In the 1990s I was involved in several projects with Latin rock/pop producer KC Porter. He helped me get my start in LA, including my first recording session, playing guitar on one of the last tracks featuring Selena before she died. It was in KC’s studio that I got my first real taste of the record-making process… he used to leave me in there for days at a time, experimenting with different microphones, effects, samplers etc; and committing all my work to tape (yes… tape). We wrote quite a few songs together over the years as well.

But nothing could have prepared me for the phone call when KC said “Hey JB, I have some cool news. I’m going to be meeting with Carlos Santana and his manager about doing some tracks for an upcoming record, and I thought you might want to come along and check it out.”

The nonchalance of his tone was obviously tongue-in-cheek; KC knew that I lived and breathed Santana’s music since I was 16 years old, and we had spoken many times about Carlos’ influence on my artistic journey over the years and what it had meant to me to be onstage with him a few times with WAR. It was really Carlos who made me into the world rhythm junkie that I remain to this day… and as a guitarist, suffice it to say that I used to have to consciously try not to play like him every time I took a solo.

“Gee, let me think about it. Yeah, I think I’m free today.” I got to the studio in record time.

When I got to the meeting, the manager was ready to run interference, but Carlos recognized me from the WAR days and welcomed me in. KC let everyone know that I was there so we could collaborate on something true to the spirit of Santana’s music. Carlos proceeded to roll out a bunch of big paintings on the floor of the studio… paintings full of intense color and dancing shapes, somewhere between African folk art and ’60s psychedelia. He said to us, “Can you make music that sounds like this?”

This basically set the tone for every encounter we had with Carlos. Watching Baraka at his house, listening to Fela Kuti records and watching rare footage of Miles and Wayne Shorter, we spent as much time as we could submerged in Santana-land. KC and I went into the studio and created a huge variety of music for Carlos to play on, all the way from covers of Bob Marley and John Coltrane to some songs we wrote expressly for the project, particularly the very Santana-esque guajira/soul track Primavera. The lyric used metaphors from the Bahá’í Writings about a spiritual springtime transforming the world, and the groove was a half-time funk, nicely executed by drummer James Keegan and bassist Mike Porcaro. When Carlos came in to record on the track, he tore into it like it was the last solo he would ever play. He was a force of nature.

There were many other highlights from those days… Santana swept the Grammys and sold approximately a gazillion copies of Supernatural, KC and I sang Primavera with him at the Greek Theater, I got to play Carlos’ #1 guitar one time while he jammed along – on drums. But the big highlight for me was recording another song for his next record, an Afrobeat song called One Of These Days, with Ozomatli playing on it and little ol’ me on lead vocals. There were a lot of cool things about that song: it was a tribute to Fela Kuti, it had positive, politically charged lyrics during the post-9/11 madness, and Carlos played beautiful melodic themes all over it that echo in your head after the song is over. It was also the last collaboration I would have with my good friend and longtime engineer Jeff Poe, who died a few years later.

The cherry on top was performing the song live at the Hollywood Bowl, with Santana and Ozomatli onstage, and in the audience my whole family, many close friends and my ex-boss, Lonnie Jordan of WAR. That night, Carlos took me aside and told me it was time for me to step out and make my own music. That’s a whole other story, and a long one that’s still ongoing, but it really meant a lot coming from the man whose music had been the soundtrack to my life for over 20 years. He’s an amazing person; there’s no one else like him, and I look forward to more opportunities to experience music and life with him in the future. To this day, KC and I are constantly cooking up ways to offer him something musically that reflects the influence he’s had on us. We’ll nail it… ‘one of these days…’

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To read ‘part 1′ first… scroll down to ‘The Lotus Moment.’

One of the highlights of my tenure with WAR was the first time I met Carlos Santana backstage at the waterfront in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Our tour manager got me a backstage pass on the condition that I make it back in time for our own gig, and that turned out to be a tall order… I’d never seen Santana perform live, and I knew I was going to have to tear myself away in the middle of their set, fight the crowd and catch a taxi back to the venue before it was time for WAR to play. But it was worth a shot.

I met Carlos right before he was about to go on. He was kind of jogging on the spot, listening to Miles Davis’ Tutu really loud and burning incense. He had big sunglasses on, and a big smile when I told him I was playing with WAR. He said ‘That’s a good gig, man – did you know that in all these years, WAR and Santana have never played together?’

