Maps of Music

Santana (1969)

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

A debut that began as a purely free-form jam band, yet its single 'Evil Ways' still reached the US Top 10.

Key places

Pacific Recording, San Mateo (1969)

Recording site Pacific Recording Studio — The album was recorded and mixed at Pacific Recording in San Mateo, California. The pin follows the studio's candidate coordinates. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Santana: debut studio album by the American Latin rock band Santana
• Released 22 August 1969 by Columbia Records
• More than half of the album is instrumental music
• Mixed and released in both stereo and quadraphonic
• Album cover artwork by Lee Conklin

Background

• The band started as a purely free-form jam group
• Manager Bill Graham suggested writing more conventional songs for more impact
• The band kept the essence of improvisation in the music
• The Woodstock Festival performance came just 6 days before the public release
• The Woodstock performance gave the album a major boost

Recording

• Recorded and mixed at Pacific Recording, San Mateo, California

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · fr.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

• Rolling Stone: Langdon Winner panned the album at release, calling its music fast, frantic and without real content
• Winner compared the effect of the music to methedrine
• Village Voice: critic Robert Christgau shared Winner's opposition to the album

Reappraisal

• A later Rolling Stone retrospective review was more enthusiastic about the album
• The retrospective review praised the album's ambition, soul and conviction
• The retrospective review found every moment played straight from the heart

Records

• The single 'Evil Ways' reached the Billboard Top 10 (Spanish Wikipedia)
• Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time placed the album at number 150 (Portuguese Wikipedia)

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

Trivia

• The original album label credited all the songs to 'Santana Band' instead of listing individual writers.
• Songwriting credits in the track listing follow BMI records.
• On the original pressing, the labels wrongly credited 'Evil Ways' to Jimmie Zack; later pressings corrected this.
• The original pressing's labels also carried other incorrect songwriting credits, revised on later pressings.

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

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