{"id":2218652,"date":"2026-01-01T08:36:28","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T08:36:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2218652"},"modified":"2026-01-01T08:36:28","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T08:36:28","slug":"jeff-tamarkin-on-five-decades-of-music-journalism-and-his-stellar-new-santana-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/jeff-tamarkin-on-five-decades-of-music-journalism-and-his-stellar-new-santana-book\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeff Tamarkin on Five Decades of Music Journalism and His Stellar New Santana Book"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>\u201cI never in my life thought I would end up doing this and certainly not for this long,\u201d Jeff Tamarkin says of a career that began with a review he filed for the San Francisco State University student newspaper of The Band\u2019s Last Waltz concert in November 1976. He has been working for music publications ever since, including a stint as <em>Relix<\/em>\u2019s editor-in-chief from 1978-80, followed by runs at <em>Goldmine<\/em>, <em>Jazz Times<\/em>, <em>Global Rhythm<\/em> and other outlets. Tamarkin also wrote the definitive history of Jefferson Airplane, 2003\u2019s <em>Got A Revolution!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>His latest book project is the massive new tome, <em>Carlos Santana: Love Devotion Surrender: The Illustrated Story of Santana\u2019s Musical Journey<\/em>. This voluminous work presents previously unseen material from Santana\u2019s personal archives, including photos, drawings, posters, tickets and assorted mementos. Tamarkin paired these with a series of interviews he conducted specifically for this project with Carlos, Cindy Blackman Santana, John McLaughin, Clive Davis, Steve Miller, Rob Thomas, Gregg Rolie, Michael Carabello and Rob Thomas. There is also a <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/insighteditions.com\/products\/carlos-santana-love-devotion-surrender-limited-edition\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">limited edition version<\/a> that features a numbered card signed by the musician himself, as well as a standalone sketchbook with additional Santana art, an original backstage pass from the <em>Supernatural<\/em> tours, three special enamel pins, an art print of a 1968 photograph, replicas of album covers and other fascinating ephemera.<\/p>\n<div class=\"jeg_video_container jeg_video_content\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Carlos Santana: Love Devotion Surrender \u2013 A Visual Journey\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YdsKg7OaCJo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Tamarkin, who first saw Santana perform on two occasions in August 1969 during the weeks leading up to Woodstock, remarks, \u201cDuring the process of creating the book, I was able to see a lot of the proofs, but to actually hold the final, physical thing in my hands was something else. It\u2019s just so high quality. I\u2019m really proud to have my name on it. It\u2019s a keeper.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><!-- This site is converting visitors into subscribers and customers with OptinMonster - https:\/\/optinmonster.com :: Campaign Title: Email Gate - NEWS --><\/p>\n<p><!-- \/ OptinMonster --><\/p>\n<p><strong>At what point in your life did you first anticipate that you might become a music journalist?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I was one of those guys who read every liner note and all the credits. I also subscribed to lots of rock magazines. So I knew fair amount but I never thought I\u2019d be writing about music. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p><!-- This site is converting visitors into subscribers and customers with OptinMonster - https:\/\/optinmonster.com :: Campaign Title: Email Gate - ARTICLES --><\/p>\n<p><!-- \/ OptinMonster --><\/p>\n<p>Then, when I was in college at San Francisco State University, I had some assignments where I had to come up with ideas. So I said to myself, \u201cWell, I might as well write about music, which is something I know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After that, there were a few openings at the college newspaper because there was a political thing where some people were leaving and they needed new people. I went in there and said, \u201cHey, I can write about music, if you\u2019re looking for that.\u201d They said, \u201cSure, how\u2019d you like to go write about this concert that\u2019s coming up? It\u2019s called The Last Waltz.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I was going to go anyway, I had tickets. So I told them, \u201cI\u2019ve read enough concert reviews, I guess I could do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They published the review, and eventually I sent that clip along with some others to <em>BAM <\/em>magazine. I said, \u201cHey, this is what I\u2019ve done. Maybe you could use my stuff.\u201d Pretty soon after that I started writing for them, including interviews.<\/p>\n<p>Then the next thing I knew, it was 2025. [<em>Laughs.<\/em>]<\/p>\n<p><strong>Did the filming of the Last Waltz detract from the concert experience in any way?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>No, it felt like a regular concert. There might\u2019ve been some gaps where they had to change camera angles or that sort of thing, but those didn\u2019t last very long. It wasn\u2019t like one of those deals where they would do second takes or third takes. It was a regular show and they did have to please the audience that was there.