Carlos Santana Biography – A Supernatural Guitarist

One of the great guitarists to grace the musical arena, Carlos Santana is the leading light of world music, the sorcerer with a guitar.

Santana’s music is where passion meets melody, virtuosity meets genius and soul meets song. The wonder of his artistic legacy has managed to transcend geographical and cultural borders, carving out a place in the history of music that is virtually unattainable.

For critics, contemporaries and fans of the rock guitar, Carlos Santana is second only to Jimi Hendrix in terms of innovation and flamboyance of technique. His enthralling and melodious guitar solos form the basis of his band Santana.

For over forty years, Carlos Santana has mesmerized his audience and kept them spellbound with his electrifying guitar compositions and breathtaking performances.

Carlos Santana’s concerts are a display of unbridled energy and charismatic stage presence. ‘World music’ as it is known today, owes much of its existence to Santana who was one of the first artists to blend different genres like jazz, rock and blues with multi-ethnic styles like Afro-Cuban, Latin, Salsa and Fusion.

Carlos also brought into use the unique sounds of the conga and timbales to lend a distinctive flavor to his music. The result was the legendary, instantly recognizable sound that is inimitably Santana. As Santana says, “With one note people know me…” The true feather in an already over-flowing cap was when Rolling Stone magazine ranked Carlos Santana #15 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of all Time.

Carlos Santana Biography – From The Beginning

Carlos Santana was born on July 20, 1947, in Autlan de Navarro, Jalisco, Mexico. His father was an accomplished Mariachi violinist who taught him the nuances of playing the violin at the age of five. His childhood was spent performing with his father’s band on the streets of Tijuana. At the age of eight, Carlos was enamored with the sound of the guitar after listening to bluesy and rock and roll numbers on radio. He switched his violin for the guitar and was soon an accomplished player.

Carlos started playing the blues and rock and roll in clubs and bars for various bands in Tijuana. In 1960, when Carlos was thirteen, the family shifted to San Francisco and Carlos joined them a year later. San Francisco was the hub of the emerging alternate rock scene with many rock acts such as The Grateful Dead based there. Carlos used to sneak into Bill Graham’s Fillmore Auditorium to watch acts like The Grateful Dead and Muddy Waters. He was also exposed to varieties of music in San Francisco such as the conga players who used to jam at Aquatic Park. These thus formed his early musical influence.

In 1966, Carlos Santana formed the first version of the Santana Blues Band with guitarist Tony Frazier, Greg Rolie and Mike Carabello on percussion. The band was named Santana because of a musician union requirement that every band must have a leader. The band played gigs in and around San Francisco, gaining experience every step of the way. By 1969, when the band recorded its self-titled debut album, the original lineup was gone and Santana settled into a sextet comprising Carlos Santana, Greg Rolie, Mike Shrieve, Mike Carabello, Jose Chepito Areas on percussion and David Brown on bass.

Woodstock – The Chance Of A Lifetime

Bill Graham, whom Santana had known since his early teenage years, stepped in to manage the band. At Graham’s insistence, Santana got an opportunity to play at the Woodstock Festival of Music and Art in August 1969, a huge gig for a largely unknown band. It was the chance of a lifetime and Santana rose up to the occasion with a riveting performance.

Their novel Latin-rock-jazz blend was a revelation and had the crowd entranced with its singularly exciting beat. The epic set at Woodstock caused public anticipation about their debut album to soar and when ‘Santana’ was finally released in October of that year, it was a resounding hit. It shot to #4 on the Billboards chart and stayed there for two continuous years, spawning the classic hits ‘Jingo’ and ‘Evil Ways’.

The release of the Woodstock soundtrack and film in 1970 which contained Santana’s fiery rendition of ‘Soul Sacrifice’ sent their popularity shooting sky high. The same year saw the release of their next album, the psychedelic ‘Abraxas’, which was an even greater hit than the first. It climbed all the way to #1 on the Billboard chart and ended up selling over four million copies.

Its Top Ten singles ‘Black Magic Woman’, ‘Samba Pa Ti’ and ‘Oyo Como Va’ were huge international hits and have passed into history as legendary classics of their genre. Santana 3, their third album was released in 1971 and was certified a hit. This album also reached #1 on the Billboard charts, sold two million copies and generated two hit singles ‘Everybody’s Everything’ and ‘No one To Depend On’. With these successes, Santana established a devoted fan-following and became one of the foremost rock acts in the world.

