When the guitar emerged as the primary vehicle for my expression as a budding musician at age 16, I had a gallery of heroes that will sound familiar to any blues or classic rock fan: Jimi Hendrix, David Gilmour, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and the ‘Three Kings’—BB, Freddie and Albert. But one stood out as different from the rest: Carlos Santana.

Different how?

He and the Santana band pioneered a global sound, integrating Afro-Latin rhythms instead of just combining various American genres. He had a yearning in his playing, even at a young age, that seemed to reach for the heavens. He walked away from the popular sound that made him a star and spent much of the ‘70s exploring cosmic jazz fusion influenced by the guru Sri Chimnoy and spiritually-oriented musicians like Alice Coltrane. He was married to the same woman from 1973-2007, through the peak of his incredible career. Notably, he was the only one of those guitar icons from outside the US or the UK, hailing from a village in Mexico. Carlos, to me, was an outlier among outliers.

Here’s my recent Sacred Riffs video showcasing one of his best-known songs:

I never really thought I would meet the man, but through a series of unlikely events that now seem inevitable, I found myself not only jamming onstage with Carlos and the band, but working closely in the studio recording with him during Santana’s incredible Supernatural comeback era at the turn of the century.

During all of this, there were some truly wonderful conversations and events that spoke to the philosophy underlying his work and his world. Some of them were at the outer edge of my comprehension, but they were delicious all the same. Here are a few highlights and how they affected me:

(1) Carlos is an unapologetic seeker. He has explored the teachings of various faiths, blurring the lines between them and working them into his music. He talks a lot about saints and angels, especially Metatron, an archangel in Jewish mysticism, as if it’s the most normal subject in the world. To this day I’m still working at having this kind of intimate connection with the Other Side, and Carlos’ casual lunchtime digressions into his Metatronic encounters (which sounded like pure sci-fi to me) remain an example of a man comfortable in his spiritual skin.

(2) He has genuine respect for others’ faith traditions. When KC Porter and I first started working with Carlos, we told him we were members of the Bahá’í Faith. He wanted to learn all about it (all he knew was that Dizzy Gillespie was a Bahá’í), and after a deep conversation he asked us if we could write a song that reflected the things we talked about. This resulted in ‘Primavera (Springtime)’ which appeared on Supernatural. Carlos also sent me a copy of The Hidden Words, a key book from my Faith’s scripture, as a gift.

(3) He has shown extreme generosity of spirit. Whether giving me big moments to shine on the guitar at the Greek Theater or the Hollywood Bowl, or honoring my opinion on musical matters in the studio despite our age difference (and his legendary status), he always seemed to make space for the actualization of my potential. The ultimate example of this was when I told him I was nervous about giving raw feedback to him during sessions, and he said “Every moment of our lives, every choice we ever made, has led us up to this moment. Who are we to question that, JB? Produce me!”

(4) He’s all about the fun. The atmosphere around his creative process is often light, open, dare I say youthful. It felt like we were all lucky to be there, including him. Enjoying the privilege of spending the day messing around with rhythms and melodies, looking for the spark of the Divine in sonic form. It never felt like nuts & bolts. And when the moment demanded it, he could turn into a force of nature, playing a solo in the control room as if he were back onstage at Woodstock. I sat next to him during this a few times, and it was a lot of energy.

(5) He believes 100% in the power of music as a uniting, transformative force. He once told me that everyone has a light switch they can turn on or off, but artists have their hand on the breaker switch for the whole building. When I get bogged down in the ways of the world or the machinery of the Biz, I often go back to that pure concept of what it means to be an artist. To serve humanity, to direct energy, to call blessings down, just like Marley, Coltrane, Olatunji, Ravi Shankar. This stuff is no joke to Mr. Santana.

I could go on and on, but I’ll leave you with that for now. Working with Carlos Santana was a key period of my life as a musician and as a human being, and I still draw on it in various ways. I hope I can give back some of what I gained during those heady days.

They say never meet your heroes… but I guess there are exceptions.

Happy birthday Carlos!