<\/p>\n<p>At the time, my friends and I knew this was something special and that we were really witnessing history. I remember at one point, close to the end when we\u2019d already seen everybody\u2014Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Muddy Waters, Dylan\u2014I turned to my friend standing next to me and I said, \u201cThere\u2019s a Beatle and a Stone on stage, and nobody\u2019s even surprised by that.\u201d It was great.<\/p>\n<p>I recently watched the film again for the first time many years. It played at the Film Forum and I took my son because he\u2019s a fan of The Band but he hadn\u2019t seen it. He was like, \u201cYou were actually at this?\u201d I told him, \u201cWhen you were in your 20s and you lived in San Francisco and it was 1976, you were going to that thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Was there a momentous early live show you attended that instilled a passion for the experience?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The first concert I ever went to was in 1964 when I was 11 years old. It was at the Brooklyn Fox Theatre, and it was hosted by Murray the K and the <em>Swingin<\/em><em>\u2018 <\/em>Soir\u00e9e. It was one of these package shows where everybody would come on and do two or three of their hits, then get off the stage. It starred Dusty Springfield, the Searchers, the Shangri-Las, and then pretty much almost all of the Motown revue. I don\u2019t think Stevie Wonder was there, but it was The Supremes, the Temptations, Marvin Gaye, etc.<\/p>\n<p>So that wasn\u2019t a bad way to start. Then just whenever I could do it, I\u2019d go to this kind of shitty venue a couple miles from where I lived in Long Island called the Island Garden. That\u2019s where I saw the Dave Clark Five, Donovan, Blood, Sweat &amp; Tears, and a bunch of people like that.<\/p>\n<p>Once I was old enough to get into the city and the Fillmore East opened, that was it. Between Fillmore East, Capitol Theatre and all the other venues in New York, it was game over. Pretty much every weekend I would be there, sometimes for more than one show a weekend. It\u2019s really never stopped since then.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Thinking back on your days at the Fillmore East, what initially comes to mind?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Oh, God, there were so many great shows. I mean, the first show I saw there in \u201969, was The Who, Chuck Berry and Albert King, three great acts and it probably cost me $3.50. My first dead show was January 2nd, 1970. Then I was there the next month for the famous 2\/13\/70 with the Allman Brothers and Love on the bill.<\/p>\n<p>I mean, whoever I could get into the city and see, I would see: Creedence, Traffic, Procol Harum. Thinking back now I\u2019m trying to figure out how I afforded all this. I didn\u2019t have a job or anything.<\/p>\n<p><strong>When was the first time you saw Santana?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I first heard of Carlos Santana in \u201968. He had a cameo appearance on an album called <em>The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper<\/em>, so I knew his name. He was one of the special guests, along with Elvin Bishop. I guess Mike Bloomfield left the stage for a while and Bill Graham said, \u201cCarlos, get out there and play something.\u201d So he played this blues tribute called \u201cSonny Boy Williamson.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Then in August of \u201969, two weeks before Woodstock, I went to the Atlantic City Pop Festival in Atlantic City, New Jersey. I call it the great lost rock festival because in some ways it was better than Woodstock\u2014there was a much more diverse bill.<\/p>\n<p>So anyway, Santana was there and I was really looking forward to seeing the band. By that point I\u2019d read about them in <em>Rolling Stone<\/em>, and I knew they were supposed to be this hot new fusion of rock and blues and Latin and jazz and everything else.<\/p>\n<p>They came out and they were mis-introduced as the Santana Blues Band, which was a name that they had used in San Francisco but weren\u2019t using anymore. So Carlos said, \u201cWe\u2019re just Santana. We don\u2019t just play blues.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They blew me away to the point that a week or so later when they played in Queens at a place called The Pavilion\u2014which was part of the old World\u2019s Fair\u2014I went to see them again.<\/p>\n<p>So I actually got to see them twice before they ever played Woodstock and continued doing so. I lived in San Francisco from late \u201972 through most of the 70s, and they were just about the house band other than the Dead. I probably got to see them 15, 20 times. They might be topping a bill of somebody else I also wanted to see, or they were playing their own show.<\/p>\n<p>After that, I lost track of them at times, although I still tried to keep up with what they were doing. Then, of course, <em>Supernatural<\/em> came out in \u201999. It was like, \u201cHello, remember us?\u201d and they had a number one album throughout the entire world.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Carlos has facilitated so many elevated musical endeavors that people should revisit. This book is titled <em>Love Devotion Surrender<\/em>, which references one of my favorites, his 1973 record with John McLaughlin.