Marcus "The Magnificent" Malone (July 29, 1944 – October 12, 2021) was an American percussionist and a founding member of the

Latin rock Latin rock is a term to describe a subgenre blending traditional sounds and elements of Latin American and Hispanic Caribbean folk with rock music. However, it is widely used in the English-language media to refer any kind of rock music featurin ...

band

Santana Santana may refer to: Transportation * Volkswagen Santana, an automobile * Santana Cycles, manufacturer of tandem bicycles * Santana Motors, a former Spanish automobile manufacturer Boats * Santana 20, an American sailboat design by W. D. Sch ...

Life and career

Malone was born in

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...

. The band

- originally known as the Santana Blues Band - was formed in 1966 in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

with Malone as a percussionist specializing in Latin instruments. Guitarist

Carlos Santana Carlos Humberto Santana Barragán (; born July 20, 1947) is an American guitarist who rose to fame in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band Santana, which pioneered a fusion of Rock and roll and Latin American jazz. Its sound featured ...

and bassist David Brown credited Malone with inspiring the band's early improvisational approach on tracks like " Jingo".Ben Fong-Torres, "The Resurrection of Santana", ''Rolling Stone'', December 7, 1972
Retrieved 27 October 2021 The group found little success in the music scene until it was slated to perform at the August 1969

Woodstock Music Festival Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held during August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, United States, southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, Woodstock. ...

and began work on its debut album, ''Santana''. Malone is credited as co-writer of " Soul Sacrifice", which featured on the album and which the band performed at Woodstock. By the time of the band's appearance, Malone had been convicted of

manslaughter Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th cen ...

for stabbing a man, and was serving his sentence in

San Quentin State Prison San Quentin State Prison (SQ) is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men, located north of San Francisco in the unincorporated place of San Quentin in Marin County. Opened in July 1852, San Quentin is the ...

. After his release from prison in 1973, Malone had been living on the streets of

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...

, where he was accidentally discovered by

KRON-TV KRON-TV (channel 4) is a television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States, serving the San Francisco Bay Area as an affiliate of MyNetworkTV. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, KRON-TV maintains studios on Front Street in the c ...

field reporter Stanley Roberts in December 2013. Malone and Carlos Santana subsequently had an emotional reunion and Malone was set to play as a percussionist on the band's upcoming album ''

Santana IV ''Santana IV'' is the twenty-fourth studio album (thirty eighth album overall) by American rock band Santana, released in April 2016. Overview The album reunited most of the surviving members from the early 1970s lineup of the band (including ...

''. Though they did meet to rehearse, Malone did not appear on the album. Santana said, "I could tell he hadn’t played in years. He didn’t have the strength or stamina.” On June 18, 2016, Malone was critically injured by an unsecured tire that flew off a passing car in Oakland and knocked him backwards onto the sidewalk. He was placed on life support at

Oakland's Highland Hospital Highland Hospital is a public hospital in Alameda County, Oakland, California. It is operated by the Alameda Health System. It is the primary trauma center and a county hospital in Alameda County. It has been an adult Level I trauma center sinc ...

. A crowdfunding

GoFundMe GoFundMe is an American for-profit crowdfunding platform that allows people to raise money for events ranging from life events such as celebrations and graduations to challenging circumstances like accidents and illnesses. From 2010 to the b ...

page for his medical expenses was set up by his personal manager and nephew, Carl Jacobs. Malone was transferred to a skilled nursing facility in

Alameda, California Alameda ( ; ; Spanish for "Avenue (landscape), tree-lined path") is a city in Alameda County, California, located in the East Bay (San Francisco Bay Area), East Bay region of the Bay Area. The city is primarily located on Alameda (island), Alam ...

. Malone died on October 12, 2021, at the age of 77.

Albums

With Santana

*''

Live at the Fillmore 1968 ''Live at the Fillmore 1968'' is a two-CD live album by the rock band Santana. It was recorded at the Fillmore West in San Francisco from December 19 to December 22, 1968 – eight months before their first album came out – and released in 199 ...

'' (1997) (Label : Columbia) *''

The Very Best of Santana – Live in 1968 ''The Very Best of Santana – Live in 1968'' is a (double CD) live album by Santana, recorded in 1968 and released in 2007 on the Mastersong (Australian) label. Track listing Disc one #" Jingo" – (Babatunde Olatunji) #"Everyday I Have th ...

'' (2007) (Label : Mastersong – Australian import)

References

External links

Encounter Santana and Marcus Malone
1944 births 2021 deaths African-American rock musicians American percussionists Columbia Records artists Santana (band) members Musicians from Memphis, Tennessee {{US-drummer-stub