santana

Santana created a unique blend of Latin jazz, Afro-Cuban rhythms, and heavy psychedelic blues for this fiercely persuasive treat.  Bandleader Carlos Santana was born in Mexico and learned to play violin from his father at the age of five.  He switched to guitar at the age of eight and by fourteen was playing nights at a Tijuana strip club:   "I needed to do it to help him bring some financial help for my four sisters and two brothers and my mom; there was too many of us.  Of course, my older brother was helping, being a mechanic; anything we needed to do, sweeping or washing dishes. For me it just became natural, gravitating to music...I was trying to learn how to play like B.B. King and Otis Rush, and the more I started playing, I started playing like me.  So I said, 'Maybe you're not supposed to sound like them. Maybe I'm supposed to sound like me...I was born knowing that if you open the faucet, water's going to come out.  I just knew that the word 'impossible' was for some people, but not for me."

Santana emigrated to San Francisco and became involved in the local music scene.  He was given a slot at a matinee show at  Bill Graham's Fillmore West, which led to the promoter taking him under his wing.  The Santana Blues Band was formed with other local street musicians  David Brown, Marcus Malone, and Gregg Rolie.  As they built a following, the group secured a record deal with Columbia Records and started work on their debut.  During the sessions, they lost drummer Bob Livingston and percussionist Marcus Malone, replacing them with the more expansive powers of  Michael Shrieve, Michael Carabello, and José "Chepito" Areas.  'Santana' was recorded at Pacific Recording in San Mateo, California with Brent Dangerfield co-producing with the band that featured Carlos Santana on guitar and vocals;  Gregg Rolie on organ, piano, and vocals;  David Brown on bass;  Michael Shrieve on drums;  Michael Carabello on congas and percussion;  and José "Chepito" Areas on timbales, congas, percussion, and background vocals.  

Santana considers:  "Somewhere there's a person who will align with you and help your aspirations become fruitful and positive and real ... [Columbia Records executive Clive Davis] made me realize that all music is important if it comes from the heart.  And he was open to everything. He wasn't just into jazz... He taught me the art of music by understanding the beat of the street.''

Before the album was released, Graham secured the band a spot at the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival.  The unknown band blew the audience away.  Rolie remembers:   "At the time, it was just another festival. We flew in and we played, then stayed and saw Sly Stone – who was awesome. But as we drove out, we started passing all of these people – 500,000 people. That’s when it dawned on me. If I had known what it was going to be, I might have been scared. At the time, we thought of it as just another gig. It turned out to be the mother of all of them...With Carlos, the best way to describe his playing is expressed by feelings. Carlos plays Carlos; he doesn’t play anybody else. He doesn’t go anywhere else." 

With the word of their performance at Woodstock, 'Santana' went to twenty-six in the UK, nineteen in Norway, fourteen in Australia, five in France and the Netherlands, and number four on the US album chart.  




http://www.santana.com/






'Evil Ways' became a top ten hit.  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jO7j5KHWd4






'Santana' 
full album:



00:00 1 "Waiting" (Santana) -- 4:03
04:06 2 "Evil Ways" (Clarence "Sonny" Henry) -- 3:57
08:05 3 "Shades of Time" (G. Rolie / C. Santana) -- 3:14
11:20 4 "Savor" (Santana) -- 2:47
14:06 5 "Jingo" (Babatunde Olatunji) -- 4:21
18:27 6 "Persuasion" (Santana) -- 2:33
21:00 7 "Treat" (Santana) -- 4:43
25:44 8 "You Just Don't Care" (Santana) -- 4:34
30:20 9 "Soul Sacrifice" (C.Santana/G.Rolie/M.Malone/D.Brown) -- 6:38


bonus track
"Studio Jam" (C. Santana, G. Rolie, J. Areas, D. Brown, M. Carabello, M. Shrieve) – 7:09



Live at Woodstock



Santana - Soul Sacrifice (Live at Woodstock 1969) HD Remastered from Pedro Oliveira on Vimeo.