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A lot of the pleasure I derived from doing this project was I had to fill the gaps in my own collection because I didn\u2019t have a lot of those albums. I might\u2019ve heard them once or twice when they came out and then dismissed them. It was like, \u201cOkay, now I have to go back and listen albums like <em>Amigos<\/em>, <em>Zebop!<\/em>and <em>Shang\u00f3<\/em><em>.<\/em>\u201d There were so many of them, and most of them I\u2019d put on and go, \u201cWow, this is really good stuff. How did this not catch on?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I made sure to get all of these in the book because it was really meant to be about his music. I didn\u2019t want to get into a lot of other stuff. He wrote his own memoir about 10 years ago, so there was no need to repeat the biography.<\/p>\n<p>This book was really about the music, album by album. It gave me a chance to go and listen to albums I hadn\u2019t heard in 20, 30 years. There were Santana albums that just kind of flew by. It\u2019s not that the guy ever lost it, he just changed direction a lot. After the first three albums, he told Clive Davis, \u201cOkay, my next album\u2019s going to be something really, really different.\u201d Then he came out with <em>Caravanserai<\/em>. This was after having two number one albums in a row. Clive Davis heard this and told him, \u201cYou\u2019re going to kill your career. It\u2019s crazy that you\u2019re putting this out.\u201d But Carlos said, \u201cI don\u2019t care, I\u2019m putting it out.\u201d It still sold well, but it was definitely a change in direction.<\/p>\n<p>He did that a lot. He would suddenly shift completely\u2014like going into fusion and the stuff that he was doing with McLaughlin. He did a duet album with Buddy Miles. He collaborated with Alice Coltrane. There\u2019s some amazing stuff on those albums. It\u2019s not like he ever lost his touch, although he did lose some of his audience.<\/p>\n<p>As for <em>Love Devotion Surrender<\/em>, it\u2019s one of my five favorite things that he\u2019s done. I got to talk to McLaughlin about that for this book, which was great.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Did you ever see McLaughlin with Mahavishnu?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I got to see them once at My Father\u2019s Place on Long Island. This was a tiny club and it was one of the five loudest bands I ever heard in my life. I was maybe six tables back and I remember feeling, \u201cOh my God, I\u2019m never going to hear again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But the power of that band was incredible and with the musicianship, it was like, \u201cHoly shit, these guys are really something.\u201d I don\u2019t go back and play those early albums a lot, but when I do, I\u2019m reminded of just how incredible and innovative they were. At that time you also had bands like Return to Forever and Weather Report where it wasn\u2019t quite jazz, it wasn\u2019t quite rock, and those who knew, knew.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Back to the book, when you took on this project, how was it initially described to you? What was the assignment?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I was contacted out of the blue by an editor who described the company and explained that they were doing a book on Carlos Santana\u2014specifically Carlos Santana, not the band. After she told me what they had in mind, and I didn\u2019t have to hear anymore. I was like, \u201cI get a chance to write a book about Santana? Yeah, I\u2019m in.\u201d She said that they wanted to stress the music\u2014the whole soup to nuts\u2014starting with him as a kid violin player in Mexico, and going right up through the complete discography.<\/p>\n<p>One thing that made it special was they had the cooperation of Santana\u2019s management who were going to let them loose in Carlos\u2019 Warehouse in Las Vegas. Apparently he\u2019s saved most everything he\u2019s ever done, including photos, posters and art. If you look at the book, there are all these pullouts that include Carlos\u2019 drawings and writings.<\/p>\n<p>So they brought a photographer out there and shot everything they could. The title of the book is <em>Love Devotion Surrender: A Visual Journey <\/em>and that\u2019s what it is, really. I\u2019m sort of putting the words to the pictures. Usually it\u2019s the other way around, but with this book you don\u2019t even have to read my part of it, you can just look at the posters and the guitars and all that stuff. Of course, it\u2019s quite a story.<\/p>\n<p>I love the beginning part where they somehow unearthed all these childhood photos of him growing up in Tijuana playing the violin, which I\u2019d heard about but I\u2019d never seen before.<\/p>\n<p>I was able to do interviews but we were very careful about who we chose. They wanted to keep it to select people who represented various aspects of his career. I think in the end, we did about 10 interviews, including Carlos and his wife Cindy Blackman Santana. I wanted to concentrate on the early people, so we talked to Michael Shrieve, Michael Carabello, Greg Rolie. Then I spoke with some of the people from the later days, like Rob Thomas, who did \u201cSmooth\u201d on the <em>Supernatura<\/em>l album. I also spoke with McLaughlin, like I said, and we managed to get Clive Davis who doesn\u2019t do a lot of interviews anymore but he wanted to talk about this. One thing he wanted to set straight was that story I mentioned about <em>Caravanserai<\/em>. He insisted that he never told Carlos that this was going to kill his career. He said he knew it was going to ruffle some feathers, but that he always wanted to let Carlos follow his own muse, and he came up with an album that\u2019s just gorgeous. It\u2019s definitely one of the ones I play most often.