calibre is so rewarding,” he says. “That music was intense. It was a new thing for me, a beginning. It bordered on everything I had touched on before in my career—a little touch of jazz. rock and roll, Al Green. And it was as if he’d written all of the songs exactly for me. They were all in my register, all within my range. It was amazing.” Alex worked with Sancious for just over a year, touring the East Coast and playing a two-week tour of England. The day after he got back from England. he got a call to come to San Francisco and try out for Santana.
“That was Narada’s doing, I’m sure,” Alex says with a smile. “Narada and Sainbliaya [Walden’s manager] recommended me to Devadip, which was real nice. It made me feel real good that my friends would think of me like that.”
Alex joined Santana in time for last year’s Marathon album, contributing lyrics to four times as well as becoming the band’s new voice. He also made a vocal appearance on Devadip’s Swing Of Delight album. Santana has continued to tour extensively, and with the departure of Chris Solberg from the band, Alex has become the second guitarist onstage.
On the new Santana album, Zebop, Alex plays guitar on two songs in addition to his vocal chores. Bill Graham produced the just-released LP, and as Alex explains, “He really made it his baby. It was like he joined the band. He gave us a lot of input about the marketing side of it. We gave him our best. and he gave us the best of his mind. It was a good experience for us, and I think a good experience for him.
“We’re trying to appeal to the young market. you know. keeping up with the times,” he continues, “and not trying to be too aesthetic. There’s a lot of music on Zebop everything from J.J. Cale, to blues, to African music.”
With a vocal range covering nearly four octaves, Alex is able to use his voice in many different ways. And he feels that a vocalist should not limit his range or his use of tones. “I‘m still young, still developing.” he says. “My idea of a vocalist is that he’s a musician; his voice is his instrument. And every song should have its own thing. Just like you can change the tones on a guitar, I can change the tone on my voice, and sing the song the way it should be. I’m really into that, and using my voice as much as possible.”
This is the dimension that Alex Ligertwood adds to Santana. He does not feel separated from the musicians, but rather like one of them. And he hopes he can inspire people, just as he sees Devadip Carlos Santana inspiring.
“I don‘t like to put myself in a position of being a frontman in a band like Santana.” he says. “I’m very capable of doing it. I‘ve been doing it for years, but I’m really a band guy. I’ve always had a guitar around my neck. because I‘ve always been not just a singer. but a musician in the band.”
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]]>After Show
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]]>SAN FRANCISCO — “I still feel like I just landed in this country from Tijuana, and it’s been like a non—stop Disneyland,” says Carlos Santana, checking the incense that burns nearby as he sits cross-legged on the floor. “I’m a kid and I’m having a lot of fun.” Santana has had a busy week, doing a flurry of interviews and spending a day on Baker Beach filming the video of “I’m The One Who Loves You,” an old Curtis Mayfield tune that is the second single from his new album, Beyond Appearances. In two days the guitarist leaves on a US tour in support of the record, with what is estimated as the 32nd incarnation of the Santana band.
“Sometimes it seems like fantasy, but I don’t mind,” he continues, “I don’t mind if fantasy can be this good. A lot of times people live in reality and it’s all negative and destruction and they don’t trust anybody. If that’s reality then I’d rather be in this kind of fantasy, where I can talk to John Lee Hooker and B.B. King and be their friend.”
There may not be a better testament to Santana’s ability as a bandleader than Beyond Appearances. It’s not his most experimental record, that’s for sure. With Val Garay, producer of hits with The Motels, Kim Carnes and Joan Armatrading, the 1985 Santana is trying to reach a mass audience. Where Carlos would usually just take the band in and do it, here he is using all recording options available. “We go to LA every seven, eight years to do that. Val Garay was a big part of that,” says Carlos. “Mainly because I don’t listen to the radio as much as I used to, so it’s important to have somebody that does listen to the radio, like a Val Garay. He helped out a lot. And I did have a lot of fun with (drummer) Chester Thompson, (bassist) Alphonso Johnson, and (keyboardist) David Sancious.”
