For Carlos Santana, a Passion for Rock Began as a Walk in the Park

livemint.com:

Carlos Santana, 75, is a guitarist who pioneered Latin American jazz-rock fusion and won 10 Grammys. He is the subject of “Carlos," a Sony Pictures documentary due this fall, and is currently touring nationally. He spoke with Marc Myers.

Sharing didn’t come easy when I was 9. Sitting on a sofa in the living room of my violin teacher while he was in the kitchen, my hands found almost $2 in change between the cushions. After my lesson, I went to the candy store and spent all of it on M&Ms and Baby Ruth bars.

At home, my mom was hanging laundry outside, so I started eating the candy and finished all of it. When she discovered I’d spent almost $2 on candy and didn’t share with my brothers and sisters, she let me have it. After that day, sharing became second nature for me and eventually extended to music and performing.

My parents met in the Mexican town of Cihuatlán. My father, José, was a professional violinist and entertainer who played at events. There wasn’t much work in town, and the woman he was dating, Josefina, had seen too many American movies.

Both wanted a better life. So they eloped, leaving for Autlán, 75 miles to the northeast. There, they started a family.

I was the middle child of seven who were spread out over 13 years. We lived in a few different houses there until I was 8. Our homes typically had two bedrooms and no electricity or plumbing, just an outhouse.

My brothers Tony and Jorge and I shared a room. My father was charismatic, and my mother questioned everything. She had to.

He’d be away performing for months at a time to make money. At home, Mom had rules and didn’t hesitate to enforce them. She assigned chores in the morning and explained how to do them precisely so the house would be spotless.