<\/p>\n<p><strong>When you began conducting interviews, was there something that really struck you?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I really enjoyed talking to Carlos, which was great. I also enjoyed talking to some of the other people, like Michael Carabello. All I knew about him was he was percussionist on the early Santana albums, but he ended up really going to bat for this project and calling me back like 10 times with additional information.<\/p>\n<p>Michael Shrive wants people to know that his drum solo [at Woodstock] is not the only thing he ever did. He said he rejected it for a long time. He wanted people to know that he made other music. Then at some point he finally accepted something that\u2019s he\u2019s known for. He was ready to say, \u201cThat\u2019s me up there. I was 19 years old when I did that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>You mentioned that you saw Santana numerous times when you were living in San Francisco. What drew you out there from New York to attend college?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Basically I went out there with a friend in the summer of \u201971 just to kill the summer, and we had a great time. I actually met Jerry during my first minutes in the Bay Area. We decided to go see the Dead because we had their office address in San Rafael. When we showed up to the house, there was Jerry in the driveway, talking to a guy. We walked up to him when he was done and told him that we had driven across the country with an album of Dead bootlegs. He invited us to come in and to listen to it, then shared a couple joints with us. It was the best weed I\u2019d ever smoked.<\/p>\n<p>After that summer, I came home to New York and said, \u201cI\u2019ll be moving back.\u201d So that\u2019s what I did the following summer, then I began at San Francisco State. But I basically moved there for the culture. I probably saw shows three or four nights a week. I\u2019d think nothing of driving two or three hours to a show in some godforsaken part of California.<\/p>\n<p>I went out there in late \u201972 and I left right after the last run of Dead shows in \u201977. So I was there for about five and a half years. It still had a lot of the flavor of the Haight era when I got out there but it also started being overrun by the whole junkie thing and all those nightmare stories you\u2019ve heard about the Haight collapsing. It was a great experience, though, and I\u2019m really glad I did it. The weekend I got out there, I saw the final Airplane gig at Winterland and I think Pink Floyd the weekend after that. So it was a nice way to say hello.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Speaking of Jefferson Airplane, what are the origins of\u00a0 <em>Got A Revolution!<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It began around \u201976 when I was still going to San Francisco State and had to come up with story ideas for the school newspaper. I knew that Starship had this place over at Fulton Street, so I decided to see if I could get some of them to talk.<\/p>\n<p>I made a simple phone call and told them who I was and what I hoped to do. They said, \u201cOh, sure, drop by the house.\u201d So they put me with David Freiberg and Craig Chaquico. Then I interviewed Jorma, Jack, Grace and Paul, one-by-one.<\/p>\n<p>When I moved back to New York in early \u201978 and started writing for <em>Relix <\/em>magazine, I think the first cover story I did was on Starship.<\/p>\n<p>At that point I had a lot of stuff on all of them. I interviewed Grace several times, and after RCA started doing the reissues and the box set, I knew people there and I said, \u201cYou guys are going to need somebody to write the liner notes for these things.\u201d They responded, \u201cOh, do you want to do those?\u201d So I ended up doing over 25 liner notes on Airplane-related projects.<\/p>\n<p>Several years into this, I said to myself, \u201cMaybe it\u2019s time somebody did a book on them.\u201d There\u2019s been a thousand books on the Beatles, Stones, Dylan and the Dead but nobody\u2019s ever done a book on the history of Jefferson Airplane. So I decided I was going to do it and I got a deal. Then it took over five years. I did over a hundred interviews.<\/p>\n<p>I didn\u2019t realize when I was getting into it that these were six people who had been very stoned every day of their lives. So they all remembered it differently. I would ask the same question of these six people and get six completely different answers. \u00a0Somewhere therein I would try to sort out the truth and I\u2019d go to Bill Thompson, their manager, and say, \u201cWell, this one said this and this one said that.\u201d Then he\u2019d respond, \u201cNo, no, they\u2019re all wrong. Let me tell you what <em>really<\/em> happened.\u201d And this went on for five years.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Even though the book has been out for a while, I know a few folks who discovered it recently.