Carlos figures it was either Bill Graham or co—manager Ray Etzler who picked the producer. “They’re too chicken to produce it by them-selves, you know,” Santana jokes. “The last one he (Graham) produced was Zebop (1981). I like it when Bill and I just produce, because it’s different. But I did like the quality, a lot of the positive attributes that Val Garay had. He has a lot of conviction, and I like that in a producer, because I also have a lot. He’s not going to take me to his territory and I’m not going to bring him to mine, so we have to find that middle place where we can find material and moods and lyrics where we can reach the younger audience. That’s the goal. People my age only buy something when everybody tells them it’s happening. I know a lot of people my age didn’t buy Tina Turner until they couldn’t stand it anymore — they gotta go get it because they hear it so much and it’s happening. But the younger people take more chances.”
Beyond Appearances marks the return of explosive vocalist Greg Walker to the fold, joining Alex Ligertwood, the sparky Scot who has been with the group since the Marathon (1979) album. Val may have instructed Alex to do his best Phil Collins on “How Long.” Ligertwood also shines on “I’m The One Who Loves You,” and on “Right Now,” a spirited tour de force that may be the record’s best cut. Walker shows off some tremendous chops on the tune as well, and is equally irrepressible in the lead vocal role on the hit “Say It Again.” The Garay—Goldstein-LaPeau composition goes straight for the heart, and Carlos revs up his blues licks at the end to give it a big lift. The bandleader handles lead vocals himself (or lead rapping) on the band jams “Brother hood” and the percussion flavored romp “Who Loves You,” featuring the master Orestes Vilato on timbales. Santana, who has dedicated concerts to John McEnroe and albums to Muhammad Ali, writes a song here for the former Oakland NFL football team, “Touchdown Raiders.”
“I got away with a lot, considering it was supposed to be a Hollywood-commercial concept,” Santana says. “Well, we fought a lot, but it was constructive fighting. Like I said, he can’t take me totally to his territory, it’s not me. And I can’t totally bring him to the Mission District, because it’s not him.” Santana is actually fairly elated over the reception his new album has received, having just returned from a successful promotional trip to Europe, and just performed two numbers before an enthusiastic crowd on a season-ending Saturday Night Live show. Still, like a true artist, Santana is already thinking ahead to his next project, a solo album that he hopes will feature drummer Tony Williams, Jimmy Cliff, and John Lee Hooker. “I’m really grateful I got a chance to do an album and I can relate to people, so that hopefully their attention will still be there when I put out my other album with Tony Williams. It’s not commercially oriented, and I don’t think it’s fusion. It’s just music, you know. I think the foundation is still the blues, but I like the blues. Although I’m not from Texas or Chicago, it’s still my first love.”
Carlos has been recording tracks for his upcoming solo record at The Plant in Sausalito with bassist Pat O’Hearn (Group 87, Missing Persons) and the drummer Williams. “I’m having a lot of fun with Tony,” he says. “It’s like Miles says, ’I don’t think there’s anybody alive that can play what this cat plays.’ He has absolute conviction. I don’t think question mark or doubt is in Tony Williams’ vocabulary. When he hits it, it’s just so solid. It’s almost scary. I told him that George Lucas could do a movie on one of his solos alone. It’s a fact that people have not invented the microphones to record his sounds. They try all kinds of different positions and different things, and they don’t sound like he sounds. He can go from a whisper to a scream—loud, man.”
Santana not only likes Williams’ drumming, but his songwriting as well. “Drummers don’t get to play melody a lot,” he says. “They play thematically with the drums. When they do come up with a melody it’s really strong because they keep it in for so long. One of the first drummers I got into was Chico Hamilton because of that. Coming from a drummer, melodies are just stronger because they aren’t doing it all the time.”
