Maps of Music

Abraxas (1970)

Where the lyrics of Abraxas take you, and where it was really made.

The title comes from a line in Hermann Hesse's 1919 book Demian, and that line is printed on the back cover.

Key places

Recorded at Wally Heider Recording Studio (1970)

Recording site Hyde Street Studios — The album was recorded at Wally Heider Recording Studio in San Francisco. David Brown and John Fiore are credited as engineers on the release. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Recording location listed as Pacific Recorders (1970)

Recording site Pacific Recording Studio — Pacific Recorders in San Mateo is listed as a recording location for the album. The source gives only the studio name and the town. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Abraxas: second studio album by the American rock band Santana
• Released 23 September 1970 by Columbia Records
• First Santana album to top the Billboard 200 in the United States
• Ranked 334th on Rolling Stone's 2020 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time
• Both the title and the cover art come from outside rock music

Background

• Title taken from a line in Hermann Hesse's 1919 book Demian
• That line is quoted on the album's back cover
• Carlos Santana had been interested in Peter Green, leader and songwriter of Fleetwood Mac
• Santana had seen Green perform at the Fillmore West in San Francisco
• The band covered Black Magic Woman, a Fleetwood Mac song
• Gábor Szabó's instrumental Gypsy Queen was added to the end of that cover
• Oye Como Va had been a hit for Tito Puente in the early 1960s
• The band played it live regularly because audiences liked to dance to it

Recording

• Recorded at Wally Heider Recording Studio, San Francisco
• Engineers: David Brown and John Fiore
• Producers: Carlos Santana and Fred Catero
• Alberto Gianquinto played piano on Incident at Neshabur, which he co-wrote with Santana
• Gregg Rolie played the other keyboards on that track
• Samba Pa Ti was written after Santana saw a jazz saxophonist perform in the street outside his apartment

Cover

• Cover: 1961 painting Annunciation by Mati Klarwein
• Carlos Santana reportedly saw it in a magazine and asked for it as the cover
• The back of the sleeve credits the art only to 'MATI'
• The cover is now regarded as a classic of rock album covers
• Klarwein later designed artwork for Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Gregg Allman, and Earth, Wind & Fire

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · es.wikipedia.org · www.discogs.com

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Formed in San Francisco, California, in 1966 by Mexican-American guitarist Carlos Santana.
• Named the Santana Blues Band at a January 1967 Fillmore audition; shortened to Santana by the end of 1967.
• Signed with Columbia Records in late 1968.
• The "classic" line-up stabilised in May 1969: Carlos Santana, Gregg Rolie, Michael Carabello, David Brown, Michael Shrieve and Jose "Chepito" Areas.

Members

• Carlos Santana is the only consistent member across the band's history.
• Classic line-up: Santana, Gregg Rolie (organ, lead vocals), Michael Carabello and Jose "Chepito" Areas (percussion), Michael Shrieve (drums), David Brown (bass).
• Brown died in 2000; Areas was not invited to the 2014 reunion.
• Classic line-up members were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.

Career

• Breakthrough at the 1969 Woodstock Festival; the debut album Santana peaked at No. 4 on the US Billboard 200.
• Abraxas (1970) and Santana III (1971) both reached No. 1 on the US Billboard 200.
• Early 1970s experiments with jazz fusion on Caravanserai (1972), Welcome (1973) and Borboletta (1974).
• Amigos (1976) returned the band to commercial success; Moonflower (1977) was its most successful album since Santana III.
• Commercial decline in the 1980s, followed by a seven-year recording hiatus.
• Supernatural (1999) won eight Grammy Awards and sold an estimated 30 million copies worldwide.
• Santana IV (2016) reunited the classic line-up, the first recording together in 45 years.
• Estimated 100 million records sold worldwide.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Rock critic Robert Christgau, writing in The Village Voice around the release, rated it only C+
• The C+ rating denotes a not disreputable performance, most likely a failed experiment or a pleasant piece of hackwork

Reappraisal

• Rolling Stone placed it 205th in 2003, 207th in the 2012 revision, and 334th in 2020
• Rolling Stone said Santana did for Latin music what Chuck Berry had done for the blues
• Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums ranked it 202nd in 2000
• Included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die
• Billboard listed it among its 50 Essential Latin Albums of the 50 Past Years in 2015
• The Library of Congress deemed it culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant and selected it for the National Recording Registry in 2015

Records

• Reached number 1 on the Billboard 200 in the United States
• Sold more than one million copies
• Reached seventh place on the British charts

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · es.wikipedia.org · pt.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• The title comes from a line in Hesse's Demian that is quoted on the back cover.
• The name Abraxas is described as wordplay on the Spanish word Abrazas.
• Carlos Santana had been drawn to Peter Green after seeing him at the Fillmore West, which led to the Black Magic Woman cover.
• Miles Davis wrote in his autobiography that he visited the studio to see what Santana was doing while the album was being recorded.
• The Spanish article notes that Klarwein's painting was modified so that it shows two nude women.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · es.wikipedia.org · fr.wikipedia.org

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