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I still get emails about it at least once a week, including a lot of people from other parts of the world. I\u2019m not sure how they\u2019re finding this 20-something year old book but they\u2019ll reach out to me\u2014\u201dI just read <em>Got A Revolution!<\/em> and it\u2019s incredible!\u201d I always appreciate that although I can\u2019t answer every question about it because I wrote it nearly 25 years ago.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Going back even further, what are your memories of working at <em>BAM<\/em> in the late 70s?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The people at <em>BAM<\/em> were very welcoming. I met Dennis [Erokan] at the time. [Editor\u2019s note\/fun fact: Erokan, who founded <em>BAM<\/em>, is the father of actress D\u2019Arcy Carden (<em>The Good Place<\/em>, <em>Barry<\/em>, <em>A League of Their Own<\/em>).] I also met Blair [Jackson] and the other editors.<\/p>\n<p>I learned a lot but I didn\u2019t stick around very long. My first interview ever was Bill Kirchen. I also talked to people like the Rowan Brothers and David Grisman, which was fun.<\/p>\n<p>Then I came back to New York and said, \u201cWell what am I going to do, now? Oh, okay, there\u2019s this thing called <em>Relix<\/em>\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>How did you come to be the editor?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That was something of an accident. I knew about the magazine, even when I was in San Francisco. At that point, in the late 70s it was still really a Dead fanzine.<\/p>\n<p>When I got back here I didn\u2019t know Les, I didn\u2019t know Jerry Moore or any of those people, but I made a phone call as you did back then. I told Les I\u2019d written for <em>BAM<\/em>, and he said, \u201cCome over, we\u2019ll talk.\u201d Then at that point Jerry said, \u201cOh, you have Airplane interviews? Let\u2019s do a story on Starship.\u201d As I mentioned, that ended up being my first cover story.<\/p>\n<p>Then at one point pretty early on, Les called me and said, \u201cBetween me and you, I\u2019m going to fire Jerry Moore. I need a new editor and you have some experience being an editor. Would you like to be my editor?\u201d I said, \u201cYeah, I guess. Why not?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So we had this meeting at Les\u2019 apartment in Brooklyn. I forget who else was there. Les had a lot of his friends on the staff, people that are long gone, and there were like four or five of us sitting around when doorbell rang. Les went to answer it and Jerry Moore pied him\u2014he threw a pie right in Les\u2019 face. Then Jerry ran down the block with Les chasing him.<\/p>\n<p>One of the first things I did was to be subversive and start putting people like Blondie and Cheap Trick on the cover\u2014people that had nothing to do with what <em>Relix<\/em> was about. Les was supportive but the readership was not, although I think it probably helped set the tone for what <em>Relix <\/em>is now, because if <em>Relix<\/em> had stayed a Grateful Dead fanzine, it would not have lasted.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What followed for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I was balancing a lot of stuff at the same time. I was editing <em>Relix<\/em> while I was also editing <em>CMJ<\/em>, which was the college music trade publication. I was doing both of them to help pay the bills, and occasionally there was some crossover, which was kind of interesting. Then I stopped doing both of those around \u201981 when I was approached to edit <em>Goldmine <\/em>magazine. I began editing that exclusively while continuing to write for anybody that would have me, including <em>Relix<\/em>. I did <em>Goldmine <\/em>for about 15 years\u2014which is still my world record\u2014and then a lot of other publications that have come and gone.<\/p>\n<p>One of the ways I keep myself interested is by taking assignments that are way out of my ballpark. For a while I was editing a technical publication about the recording industry. I also was an associate editor at <em>Jazz Times<\/em> for seven years.<\/p>\n<p><strong>During that stretch is there an article of yours that stands out for one reason or another?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Looking back, one of my favorite things was interviewing Yoko in her kitchen at the Dakota. I remember standing in that apartment, looking at the white piano in living room and thinking, \u201cHoly shit, this is where they lived. This where they worked.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At that time I was editing a world music magazine called <em>Global Rhythm<\/em>. Yoko had a project that involved going back to her Japanese roots, which was not something she did often. So we expressed interest in talking to her about Japan and her early involvement in music. Of course, the conversation ended up going a lot of other directions, but it was great to be there with her and talk to her.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Returning to <em>Love Devotion Surrender<\/em>, is there a particular image that feels definitive or particularly evocative for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This is not an uncommon picture, but the shot of them from Woodstock where Shrieve is in the forefront, and then you look at Carlos, who\u2019s got that typical pose of his where his head is tilted back and he\u2019s looking to the sky. That really sums them up to me.