Santana - Santana (1969)

For those that think Rob Thomas was helping launch the career of Carlos Santana with the hit single Smooth in 1999, the revelation that he has been around since the late 1960s may come as something of a shock! For my money, Santana’s greatest work was during the late 1960s and early 1970s of which 1969’s debut album is a shining example.

Shooting to fame following an inspired set at the legendary Woodstock festival, featuring many of the tracks here, Santana’s debut album presented a fresh musical approach combining latin rhythms and phrasing with semi-psychedelic jazz rock to produce a powerful hybrid based around a high calibre of musicianship and long instrumental passages that buzzed along with full percussion backing, frequently mambo and samba beats and overlaid with tuneful soloing from Carlos Santana and Hammond player Gregg Rolie.

The album opens with a Latin conga rhythm that builds with the Hammond into a laid back instrumental in which Gregg Rolie takes the starring role with Santana himself soloing toward the end of the piece. Evil Ways which follows is a vocal track at a mellow pace with again strong solos from Rolie and Santana and was a top 10 US single.

Shades Of Time really serves to showcase Santana’s melodic soloing ability before we are thrown into the uptempo mambo of Savor which is an instrumental piece showcasing Rolie’s musical ability to the full. The Latin percussion doesn’t let up as one of Santana’s better known earlier numbers Jingo, builds-up into a good workout for Santana’s melodic playing and a hypnotic vocal.

The mood then changes to a more straight Yardbird’s feel with Persuasion which is a strong vocal-led track. The mood then changes once more with the jazzy piano intro of Treat that leads to a Latin-flavoured instrumental. You Just Don’t Care follows which is again a standard blues-rock song of considerable power, particularly in vocal delivery.

The congas then return to lead into another of the better-known Santana numbers, Soul Sacrifice, of which a storming version was played at Woodstock as can be seen below. This track also gives drummer Mike Shrieve a chance to really shine with some technically accomplished fills and all-round ability.

Whilst Santana would be ‘discovered’ by a whole new audience some 30 years later, this album represents the true sound of Santana – Latin-flavoured jazz rock at its best.

• Carlos Santana – Guitar
• Gregg Rolie – Keyboard/Vocals
• David Brown – Bass
• Michael Shrieve – Drums
• Michael Carabello – Percussion
• Jose Areas – Percussion