SEE Magazine
Copyright © 1998. All Rights Reserved.
SOUNDING OFF
BY KIRBYThe time: 1966; the place: San Francisco; the sound: free-form, jammin' groove rock; the bands: Big Brother and the Holding Company, The Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe and The Fish, The Grateful Dead; the venue: Fillmore West Auditorium. Young, fiery guitarist Carlos Santana and top-40 band Hammond B3 player Gregg Rolie form a blues band.
Then, a transformation takes place. A mosaic of black, white and Latino players meld blues, rock, R&B and soul with Afro-Cuban grooves. Congas and timbales are added to the mix and a sound is born: Latin rock fusion. North American rock music was forever revolutionized by the ground-breaking Santana Band.
Under the guidance of Bay-area music impresario Bill Graham, Santana rode a wave of popularity that took them from the Fillmore to Woodstock. The powerful Latin tour de force Soul Sacrifice took the 500,000 people in the audience by storm; this historical performance skyrocketed the band of pioneers to international status.
Santana's hugely successful, eponymous début was released during 1969's summer of love, shortly after the legendary Woodstock performance. Containing the hits Evil Ways, Soul Sacrifice and Jingo, it went gold immediately.
The next year, Santana released what is often touted as their best work, Abraxas, which went straight to No. 1 on the strength of the singles Oye Como Va and Black Magic Woman. Recorded at the infamous studio of Wally Heider, the record went quadruple Platinum. The year 1971 saw the release of Santana 111, with the Tower Of Power horn section kicking on the soul hit Everybody's Everything. Everything's Coming Our Way and No One to Depend On were also on this album. The band also added Neal Schon on this record, as second lead guitarist.
To commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Santana band, Sony Music's Legacy Series has re-released these first three albums. Legions of Santana followers have always been thrilled with the label's attention to the band's career, from the beautifully-packaged three-CD box set to last year's Live at Fillmore '68. And a bang-up job has been done on these new re-issues, which include digitally remastered, previously unreleased live versions of favorites that had stayed in the can, fabulous old photos and exemplary liner notes from stellar music writer Ben Fong-Torres. A greatest hits album is also being released; it has been 24 years since the previous one (comprising hits off the first four albums).
Carlos Santana and Gregg Rolie were instrumental in organizing the re-issues. "We had a lot to do with the choice of songs and, actually, it was pretty much in agreement with Legacy. For the 'best of,' the idea was to represent the music as best as possible - the songs that were really 'radio-friendly,' the ones most people know," explains Rolie. " 'Cause that's what it was really all about.
"And you know, a lot of the time the artist may not completely agree with the ones that were popular, in terms of what they really liked. In this case, Carlos had only a couple he wanted to pick, so actually it was really close.
"On the three records, the live performances were found in the vaults at Sony. They brought by a bunch of stuff to us and, granted, they caught us off guard (like in the Albert Hall tape), which is prior to us fine-tuning the songs. We played them live first and experimented, as we always did, before recording them. So you can really hear the differences and the roughness, but the band was what it was and there's energy there that's unbelievable. So we let the other stuff go by.
"It's interesting for a real fan to hear that stuff nobody heard, from before we cut down solos and worked with a producer on the first album - Albert Gianquinto, who wrote Incident at Neshabur with Carlos. He's a piano player (played with James Cotton) - real, real, good piano player. We brought him in on our first album after doing all this stuff live, and making live recordings, and asked him, 'what do you think we should do? How should we rearrange our songs?'. The only thing he said was, 'cut down the solos!' He was there for about three minutes, told us to cut the solos and left."
Having Sony reissue Santana's first three albums has made this a project near and dear to Rolie's heart. Those were the albums he performed on, with songs he wrote and co-wrote, and he sang lead vocals on the hits. Rolie left the band (with Neal Schon, to form Journey) during the recording of Caravanseri, Santana's fourth album.
"There was a period of time there (we've all talked about this, anyway) that I have summed up for myself as too much, too soon for everyone. I just saw a thing on the Bee Gees and they were talking with Andy Gibb and he brought up this thing about 'first fame.' I kind of disagree and agree with it all at once, but there is something to it, about first fame ... All of sudden, you're just thrust into it; there's people all over you. They're telling you how great you are.
"And, you know, sometimes that's not necessarily the case. So, you can get caught up in that.
"It was partly that, and partly the drugs that revolved around the whole band - just a combination of everything. Creatively, we were going in different directions at the same time. It was the very creative force that created the music that tore it apart ... However, we attempted everything, we worked at everything, worked those things out and created the music. It really was that very force that put it together that could tear it down.
"What's amazing about the whole thing (and I'm so proud of it) is, considering the different cultural backgrounds involved coming together, we were all living together and making decisions, trying to consider what's best for everybody... So it was too much, too soon and too hard to figure out; at a certain point it became impossible to do, so I left.
"I have to admit, in looking back at my career with Santana, Journey, The Storm, Abraxas Pool, my solo projects - Santana is the closest to me; I guess maybe, in a lot of ways, because it was first. I like it all for a lot of different reasons, but I think Santana is so close to me because it was what I was weaned on."
Another milestone to memorialize the 30 years happened January 12, 1998 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, when co-founders Carlos Santana and Gregg Rolie, along with José Chepito Areas, David Brown, Mike Carabello and Michael Shrieve were inducted to The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
"I've always said Santana developed its own style of music way back when, by taking every conglomeration of music there is and putting it together and creating a style of music in a way that no one else has played since, or could. You know, at the time, we didn't think much about it. We were just doing what we did. As you look back upon it, however, you realize that is something nobody else came up with. It's pretty incredible to have been a part of that creative a process."
Few bands endure, few bands have such an effect on music history, few bands affect people's lives so strongly. While constantly changing (over 56 members went through the band), Santana has consistently delighted a multitude of faithful fans, produced numerous hit singles from Gold to quadruple Platinum albums (sales over 30 million), received the highest accolades from the music press, won numerous music and humanitarian awards and toured its incomparable sound around the globe to an estimated 13 million people, for three decades.
"I keep forgetting about this thing," Rolie laughs.
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