August 30, 1969 - Santana and Santana

Just two weeks after playing in the legendary Woodstock music festival, the Latin rock band Santana released their debut album, "Santana" on August 30, 1969. But who is this band that got to play at Woodstock before they had even released an album?! Santana was formed in San Francisco by guitarist Carlos Santana. It began as a six-piece, with Santana on guitars, David Brown on bass, Gregg Rolie on lead vocals and keyboards, Michael Shrieve on drums, and two full-time percussionists: Michael Carabello and José "Chepito" Areas. That's a lot of rhythm section! This album has 2 covers and 4 instrumental songs and after making it onto the bill at Woodstock, Santana had a large reputation to uphold already with their first album. Let's see how they do!

Side 1 kicks off with "Waiting", the first instrumental track. It's led by keyboards from Rolie and also has some cool congas and a decent guitar solo by Santana. The next song is a Willie Bobo cover (who was a jazz percussionist) called "Evil Ways". It's a slow rock song with a catchy beat and was their made-for-radio single, as most of their songs are team-based rather than classic verses and chorus. It's a cool little song for sure about a girl who sleeps around and needs to change. It has an awesome organ solo from Rolie as well as a guitar solo that fades out the song. I really like Rolie's singing on the next track "Shades Of Time". It's about how you shouldn't just sit around when times are tough, you should "go out and make it better". It's got another nice guitar solo from Santana as well. Track 4 is another instrumental called "Savor", worth some cool congas and other percussion. It has a great organ solo and also a conga solo that sounds pretty cool. Side 1 ends with another cover, this time of Nigerian percussionist Babatunde Olatunji, titled "Jingo". The only lyrics sung are "jin-go-lo-ba" which in Olatunji's native language Yoruba means "don't worry". It has congas and organ in the background, while Santana leads with some slow but great sounding guitar. There's a short conga bit before Santana delivers what I think is his best solo so far in what is definitely a fun song. 

Side 2 starts with "Persuasion", which is about a girl who had something different about her. It's a quick rock song with some decent organ. Up next is another instrumental track titled "Treat". It opens with some awesome piano that never really stops throughout the song. It just moves into the background for a bit while the guitar takes over. At the end it's back in full force with some more crazy fast piano and Gregg Rolie seems to be quite the keyboardist. Track 8 is called "You Just Don't Care", which is led by a cool bass riff from Brown. It's got a pretty sweet organ solo followed by an awesome guitar solo. The album's closer is the longest song on the album, "Soul Sacrifice". It's started by both percussionists playing some cool stuff before we hear the "chorus" riff for the first time. The guitar and organ then alternate riffs before there's a sweet conga solo, chorus, organ solo, guitar solo and chorus again. So many solos! They all sound fantastic and this is definitely an awesome song that ends with a classic rock and roll flourish. 

That concludes "Santana", which I think did a pretty great job of showcasing what Santana are all about: lots of instrumental jam sections with various solos, but also able to write good songs in the more common structure. I think these guys will only get better, and Iblook forward to their next effort. That's it for the summer of '69, see you "next month" for the first album of the fall!