Santana Speaks About Working With Clapton And Fugees

06/15/1999 7:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Craig Rosen

(6/15/99, 4 p.m. PDT) - Carlos Santana's long-awaited and star-studded new album, Supernatural, was released today. The album features a number of guests from the rock world, including Eric Clapton, Dave Matthews, Eagle-Eye Cherry, and Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20. Also on the album are two members of the multiplatinum hip-hop trio the Fugees, Wyclef Jean and Lauryn Hill.

Guitar fans should be on the lookout for "The Calling," the album's closing track, which features both Santana and Clapton on guitar.

Santana says that after Clapton saw Santana perform with Lauryn Hill at the Grammy Awards, he wanted to be a part of Santana's new record. "I had never been to the Grammys--I had never been invited before--and because of [Hill], it was possible for me to make the connection with Eric Clapton," he says. "Eric Clapton called me after he saw me. He was with B.B. King, strangely enough, and they were in the front row, and I didn't even see anybody, I was just concentrating on getting the pretty notes out of my hands.

"So next thing I hear, like three days later, I'm in San Francisco, and someone says, 'Mr. Eric Clapton's trying to get a hold of you really bad! He really, really needs to get a hold of you!' I said, 'Okay.' I talked to him, and he says, 'I'm calling to see if there's still room for me to play on your album, I'd love to be part of your album.' Now, what do you do when you hear someone like Eric Clapton asking you if there's any room for him?"

Unfortunately, by the time Clapton contacted Santana, the album was just about done. However, Santana didn't want to regulate Clapton to doing overdubs on already finished tracks. "I said, 'I love you and I respect you too much to dip you into something that is already recorded. Why don't you come over and we'll do something from scratch?' And he says, 'Well, right now, I don't hear any music, because I'm going through some changes, but I'll come over anyway.' And so I had some sketches, and we went with that."

Features on Eagle-Eye Cherry, Matchbox 20, Wyclef Jean, and B.B. King are available on LAUNCH.com. A transcript of an exclusive LAUNCH.com chat with Eagle-Eye Cherry is also available. Look for a Dave Matthews feature in the coming months.

-- Brian Ives, New York

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