The family moved to San Francisco, and we hear a tape recording of Carlos from 1966, when he was starting to play in bands, and his guitar soloing is already extraordinary - he’s like B.B. He worshipped his father, even though he was a philanderer, and his mother too (he swore to her that one day he’d buy her a house). What the film shows us is that Carlos approached life and music with a religious reverence he never lost. Born in Jalisco, Mexico, he grew up in one of the most impoverished sections of Tijuana, with a father who was a mariachi musician (he taught Carlos how to play the violin). Santana, as we discover, had a very different arc than other rock stars. Built around an extended interview with Carlos Santana, who at 75 is spry and rueful and funny and confessional, Rudy Valdez’s documentary presents Santana’s life and career in a straightforward way, but that doesn’t explain why the film is so enthralling.
They have a life force, and that’s the story “Carlos” tells.