Santana gets a faraway look in his eyes for a moment, then continues, “Someday maybe I can get away with doing a sabbatical. I’ve been thinking about doing a sabbatical the way Miles or Sonny Rollins did, and really take some time to work with somebody like Robert Fripp and learn more theory on music. Sometimes I feel like I need to just stop and listen for a couple years and learn more before I can keep doing all this music. Something motivates you, and I think when the joy would stop, that’s when I would have to stop. Sometimes it is tempting to stop, especially now with children, and experiencing the way he (my son) sees a cow for the first time — that stuff is appealing, you know. Sometimes you’re going so fast you don’t get a chance to really taste and assimilate life. But if I do,” he says, “I would definitely go to school all over again. I want to learn orchestration. I listened a lot to Wes (Montgomery) and those arrangements fascinate me, how oboe or whatever can just create a mood. I’ll just take it one day at a time right now. It’s tempting to stop sometimes and re-learn all kinds of things, but I’ll probably just keep playing the old blues.”
On his recent promotional trip to Europe, Santana wound up not talking about Beyond Appearances as much as he talked about his concern over the growing number of teenage suicides all over the world. “If you watch TV, man, it’s ridiculous, all the flying with cars and everything. You know, the parts for Blacks and Mexicans are still guys with the Mexican hat and the cactus, and the black guy with the watermelon, or he’s a pimp. I’d like to change that, basically, because I think that’s a big part of the confusion, frustration, and ultimately the destruction of teenagers. Nowadays with all the suicide, that’s a strong reality. To me, it’s a lot of promises being nipped in the bud. That’s how I look at teenagers. And the lyrics on Beyond Appearances are really geared towards that, if people really take the time to check them out. Its about bringing people to a place where they can see that we do have options and alternatives. And that you haye to follow your heart, Sometimes you have to put your parents, your teachers and your country aside, and stand up as an individual. And this way, like a dog shakes off water, you can shake off the pressure.”
Pressure is something Santana has learned to handle, being the band that’s almost as much an institution in San Francisco as Coit Tower. “I don’t take it too seriously,” he says. “People I admire have those qualities that one minute they’re totally brilliant, geniuses, and the next second they can’t tie their shoelaces. And I’m finding out that that’s part of it—that sometimes I feel totally inept, like anybody can walk out in the room from the streets and just blow me away.
“Now I accept it——it’s a fact that the spirit flows through everybody, and in order to find yourself, you’ve got to lose yourself. A lot of times if you look like a total bozo out there, it’s because you’re looking for something. People who always look like they’re in control don’t have the latitude that I love. I like Thelonious Monk, for example. He plays things that I hear my 2- year—old son play, and then he plays like Art Tatum plays. It’s a tact that to find yourself you’ve got to lose yourself. And when you lose yourself, you’re going to look like a how, no matter what. So it’s OK.”
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]]>After Show
Santana
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]]>[Note: Kenny Burrell’s “Blues for Wes” isn’t on Spotify or Youtube, so I’ve shared the title track from the same album, which is on Youtube.]
This guitar chameleon was taking his first Blindfold Test quite seriously. He sat on the floor of the music room in his home on Mount Tamalpaias, a short drive from San Francisco’s Mission District, where he put together his first Santana Blues Band nearly 20 years ago. His eyes were shut, his body rocking back and forth to the music. He’d laugh softly when he heard something that struck home, or growl a “Yeah.”
The fusion of Latin, blues, and rock that Carlos Santana has pioneered frequently hits people on a gutsy, street level. But the guitarist has recorded over the years with musicians from all across the spectrum, including John McLaughlin, McCoy Tyner, Alice Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, and Ron Carter, among others. The Santana band has just released its lastest in a long line of Columbia albums, Beyond Appearances (Columbia 39527), a spirited pop LP produced by Val Garay (Motels, Kim Carnes), but on this day Carlos feels more like talking about the album he’s working on now with Tony Williams, and about some rare Coltrane and Miles tapes he’d been given while on a recent trip to Europe.
The 38-year-old Santana, who has proven to be one of the most resilient and inspiring bandleaders in modern music, was anxious to hear some good music and talk guitarists.
1. Kenny Burrell.
Blues For Wes (from Night Song, Fantasy). Burrell, guitar; Ron Carter, bass; Richard Wyands, piano; Freddie Waits, drums.