As it turns out, it wouldn’t be much longer. I was more than happy just to meet the man, but later that year we wound up playing with Santana for two huge arena shows in Annaheim and San Francisco, and he invited us on stage in the middle of their set to play ‘Exodus’ with them and jam a little. I thought it couldn’t get any better after that – singing a Bob Marley tune with Santana and WAR, I all but expected Stevie Wonder to walk on stage – but when we were finished, Carlos kept me on to play ‘dueling’ lead guitars on the Funkadelic classic ‘Maggot Brain.’ For those of you who don’t know, the original ‘Maggot Brain’ was considered a high point of post-Hendrix fuzz guitar, and Eddie Hazel’s performance on the track was legendary. That would have been intimidating enough I guess, but to play it with Santana was… Funkadelic.

He proceeded to handily mop the stage with me, but it was the best whooping I’ve ever received because about halfway through I managed to stop thinking and just ‘play crazy,’ a strategy that served well in many other Santana stage situations down the line. Carlos commented that Miles would have described the moment as a ‘musical orgasm.’ Not too far from the truth. The next gig was even better, because I was a little more mentally prepared to go toe-to-toe with my hero, plus it was New Year’s and the whole atmosphere was much more of a party than a ‘show.’ In photos of the gig, my hair looks like it’s exploding.

I spent a few days walking around San Fran in a strange electrified state. It was dawning on me that anything is possible in this life. I had proof: a guitar-obsessed kid from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan was rocking out with Carlos Santana on New Year’s Eve in San Francisco. Only a few years earlier I was listening to his records and imagining what it might be like to hang with him and get some of his mojo.

I had no idea – we were just getting started.

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Besides being one of the founding members of one of the greatest bands of all time, Lonnie Jordan of WAR is also my old boss and one of the my musical mentors. I always had the best time with Lonnie onstage when I was with WAR and hoped to record something with him in the future, even going so far as to co-write some original songs for use ‘down the road.’

It finally happened in 2007, thanks to the unstoppable enthusiasm of my close friend Pancho Tomaselli, who has been playing bass with Lonnie for the past few years and shares the same creative synergy with him as I have. After spending some time with Pancho developing more material, Lonnie was signed to Fantasy Records (Concord Music Group) and we got together to produce his first solo album in almost 30 years, War Stories.

It was a great experience. The studio, ElDorado Recording in Burbank, was the perfect place to make Lonnie’s kind of music: tons of analog outboard gear, a great ambiance for setting the creative mood, and best of all, the cleanest collection of vintage keyboards I’ve ever seen or heard. We set up the piano, Hammond organ, Rhodes and Wurlitzer electric pianos in a circle around Lonnie so that he could access them at will, and put a band together that could follow him on a dime and retain the raw, funky feel he loves. Check out ‘Get That Feeling’:

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The concept was to do a mixture of unique versions of WAR tunes, one or two cover songs that were important to Lonnie, and new originals that provided a glimpse into his life experiences. For the WAR songs, it was important that we didn’t run down a list of ‘the hits’ or do true-to-vintage copies that try to measure up to the original versions. Instead of ‘Low Rider,’ ‘Cisco Kid’ or ‘Why Can’t We Be Friends’, we chose songs that featured Lonnie’s voice or are associated with his contribution to the band, and then we rearranged them in different styles, changing the rhythms, keys and even time signatures as inspiration dictated.

For example, ‘Get Down,’ one of War’s funkiest and most political tracks, was recast as an up-tempo Afrobeat jam. ‘The World is a Ghetto’ was changed from its classic loping 4/4 to a tweaked 6/8 Latin feel, with bass flutes, tons of percussion and an outstanding jazz piano solo by Lonnie. The opening track of the album, ‘Don’t Let No One Get You Down,’ showcases his Rhodes playing and some lush backing vocals sung by Tara Ellis.

The new songs include ‘Rock’n'Roll Days,’ a tribute to the music legends Lonnie’s known in the past, like Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley. Almost every note of this song is a reference to something else, and educated listeners will find a bit of everything from Led Zeppelin and Steppenwolf to Keith Richards and Steve Cropper.

Speaking of which, I definitely got my ya-ya’s out on guitar. Since the theme of the record was a sort of retro flashback, I had the perfect chance to dig into some guitar styles and sounds that are usually reserved for Lenny Kravitz. I’ll do a separate post with the guitar and production notes for this album, and get into detail about the gear we used.