Ye Origin Storie…

The conversations that led to Sacred Riffs started many, many years ago when I first met Rainn Wilson. This was back in the late 1900s: pre-’The Office,’ pre-Dwight, when I could go for coffee with Rainn and no one knew who either of us were (they still only know him). He was an up-and-coming film & TV actor in LA, fresh from the theater scene in New York, landing quirky roles like Lahnk, the Thermian alien in Galaxy Quest, looking for his Hollywood break.

Speaking of almost being famous, Rainn got a small part in Almost Famous, a film that looms very large in my universe because it’s the only thing I’ve ever seen that captures the exact feeling I got from rock music during my childhood. When he found out I adored that film, Rainn generously gave me a precious piece of swag he had received on set: the album cover of Almost Famous’ fictitious band, Stillwater. I still have it.

Rainn has always egged me on in my total commitment to music. Any time he saw me in a cool jacket or a pair of sunglasses that most non-rockers would never dream of wearing, it seemed to fill him with genuine delight. Our conversations around music, especially newer rock and indie, ranged from devastating lyrics (Jason Isbell, Madison Cunningham), to unbelievably cool guitar (Blake Mills, Madison Cunningham), to hope for the future of the genre (Geese, Madison Cunningham). He seemed just as well-versed in the old stuff, though more inclined to dwell in the present.

But... Why?

The topic we always seemed to return to was: what does music mean? Why does it matter so much? As with all of his own work, Rainn was always nudging me towards reflection, service, soul-searching. And whenever I would write a brutally honest lyric about my own spiritual process, he would spread it far and wide.

In spring 2024, I was living with my family in a 19th-century farmhouse on a cattle ranch in Nevada County, California, recuperating from a series of particularly intense life tests... when Rainn suggested we work on some things together. This was right around when the actual Soul Boom book was released (a book which I devoured, by the way, and highly recommend—I’ve given several copies away). It was too late for me to try to muscle my way onto the book tour as musical accompaniment, but the seed was planted.

Finally a couple of months ago, he texted me ‘why don’t you make a bunch of videos for Soul Boom’s Instagram about spirituality and rock & roll?’ I said ‘Hellz to the yeah, Rainn-Man.’ And Sacred Riffs was born.

What this is really about

The idea of this series is to look for traces of the profound and transcendent in music, especially the stuff that doesn’t get spoken of in the same reverential tones as, say, Vaughan Williams’ ‘Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis.’ What about the final anthem fromTommy by the Who? What about Bob Marley’s ‘Redemption Song?’ Or Prince’s ‘I Would Die 4 U?’ Why does a minor chord sound like longing?

There could be no topic that’s more of a bullseye for me. I’ve always been fascinated by the spiritual, especially in music. As a person who has a rocky relationship with authority (all the way up to God) and grew up in such a cynical, materialistic culture, I am drawn to anything that seems like a shortcut to enlightenment. And music, for whatever reason, seems to be ‘a conduit, a wormhole, a secret passageway’ as I said in a recent video, to the realm of the intangible. For whatever reason, we are supposed to have this magical sound on tap 24/7 to help us on our journey towards the universal, to the Divine, to ourselves.

So while I’m certainly no authority on spiritual topics, I do know a bit about Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix. I toured with War, wrote and and produced for Santana, sat at the feet of masters, breathed that rarified air. I hope my enthusiasm is contagious! 40 years after picking up the guitar, having worked in the industry the entire time since, I’ve lost none of my fascination with the possibilities and connections music offers. I daydream about it when I’m not doing it. I daydream about it while I’m doing it. I give music an inch, it gives me a yard. That’s our deal.

Hallelujah!

Anyway, welcome aboard. There’s so much cool stuff to get into.

“JB ECKL IS CANADIAN FREAK-MAGIC FOR YOUR EARBONES”

— RAINN WILSON

JB Eckl is a Canadian musician, songwriter, producer, and composer whose career has spanned rock, funk, reggae, Latin, electronic, and global music. He has toured with the legendary funk band War, collaborated with Carlos Santana on Supernatural and Shaman, and written, performed, and produced music for artists including En Vogue, Larry Carlton, Eliades Ochoa, and Ozomatli. He is the creator and host of Sacred Riffs, a Soul Boom series exploring the weird intersections between spirituality and rock & roll. Follow him on Instagram, YouTube and his Substack Ecklectica!