Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 06/01/2018 *Starred Review* As he did in his 2017 biography of Muddy Waters, Mahin celebrates the music of a popular artist while delving into the soul from which it springs. In the case of Carlos Santana, according to Mahin, it is his deep desire to make music so glorious the angels would listen, just as his father’s violin music seemed to fill the world with “magic and love.” But throughout his life, Santana has struggled. As a youth, he tried several instruments unsuccessfully. His mother moved him to Tijuana, where he dressed in costume and played popular songs on the violin for tourist coins. It was there that he heard guitar music and learned to play. In exhilarating language, peppered with Spanish words—and often invoking angels—the narrative brings Santana to San Francisco as his musical abilities, his sense of self, and a growing awareness about injustice fuse just as the various musical influences—­blues, jazz, ­Afro-Caribbean—fuse to make his sound. The story ends at Woodstock, but an afterword chronicles the rest. Mahin’s words match well with Ramirez’s intense, beautifully colored folk art, a mosaic of brown faces, young and old. The pictures demand second, even third looks whether Santana is playing at Aquatic Park or sweeping the floor at Tick Tock Burgers. A biography fitting of the man’s music. - Copyright 2018 Booklist.