All in all, it was a blast (from the past, as Lonnie would say), and everything from the tracking and mixing sessions, overseen by veteran engineer Don Murray, to the final analog mastering by Bernie Grundman himself, was a real experience for all of us, giving us a window into the way this type of record used to get done in the golden age of Funk.

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“WONDERFUL! Expresses the joys and sorrows of human nature…”

Those are the words of Roger Ebert about the beautiful film Mark and Suzanne Bamford made while living in South Africa, Cape of Good Hope. The story focuses on the day-to-day lives of a few people working at an animal shelter in Capetown, and while not an overtly political ‘message’ movie, it does deal with the glaring issues of class and race that still define much of life in that country. I was honored to write the musical score and to work with Mark and Suzanne on their first full feature (as well as mine).

Because of the intimate tone of Cape, I couldn’t pull out all the stops and use a lot of big African elements without it sounding like the Lion King. (And you know I wanted to!) So instead, I looked for sounds that transcended geography and focused more on the universal and personal themes in the script. The music had to play the role of another ensemble cast member, staying out of everyone’s way and matching their rhythm while raising the stakes just a little.

To acheive this, I relied on softer sounds like nylon-string latin guitar, solo clarinet, oboe, marimba and upright bass. Strings were used as texture rather than structure, and percussion, voices and electric guitar were muted to fit in with the overall sound. I never dreamed I would play what sounds like romantic Mexican music in an African film, but… there you go. I also got to have some fun learning how to play a bit of Congolese soukous guitar, so that the character Jean-Claude could listen to a tape from his home country while driving the truck. I’ll post a sample.

Hopefully we can secure the rights to make the music of Cape of Good Hope available right here in my online store. A few remixes and we could have a nice little album for your downloading pleasure… I’ll put it up the moment I get the go-ahead.

By the way: there’s still plenty of good African music live on-screen in the movie, played by real Africans and not some sandy-haired composer in a studio in California. Let me know what you think of the film – it’s available at Amazon.

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I was on a bus from Saskatchewan to Belize one time – don’t ask – and somewhere in the middle of the journey I looked out the window and said: ‘This is it: the perfect time to break out the Lotus tape.”

In addition to packing a few extra bottles of Pepto, I had prepared as well as possible for this trip by bringing a ton of music I hadn’t heard before, partially to break up the monotony of endless bus travel, but also to partner each moment with its ultimate soundtrack on my Walkman (remember those?). And this moment was, without question, the Lotus moment.

Outside the bus, it was night time in Mexico City. Mexico City will blow almost anyone’s mind; the sheer density and size of it, the endless layers of humanity, life and death, construction and decay, are striking even from inside a jumbo jet flying over it at hundreds of miles per hour… never mind from a groaning bus as it lurches its way through the smallest side streets at what seemed like several hours per mile. And the amount of street life so late at night! I was transfixed. The driver’s area of the bus, a veritable shrine to the Virgín de Guadalupe, was blinking with random colored lights like a Christmas tree. Ahead, people – so many people – would step out of the bus’ path mere inches from being hit, and the driver’s foot wouldn’t even graze the brake pedal. A yellow-haired, blue-eyed image of Jesus looked on.

My relationship with Carlos Santana’s music was already intense. Having heard some of it in childhood, I rediscovered it upon falling in love with the electric guitar, and for several years had been immersing myself in it like a type of meditation. The first time I had lived in Mexico as a teenager, there was no other music that spoke to both the rock & roll of my Canadian background and things I was experiencing around me in this foreign place. I couldn’t imagine understanding a song like ‘Europa’ until I heard it pouring out of the doorway of an all-night cantina as I stumbled through San Miguel’s cobblestone streets at night, high on youth and romance. But as I grew into a more spiritual curiosity about life, Santana’s music grew with me. I was now graduating from the acid-addled abandon of his Woodstock freak-out days to the introspective, earnest Coltrane-isms of the man who wore a white suit and called himself Devadip.

For whatever reason, the albums Caravanserai and Lotus had escaped me up to this point, and they represented the peak of this crucial part of Carlos’ journey as a person and a musician. I bought fresh copies of both before my trip and vowed to wait until the right time. Because of this, for the rest of my life I will associate the sound of these two records with the sights and smells that washed over that smoke-spewing bus to Belize. I felt like I was the sound of that electric guitar, piercing through the heavy night air as a battery of percussionists throbbed in time with the crazy Christmas lights and the pulse of an impossibly huge city.

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