Setlist:
00:00 Waiting (audio)
04:49 Evil Ways (video)
08:44 You Just Don't Care (audio)
11:50 Savor (audio)
17:13 Jingo (audio)
22:35 Pesuasion (audio)
25:49 Soul Sacrifice (video)
32:03 Fried Neckbones And Some Home Fries (audio)

caravanserai

Santana underwent major changes in their lineup and their sound with this conceptual album of psychedelic jazz fusion.  Before and during the recording of  'Caravanserai' there was upheaval in the band. Personality clashes and struggles for control of the group let to changes in management and the departure of several band members. Co-producers Carlos Santana and Michael Shrieve brought in percussionists James Mingo Lewis and Armando Peraza to replace Michael Carabello, and bassists Tom Rutley and Doug Rauch to replace David Brown. Wendy Haas and Tom Coster came in to add more keyboards. The sessions included Carlos Santana on guitar, vocals, and percussion; Neal Schon on guitar; Gregg Rolie on organ, piano, and vocals; Michael Shrieve on drums and percussion; José "Chepito" Areas on percussion, congas, timbales, and bongos; Douglas Rauch on bass and guitar; Tom Rutley on acoustic bass; James Mingo Lewis on percussion, congas, bongos, vocals, and acoustic piano; Armando Peraza on percussion and bongos; Douglas Rodrigues on guitar; Wendy Haas on piano; Hadley Caliman on saxophone and flute; Rico Reyes on vocals; Lenny White on castanets; Tom Coster on electric piano; and Tom Harrell on orchestra arrangement. Gregg Rolie and Neal Schon quit the band after the album was complete to form Journey.

Shrieve recalls: "The recording took place at the CBS Folsom Street Studios, I believe. Recording the intro to 'Eternal Caravan of Reincarnation' and piecing that together was fun. I wanted crickets and the sound of the stillness of night to open the record, so engineer Glenn Kolotkin went home and recorded crickets outside of his house and brought them into the studio. We also got the sound of a brook or a stream. Then I had Hadley Caliman come in and just play for a long time, just harmonic tones and things on the sax, and then I edited it into what you hear. That little sax intro alone took over twenty edits…that’s cutting tape editing, not Pro-Tools! Then the sound of Tom Rutley’s bass and the jazz-feel ride cymbal set the tone, with cymbal swells and tuned metallic sounds… gentle, with Wendy Haas coming in on Fender Rhodes with vibrato. The whole vibe is copped from 'Astral Traveling', the lead track from Pharoah Sanders’ record 'Thembi'. From there, the intro to 'Waves Within' featured some kind of filter that Dougie Rauch set up. 'Waves Within' was Dougie’s baby, even though Gregg Rolie contributed some changes to it. The odd time signature, the vibe was Doug Rauch. Doug was completely into odd times at this point, being a Mahavishnu fan, but all you have to do is go to the next track, 'Look Up (To See What's Coming Down)' to hear where he was at with his funk playing. Doug was way ahead of his time, and was a true innovator on the instrument. 'Future Primitive' was Chepito and Mingo, but the soundscape behind it was my idea and had me playing piano, vibes (backwards on tape) and cymbal swells. That piece goes into 'Stone Flower' with the same atmosphere. By the time of 'Caravanserai' I was really into Brazilian music and Antonio Carlos Jobim. We had been in Europe touring and one night after a show I had put on a Jobim record and had written lyrics to 'Stone Flower'. I think Tom Rutley sounds really great on 'Stone Flower'. Gregg Rolie, bless his heart, put up with Carlos and I all up in his face trying to get him to play B3 Organ like Larry Young! And you know what? He sounds fabulous! Wendy is there again on electric piano, and Carlos is playing both cuica and agogo bells. Arrangement-wise and sound-wise, 'Stone Flower' was all me and Carlos, and Carlos and I did the vocals. 'La Fuente Del Ritmo' also has some of my favorite drum playing. 'Caravanserai' was Carlos’ and my baby conceptually, and I believe that we drove everyone crazy doing it! When Clive Davis visited the studio to hear what we were doing he couldn’t believe it and said something like 'You’re committing career suicide!'"

'Caravanserai' went to number sixteen in Australia, ten in Norway, eight in the US, six in the UK, and number three in the Netherlands. The album was nominated for a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Performance - With Vocal Coloring.  Santana said at the time in Rolling Stone:  "I try as much as I can every day. I try to - just to see the best things in people and to have a vast understanding of what God wants us to be instead of what our minds want us to do...Through meditating I'm beginning to be a little more confident in knowing which way to channel my energy and what to thing of those brothers and siters who put me in that place - in reality I'm just exactly what they are. Eventually they will come, because most people are like that - you know, monkey see, monkey do. That's why the freeway is so crowded sometimes. Very few people are chosen to make their own way and to influence others. Very few people...It's sort of like a basket of fruit, of me marinating myself with beliefs that I have now, this faith, actually, and me waking up in the morning, and not going to bed with chicks any more, giving myself liek true discipline for awhile. I didn't want to make love to one person or three persons in bed any more. I felt that my energy could go farther than that to make love to everybody who's got ears."









