“This band is so great, everyone has such great ears that the music is really able to take a lot of journeys, twists and turns.” Drummer rocks out in Northwest DC this Friday and Saturday.
WTOP’s Jason Fraley Previews Cindy Blackman Santana at The Carlyle Room (Part 1)
It takes a true powerhouse to play drums for rock icons like Lenny Kravitz and Carlos Santana.
Cindy Blackman Santana rocks The Carlyle Room in Northwest DC this Friday and Saturday.
“We have some originals and some work by other people like Wayne Shorter that we’ve revamped, so they sound a little different, which is great, we’ve put a new twist on them,” Blackman Santana told WTOP. “This band is so great, everyone has such great ears that the music is really able to take a lot of journeys, twists and turns, so it keeps the excitement, it keeps the energy and everyone’s really on their instruments. It has very good sound. ,
Born in Yellow Springs, Ohio in 1959, Blackman grew up listening to a range of funk, jazz, classical and rock ‘n roll. When his family moved to Connecticut, he studied at the Hartt School of Music in Hartford and the Berklee College of Music in Boston, eventually dropping out to perform with the beloved doo-wop group The Drifters.
“It was good because it gave me some stability, a little chance to make some money… and just keep playing shows, even if it wasn’t the music I wanted to play, it was an experience, so it was great. Was,” she said.
In 1993, after moving to New York City, she received a cross-country call from Lenny Kravitz, who invited her to Los Angeles to audition for his music video for “Are You Gonna Go My Way”. She remained their touring drummer for nearly two decades, featured in the concert documentary “Alive from Planet Earth”, filmed live in Australia.
“I met Lenny through a mutual friend[who]said, ‘I’ve got this friend Lenny Kravitz who’s looking for a drummer.’ …I said, ‘Who is that?’ ‘The guy who used to be married to Lisa Bonet,'” he said. “I went there and ended up auditioning, there were about 40 drummers, I played second and after I played, Lenny closed the audition. Gave, ‘No, I choose Cindy.’ … It was an amazing experience to play on the road for seventeen years.”
While playing with Kravitz at a concert in Germany in 2005, she met her future husband Carlos Santana.
Blackman Santana said, “I was with Lenny Kravitz and Santana was playing, he played first.” “I had a chance to meet him, but there was no spark or anything like that, I was (already romantically) involved and I believe he was into it too. Fast forward five years later…he was trying to figure out which drummer to include in the sub. …Carlos and I just connected musically, then as soon as we started talking, we really connected spiritually.
He dramatically proposed to her on stage during a concert in Chicago on July 9, 2010.
“I was playing ‘Corazon Espinado’ and I took a drum solo,” Blackman Santana said. “He called me in front of the stage and started talking. …It seemed like forever, then he just looked at me and it was like a golden silence, it was no dead-zone silence, it was actually golden because of the way he was looking at me. Was. We were in front of 20 to 30,000 people, then he just said, ‘Cindy, will you marry me?’ I was very disappointed, but I said, ‘Yes, of course.’
Fourteen years later, the husband-and-wife musicians are still going strong.
“Doing what you love best with the person you love is really great,” she said. “We are able to share something that is so divine. Music to me is like prayer, it’s the highest form of communication, because it transcends any kind of barrier whether it’s racial, political, cultural – it doesn’t matter what it is, it transcends that. Slip out. So I love music and to be able to share it with Carlos is the ultimate journey, the ultimate joy, the ultimate journey.
WTOP’s Jason Fraley Previews Cindy Blackman Santana at The Carlyle Room (Part 2)
Listen to our full conversation on the podcast below:
Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.
© 2024 WTOP. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located in the European Economic Area.
