OAKLAND, Calif. — Carlos Santana has been reunited with a former bandmate he hadn’t seen in decades and who now lives on the streets of Oakland.
“You don’t know how afraid I am to let you see me,” percussionist Marcus “The Magnificent” Malone said softly after he and the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer embraced Friday.
“We cherish you,” Santana replied at the reunion in a camper where Malone stays. “It’s an honor to be in your presence.”
Santana has credited Malone with being an important influence on his Afro-Latin sound.
Malone played congas on Santana’s eponymous first album, but left his band in 1969 shortly before its seminal performance at Woodstock when Malone was jailed for manslaughter.
They were reunited by a San Francisco TV reporter who stumbled on Malone while working on an unrelated story.
During their meeting Friday, Santana promised to bring Malone a set of congas and to help him get on his feet.
Since reporter Stanley Roberts’ story aired, another original member of the Santana Blues Band, percussionist Rod Harper, and producer Bobby Scott also have expressed interest in reuniting with Malone.
Roberts ran into Malone while working on a story about illegal dumping last week, KRON-TV in San Francisco reports.
Although he initially was skeptical of the homeless man’s claim that the Santana Blues Band got its start in his mother’s garage in the late 1960s, Roberts checked out the story and confirmed it. And on Friday, he took Santana for a surprise visit to the camper where Malone has been staying.