http://www.santana.com/












'Caravanserai'
full album:




"Eternal Caravan of Reincarnation" (Rutley, Neal Schon, M. Shrieve) -- 4:28
"Waves Within" (Doug Rauch, Greg Rolie, Carlos Santana) -- 3:54
"Look Up (To See What's Coming Down)" (Rauch, Rolie, Santana) -- 3:00
"Just in Time to See the Sun" (Rolie, Santana, Shrieve) -- 2:18
"Song of the Wind" (Rolie, Santana, Schon) -- 6:04
"All the Love of the Universe" (Santana, Schon) -- 7:40
"Future Primitive" (José Areas, Mingo Lewis) -- 4:12
"Stone Flower" (Antonio Carlos Jobim, Santana, Shrieve) -- 6:15
"La Fuente del Ritmo" (Lewis) -- 4:34
"Every Step of the Way" (Shrieve) -- 9:05

santana iii

Santana stretched out their hand, expanded their lineup, and came back better, faster, and stronger on their third album. José Chepitó Areas had suffered a brain aneurysm; so Thomas "Coke" Escovedo was brought in to replace him; but when Areas returned, the two percussionists worked together with and Mike Carabello and drummer Michael Shrieve to create a polyrhythmic foundation to the intense guitar interplay between Carlos Santana and seventeen year old Neal Schon who had been touring with them. 'Santana III' was produced by the members of the band and recorded practically live in the studio at Columbia Studios in San Francisco. It became their last number one album until 'Supernatural' in 1999, the longest stretch ever between number one albums.





http://www.santana.com/

'Everything's Coming Our Way' features Carlos on lead vocal.

"Open your eyes,

Let it begin with me.

Brand new day,

Fresh new way to live,

The mornin' is callin'

Walk with me into the sun."

'Batuka / No One to Depend On'

the single for 'No One to Depend On' reached number thirty six in the US; but this live version shows how smoothly they segue into each other on the album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ2vp_PBDAM

'Everybody's Everything' made it to number twelve on the US pop chart.

"You can understand, everything's to share

Let your spirit dance, brothers everywhere

Let your head be free, turn the wisdom key

Find it naturally, see you're lucky to be"

'Santana III'
full album:




Side one
"Batuka" (instrumental) (José Areas, David Brown, Michael Carabello, Gregg Rolie, Michael Shrieve) – 3:35
"No One to Depend On" (Carabello, Coke Escovedo, Rolie) – 5:31
"Taboo" (Areas, Rolie) – 5:34
"Toussaint L'Overture" (Areas, D. Brown, Carabello, Rolie, Carlos Santana, Shrieve) – 5:56
Side two
"Everybody's Everything" (Milton Brown, Tyrone Moss, Santana) – 3:31
"Guajira" (Areas, Brown, Rico Reyes) – 5:43
"Jungle Strut" (instrumental) (Gene Ammons) – 5:20
"Everything's Coming Our Way" (Santana) – 3:15
"Para los Rumberos" (Tito Puente) – 2:47

abraxas

approximating abracadabra, santana's second album levitated at the top of the charts with its a magical and mystical mix of rock, jazz, and blues that channeled the experimentalism of the psychedelic movement (and the great invisible spirit) through latin grooves that could rise and break on your mind like waves of joy.   

the cover is the painting annunciation, by mati klarwein.  the album title comes from a line in hermann hesse's book, demian.  


  "listen how it goes: my rhythm. good to enjoy!"





http://www.santana.com/

if i hear 'black magic woman' without the 'gypsy queen', i feel cheated. originally recorded by fleetwood mac, santana's single version made it to number four on the u.s. charts. it was sung by greg rolie. 'gypsy queen' was written by hungarian jazz guitarist gábor szabó.

  

Abraxas full album:




side 1
1. "Singing Winds, Crying Beasts" (Instrumental) Mike Carabello 4:51
2. "Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen"   Peter Green/Gábor Szabó 5:24
3. "Oye Como Va"   Tito Puente 4:17
4. "Incident at Neshabur" (Instrumental) Alberto Gianquinto, Carlos Santana 4:58
side 2
1. "Se a Cabo"   José Areas 2:50
2. "Mother's Daughter"   Gregg Rolie 4:25
3. "Samba Pa Ti" (Instrumental) Santana 4:45
4. "Hope You're Feeling Better"   Rolie 4:10
5. "El Nicoya"   Areas 1:30







"we stood before it and began to freeze inside from the exertion. we questioned the painting, berated it, made love to it, prayed to it: we called it mother, called it whore and slut, called it our beloved, called it abraxas...."