Jazzing It Up

In the meantime, Carlos was getting increasingly fascinated by the jazz exploits of Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Despite reaching the pinnacle of success with their unique Latin rock beats, Carlos wanted to incorporate jazz elements into the classic Santana sound. This did not go down well with the other band members particularly Rolie. They weren’t in favor of deviating from the original Santana sound. The issue sounded the death-knell for the band with David Brown and Mike Carabello being the first ones to part ways with Santana.

The band recorded and released their next album ‘Caravanserai’ in 1972 which achieved success on the weight of Santana’s popularity but which was a major change in musical direction from rock to jazz. After the release of the album, Greg Rolie too went his separate way and Santana assumed control of the band.

In 1973, Carlos met and married Deborah King, the daughter of the late blues guitarist Saunders King. Around this time, Carlos also met John McLaughlin, the lead guitarist of the fusion band The Mahavishnu Orchestra and became a follower of his guru Shri Chinmoy. The next few years passed in a haze of spiritual fervor and an ever changing line up of band mates. Carlos collaborated with various jazz musicians to release a few critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful albums. The only noteworthy exception was the 1977 ‘Moonflower’ which sold two million copies and produced the hit ‘She’s Not There’. By 1982 Carlos realized that his spiritual and musical approach was eroding his fan base and he ended his association with Shri Chinmoy.

The 80s saw Carlos ditch the formulaic records the record company executives were pushing and take pleasure in jamming and playing back -up. He appeared with such notables as Aretha Franklin, blues legend John Lee Hooker, Living Color guitarist Vernon Reid and Mickey Hart of The Grateful Dead among others. Carlos’s 1988 solo effort ‘Blues for Salvador’ won him the Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. In 1990, Carlos left Columbia Records after an association of 22 years and switched over to Polygram.

Plummeting Sales… To Supernatural Hits

Two non-descript albums followed- ‘Milagro’ in 1992 and ‘Sacred Fire- Live in South America’ in 1993, record sales plummeted and Carlos was facing the worst phase of his career. He was in danger of joining the list of rock has-beens when Clive Davis and his record label Arista Records stepped in to help Carlos architect one of the most remarkable comebacks in the history of rock music. Davis had worked with Santana when he had been a green horn, and had faith in Carlos’s musical abilities and salability. He encouraged Carlos to record a star-studded album in collaboration with mostly younger artists. The idea clicked and in 1999, the album ‘Supernatural’ was released featuring Bobby Martin, Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20, Eric Clapton, Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean, Maná, Dave Matthews, and others.

Carlos Santana And Rob Thomas – “Smooth” Live

The album was a runaway success, receiving rousing reviews and thumping record sales from die-hard Carlos fans. The single ‘Smooth’, a vibrant, Latin inspired number with Carlos’s trademark guitar riffs and fills, was a phenomenal hit, reigning at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 for twelve consecutive weeks and making history as the last #1 hit of the 1900s. The single ‘Maria Maria’ too reached #1o on the charts and stayed on the top for ten weeks.

The ultimate tribute to Santana’s musical resurgence was the album’s clean sweep of the Grammy Awards of year 2000. Carlos received an unparalleled eight Grammys that year including Album of The Year for “Supernatural” and Song of The Year for the single “Smooth”. Carlos marched into history as the co-holder of the record for most Grammys won in a year by an individual, along with Michael Jackson. The album went on to sell 21 million copies and is Carlos’s greatest selling album by far.

Recent Carlos Santana

Shaman (2002) and All That I Am (2005) followed the pattern of Supernatural, featuring collaborations with distinguished guest artists and peppy, chart-friendly numbers. Carlos Santana was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998 along with the original lineup of his band Santana. In 2009, Carlos received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Billboard Latin Music Awards.

Carlos continues to tour, record and perform concerts with as much gusto as when he first burst onto the rock scene forty years ago. He hit on the truth when he said:

“My job in this life is to give people spiritual ecstasy through music. In my concerts people cry, laugh, dance. If they climaxed spiritually, I did my job. I did it decently and honestly.”

“If our history can challenge the next wave of musicians to keep moving and changing, to keep spiritually hungry and horny, that’s what it’s all about.”

Carlos Santana and his musical legacy will surely inspire future musicians and guitarists to keep the torch of world music burning bright and strong for many more years to come.

Carlos Santana Biography
By Scotty Smith
Guitarist Rock ©2008-2009