John McLaughlin

Eastern mysticism, not acid and smack, is what inspires guitarists to produce the craziest sounds. If you doubt it, sit back in your beanbag chair, slip on those puffy Koss headphones and crank Love Devotion Surrender. In the early '70s McLaughlin and Santana were students of Sri Chinmoy. Bursting with ecstatic love and joy, they made a record of screaming post-Coltrane fusion and spiritual chanting dedicated to their guru. Who knows what that wise little man thought of this cacophony?

Only Englishmen can grin as sweetly as John McLaughlin is grinning on the front and back
covers of Love Devotion Surrender. His grin is guileless and at the same time almost prissy.
Above all, it is a grin of satisfaction. Carlos Santana is grimacing. Not from pain or from
confusion: His grimace suggests that he is reaching. Sri Chinmoy's blissful, absent
countenance suggests that he is there, wherever that is. The progression of McL... More >