The Universal Tone - Tapa dura

The intimate and long-awaited memoir of guitar legend Carlos Santana.

In 1967 at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco, just a few weeks after the Summer of Love, a young Mexican guitarist played a blistering solo that announced the arrival of a prodigious musical talent. Two years later he played an historic set at Woodstock and the world came to know Carlos Santana, his instantly recognizable guitar sound, and the band that blended electric blues, psychedelic rock, Latin and modern jazz-?the band that still bears his name.

Carlos Santana's memoir offers a page-turning tale of musical self-determination and inner self-discovery, and is filled with colourful detail and life-affirming stories. THE UNIVERSAL TONE traces his journey from his earliest days playing the strip bars in Tijuana while barely in his teens and brings to light the establishment of his signature guitar sound; his roles as a husband, father and rock guitar star; his indebtedness to musical and spiritual leaders-from John Coltrane and John Lee Hooker to Miles Davis and Harry Belafonte; and the deep, lifelong path he developed from his Catholic upbringing, Eastern philosophies and other mystical sources. It includes his recording some of the most influential rock albums of all time, up to and beyond the 1999 sensation SUPERNATURAL, which garnered nine Grammy Awards and stands as arguably the most amazing career comeback in popular music history.

THE UNIVERSAL TONE offers an inspiring story of musical fearlessness that finds humour in the world of high-flying fame, speaks plainly of personal revelations, and celebrates the divine and infinite possibility Santana sees in each person he meets.