<\/p>\n<p>That to me is a classic Santana picture. You can look at his face, and as he\u2019s said a number of times over years, he was tripping his balls off, seeing snakes coming out of his guitar.<\/p>\n<p>There are so many things in the book, including a copy of the contract for Woodstock. They were paid $1,500 to appear, which was not a whole lot but they were pretty much an unknown band. They also were paid $750 for the film rights, and in the bottom it says, \u201cNot to exceed three minutes.\u201d I think their segment is probably the longest one in the film because of the drum solo. I think they\u2019re in there for 10-12 minutes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I really enjoyed being able to see that contract. It\u2019s the standard one drafted by the<\/strong> <strong>American Federation of Musicians, Local Number 6.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m sure they thought nothing of it at the time\u2014\u201cOh God, we have to go to a weird place in upstate New York. Okay. Whatever. Pack the van\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Did you make it to Woodstock?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I could not get there. I was still only 16. I did get to the Atlantic City one, but that was because my parents drove my friend and I there, and then they stayed. We all stayed in a hotel in Atlantic City, and my mother would come pick us up at the festival.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Now that\u2019s a nice mom.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I remember she got there early on the last night. So my mother walked inside this rock festival and saw Janis Joplin jamming with Little Richard. That was the closing act of the festival. So my mom saw Janis Joplin. She didn\u2019t know who she was but still\u2026<\/p>\n<p><strong>Finally, as you writing <em>Love Devotion Surrender<\/em>, did you have an ideal reader in mind?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I did a dedication at the end to a fellow named Carl Kunstorff, who\u2019s no longer with us. He was my Santana guy in the 70s. I was a fan, I really liked them, but not on the level that he did. He was an early taper, but his thing was Santana not the Dead. I\u2019d go over to his house, drink some wine, smoke some weed, and listen to Santana over and over and over again. Eventually he got to know Carlos and become good friends with him.<\/p>\n<p>Carl passed away but I was thinking about him a lot when I was doing this. He was the most intense Santana fan I\u2019ve ever known. He taught me a lot about them and turned me onto a lot of stuff that I\u2019d never heard before.<\/p>\n<p>He kind of invigorated my interest in Santana music, so I wanted to give him a shout out at the end. My friend Ed Perlstein, who I knew from back then, also knew Carl. In fact, Carl ended up giving Ed all of those tapes when Carl had cancer and he knew he was passing away. So Ed called me up and he said, \u201cI\u2019m really glad you gave the dedication that Carl Kunstorff, because he really deserves that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To me, he was the ultimate Santana fan. There must be other people like him out there and this book is for them.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script>\n  ! function (f, b, e, v, n, t, s) {\n    if (f.fbq) return;\n    n = f.fbq = function () {\n      n.callMethod ?\n        n.callMethod.apply(n, arguments) : n.queue.push(arguments)\n    };\n    if (!f._fbq) f._fbq = n;\n    n.push = n;\n    n.loaded = !0;\n    n.version = '2.0';\n    n.queue = [];\n    t = b.createElement(e);\n    t.async = !0;\n    t.src = v;\n    s = b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n    s.parentNode.insertBefore(t, s)\n  }(window,\n    document, 'script', 'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n  fbq('init', '1470182086346459'); \/\/ Insert your pixel ID here.\n  fbq('track', 'PageView');\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source relix.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cI never in my life thought I would end up doing this and certainly not for this long,\u201d Jeff Tamarkin says of a career that began with a review he filed for the San Francisco State University student newspaper of The Band\u2019s Last Waltz concert in November 1976. He has been working for music publications [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2218653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[429013,429014,400809],"class_list":["post-2218652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-insight-editions","tag-love-devotion-surrender","tag-santana"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Jeff-Tamarkin-on-Five-Decades-of-Music-Journalism-and-His.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2218652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2218652"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2218652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2218654,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2218652\/revisions\/2218654"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2218653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2218652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2218652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2218652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}