Pages dedicated to one of the guitar's living legends. Created by
Marcus Taylor
at the University of Warwick.
LATEST ADDITIONS:
New CD released: Santana - Live at the Fillmore, 1968 (see discography).
Abolengo - Toronto's
latin fire!
Lyrics Page.
The History
of the Santana band.
Commercial site with
info on the Carlos Santana CD-ROM.
If there's anything you'd like to see, drop me a line.
Here are my pages.
An introduction to Carlos Santana.
Discography.
Links to off-site
Santana and Santana related pages.
The History
of the Santana band.
Any tour information
I have.
Carlos and Blues
Legend John Lee Hooker (Also With Junior Wells).
Jorge Santana
and Malo.
Azteca and
Abraxas (the Santana related groups).
Percussion video
by Raul and Karl.
Lyrics Page.
SERRANO,
who are a latin-rock band from New York.
Carlos playing on In
From The Storm.
Carlos playing in the film Desperado.
Other Latin-Rock
bands.
My main homepage.
Introduction to Carlos Santana.
This introduction does not concentrate on the man himself. For
this you should read the article in Hispanic
Online as it is a great essay on Carlos and his philosophy.
For those of you who are new to the latin-rock genre and Carlos
Santana in particular, here is a short guide. Carlos (born in Autlan de
Navarro, Jalisco, Mexico 
, 1947) and his original band burst onto the music scene at Woodstock in
1969. Despite being a young inexperienced group (drummer Michael Shrieve
was a tender 16) they stole the show. Their Woodstock version of Soul Sacrifice
was the highlight of the concert, Jimi
Hendrix said he really liked the band. After this they recorded their
first album through a recording contract with Columbia. Three albums followed
which are arguably their greatest: Santana, Abraxas and the imaginatively
titled `Third Album'. Personel changes then rocked the band and have been
a constant factor ever since. Carlos is all that remains of the original
band. Since then, Santana have released about 27 (!!) more albums. Some
highlights include Live! (1972 with Buddy Miles, jazzy), Caravanserai (1973,
jazzy), Borboletta (1974, more soul), Inner Secrets (1978, rocky disco),
Sacred fire (1993, live in Mexico). A brilliant general overview is Viva
Santana. Please see the discography
for reviews. For a more complete group history with band member listings
try my History
of the Santana band.
Carlos' music is a mixture of many styles. The common theme is
the latin beat which comes from his latino
heritage. This is a guitar player who admired the phrasing of the trumpet
players that he witnessed growing up in Mexico. Currently, on top of this
latin back beat Carlos adds an improvisational jazz/rock/blues guitar style.
The band is also well known for its keyboard players, such as Gregg Rolie
and (currently) Chester Thompson.
Desperado.
Carlos played on the soundtrack for the Rodriguez film Desperado.
His playing of Bella (Blues for Salvador album) excellently reciprocated
the stormy and tempestous love scene that was occuring on screen but it
has to be asked what Carlos was doing playing in a film of that genre.
Perhaps he liked the Banderas comment "It's easier to pull a trigger than
to play the guitar; easier to destroy than to create". Well, I supose it
was all very tongue in cheek stuff. Los Lobos provide most of the music
and do a typically good job of it. A soundtrack is available. The film
as a whole, however, is not a patch on the original El Mariachi,
an earlier Rodriguez effort which Desperado is an English language
version of.
Request:
If anyone out there has any links to Santana, Malo or Azteca related
pages please let me know. I'm always searching for them myself. Also, if
you have any other latin-rock or related links I'd love to put them down.
Cheers and Peace!
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