They even got the drums to sound like Grady Tate. It sounds so close to Wes, it’s incredible. I can’t recognize who’s playing, because he never once plays himself. It’s not Pat Martino. I don’t think it’s Grant Green either. It doesn’t sound like Kenny Burrell. I’ve checked out a lot of his albums, but he didn’t play Kenny Burrell at all. I still give him five stars ’cause he did it so well. The tone, his phrasing, even the enunciation, the language–he had it down. It was a great composition, and definitely sounds like the master, Wes.
2. John Scofield
Filibuster (from Electric Outlet, Gramavision). Scofield, guitars, DMX bass; Steve Jordan, drums; David Sanborn, alto saxophone.
That’s John Scofield, right? It’s his tone, and the way he’s been writing lately with Miles. Like the layman’s ear. I tend to get lost when people start too much noodle-roni, or too much improvisation without theme. But his playing lately has gotten infinitely more thematic and more melodic, and to me it’s great because it keeps my attention much more closely. It’s that old saying, “It’s more fun to improvise than it is to listen to it,” and that’s a fact, unless you’re close to that other galaxy of Charlie Parker and Trane and people like that. But I think the song is really positive, and it’s a really good groove. Four stars. That’s David Sanborn, right?
3. King Crimson
Discipline (from Discipline, Warner Bros.). Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew, guitars; Tony Levin, bass; Bill Bruford, drums.
I’m having problems relating to Fripp’s music for some reason, I guess because I don’t hear too much blues. I hear a lot of intellect, and I’m not too keen on that, or receptive, and it’s probably my fault because I know the guy is brilliant. But I have to be sincere. A lot of it doesn’t reach me. I’d rather hear one note that is just coated with the stuff that I need to hear than calisthenics or whatever. I don’t want to sound too negative; at the same time it’s something that I’m just not receptive to yet. Some things I can claim immediately, other things take me awhile–because it’s a blessing or a curse, but I come from the blues, basically. But I know the guy is important. Actually I need some lessons from him, which would be great. I need to know a lot of the stuff that he and Adrian Belew and Andy Summers do.
4. Larry Coryell.
Rene’s Theme (from SPACES, Vanguard). Coryell, John
McLaughlin, guitars.
I just about wore this record out. This is a classic piece, I think from Spaces. When I first heard it, it became very scary how much chops these people had, and how much dexterity. It’s a setting like Django
Reinhardt. It’s extremely beautiful how both of them play. I miss Larry Coryell a lot. At one time they said he was one of the most important guitar players to come along since Charlie Christian, and it’s true. In this particular session there’s a lot of magic happening between him and john. Obviously there’s a lot of respect. I’m going to start checking him out again.
5. James Blood Ulmer
(from ODYSSEY, Columbia). Ulmer, guitar;
Warren Benbow, drums; Charles Burnham, violin.
That sounds like something from Ornette Coleman, that kind of river. James Blood Ulmer. Sometimes I can get a little bit disinterested in this kind of music, but this one’s really good. It sounds like something you could play live and definitely capture peoples’ ears—they’re not
going to, go out and get a hot dog or something. It sounds like something Jimi [Hendrix] used to do also, once he started getting too spacey or cosmic and wanted to just have fun with the stuff. Yeah, it’s a really good expression, the composition and everything. To me it would be a four-and-a-half, because I would definitely play something like this live—or try.
6. Howard Roberts
O Barquinho ( from GUILTY, Capitol). Roberts, guitar;
Dave Grusin, organ; John Guerin, drums; Chuck
Berghofer, bass.
He’s playing his butt off in there, man. Howard Roberts, really? His playing here is more soulful than other things I’ve heard from him—as far as the approach and everything. Not that he’s not soulful, but in this one he’s really playing from his heart of hearts. That was an era that I would get confused. I’d have to listen really closely between Tal Farlow, Pat Martino, Grant Green, even Kenny for awhile. Howard Roberts is really a surprise. Composition-wise, about three-and-a-half or four. His playing is fantastic. He really got a chance to stretch in
between the theme. I’ve got to start listening closely again to this guy.
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]]>KAS
All Access
Hospitality – No Stage Access
No Admittance Without TIcket
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