ARTIST HOPES TO LEAD GROUP MEDITATION 

Many artists run off at the mouth when they get up to accept a Grammy Award, eating up high-priced air time in the process. But Carlos Santana has plans for something completely different should he win a Grammy this year, which seems a forgone conclusion given the 10 nominations for his hit album, Supernatural, and his well-deserved stature as godfather of the current Latin music explosion.

A Grammy award, says the veteran guitarist, "would mean that I get an opportunity to thank the people who made it possible. But also a chance to invite the audience to meditate in silence for 10 seconds; and in those 10 seconds to visualize equality, justice, beauty, grace, excellence and compassion. In the industry, they call that dead time. But I think there'd be far more life and positive energy in that than in the extremely destructive, degrading and demeaning stuff they show on television most of the time."

Santana has said that he made Supernatural under divine guidance: "from an entity, an angel, that I call Metatron." He received a more earthly assistance from music biz vet and Arista records chief Clive Davis, who signed Santana to the label a few years back. Davis had been a business mentor to Santana in his early-'70s heyday, which brought hits like "Evil Ways," "Black Magic Woman/ Gypsy Queen," "Oye Como Va," "No One to Depend On" and the classic Abraxas album. To revitalize Santana for the '90s, Davis hit on the idea of teaming Carlos with contemporary hitmakers like Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20, Dave Matthews, Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean and Santana's fellow guitar hero Eric Clapton, who all perform on Supernatural.

"Once we consecrated the act of signing the contract," Santana recalls, "[Davis] said 'You know, I was talking to Lauryn Hill on the phone and I found out she really likes your music. I hope you don't mind, but I gave her your phone number.'"

Santana wound up playing on "To Zion," a tune that Hill wrote for her son and recorded on her hugely influential album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Santana also accompanied the singer on stage when she performed "To Zion" at last year's Grammys, the year she swept the awards. Eric Clapton was in the front row. Arista had been trying to contact Clapton to ask him to play on what would become Supernatural. But the two guitarists, who have been friends since the early '70s, didn't reconnect until Clapton saw Santana onstage with Hill at the Grammys.

"So everything just fell into place," says Santana, "like a chain reaction."

At the time of this writing, Supernatural and "Smooth" are still breaking chart records for the length of time spent at No. 1. The album's success has not only brought mass media recognition to a great musician, it has also been a timely career coup for Davis, whose contract with Arista comes up for renegotiation this summer.

A Grammy for Supernatural, by the way, wouldn't be Santana's first. He won Best Instrumental honors in 1989 for "Blues for Salvador," a composition dedicated--coincidentally enough--to his son. "But that was given to me kind of through the back door," says the guitarist of the '89 win. "This one feels like it might be through the front door. Like my sister Lauryn Hill."

So maybe it's time to practice chanting Om and focusing on your third eye. Even in the unlikely event that Santana doesn't win a Grammy this millennium year, it still couldn't hurt. --Alan di Perna