Carlos!

It’s kind of difficult to break the Santana band’s catalog down into particular eras.  Musically, the elements present on their first album in 1969 are intact on their latest release; lots of Latin percussion, and Carlos’ guitar.  Their musical journey has been evolutionary, with those two factors as the constants of their universe.

The clearest break in their history was the departure of Greg Rolie and Neal Schon after their fourth album, Caravanserai.  That represented probably the most radical change in the band’s sound, and many would say that they’ve never been as good.  Their first three albums especially had a fire and a raw energy that few if any of their later releases possessed.

As a package, these first three albums are an interesting study, especially taken in light of the ’97 release of their ’68 live set at the Fillmore, along with their famous performance at the Woodstock festival.  On the Fillmore album they are young and raw, still finding their way.  By Woodstock, only about a year later, they were much tighter and the songs much more fleshed out.  The first album hadn’t even been released yet, but the incendiary footage of “Soul Sacrifice” put “Santana I” high on the chart.

Still, this first album, as hot as it was, only showed their potential.  The second, Abraxas, was better, and the third album arguably better still.  Among Santana fans, the debate will surely rage until the Second Coming whether Abraxas or III was the better album.  Some say Abraxas was too raw, others that III was too slick and too mellow.  I’m still deciding, so please put them both back in the CD player, thank you.

Now, it is widely known that the band were using a lot of, ahem, recreational chemical enhancement during this period.  Carlos has admitted in print that he was very, very high during the Woodstock set and alleges to not remember a lot of the details.  He has been quite unapologetic about the use especially of psychedelics, claiming that they “opened up” a lot of possibilities creatively.

Somewhere between III and Caravanserai, he seemed to suddenly get a deep interest in a more spiritual way of life.  He gave up drugs, and according to reports was introduced by fellow guitarist John McLaughlin to the Indian spiritual teacher, Sri Chinmoy.  It would appear that this created a lot of tension in the band, and after Caravanserai Rolie and Schon left to form Journey.

I have to say, I feel a lot of sympathy for Greg Rolie.  He was one of the driving forces behind the early Santana sound, writing many of the songs and acting as keyboardist and lead vocalist.  He and Schon left just as the band was reaching the pinnacle of success, the beginning of a period of almost two decades when everything the band released went at least gold.

Early Journey, on the other hand, languished at the bottom of the charts through their first three albums.  People expecting more of the Santana Latin sound were sorely disappointed to hear what now sounds like second-rate jazz-rock.  It took the addition of lead singer Steve Perry to finally break through.  Unfortunately, their success took the band in a direction where Rolie did not want to go, and was not needed.  Again, he left a band just as they were getting huge.  He’s had two bites of the apple, and so far has never gotten another.  But stay tuned, because he will reappear in this story.

Anyway, Carlos started hanging with Sri Chinmoy and accepted a new spiritual name, Devadip, much as John McLaughlin added Mahavishnu.  The two proceeded to record an album together, called Love, Devotion, Surrender.  On the cover they are both wearing all white and short hair.  It was quite an image for the Santana fans used to the wild, long-haired young man in the black leather vest from Woodstock.

For guitar junkies, it was a feast.  It’s largely just two shred-meisters jamming, but MAN!  What jamming!  There’s, again, a lot of debate about this album.  Fans of each guitarist tend to claim their man as “the winner,” as if it were some kind of high-end head-cutting contest.  And, in some ways, that’s exactly what it was.  Rock vs. jazz, America vs. England, white vs. Hispanic, trained vs. untrained.  Carlos famously does not know how to read music, McLaughlin came from stints with jazz heavies like Miles Davis.

It was surprisingly democratic, however.  Both bands contributed, and both soloists got plenty of showcase time.  No one style, group, or soloist particularly dominated the sessions.  Which is exactly what I think they were striving for; a spiritual coming together of two massive talents, the likes of which is rarely seen.

It is interesting forty years on to go back and give it a listen.  Despite their unity at that time under Chinmoy’s big umbrella, their individual styles come shining through.  In a way, it was McLaughlin’s chance to school the street-educated rocker how to play “proper” music.  But while Mahavishnu’s playing is precise and expertly constructed, Carlos just burns with joy.  The jazz man is making all the changes and pushing the rhythm section while the rocker belches flame all over it.  And it’s a clear, shining flame that leaves no smoke and consumes all.  You could argue that Mahavishnu played better, but Devadip clearly had more fun.

And so begins the “post-Rolie” period, which pretty much continues through hills and valleys and around corners in various directions to this day.  The band’s next album, Welcome, continued the new Chinmoy theme with an all-white cover.  Signifying spiritual purity, y’know.  It was so pure, it was downright somnambulistic.  Actually, the music is damned good and pretty hot in places, but there are absolutely no burrs or dirt on it whatsoever.  Tom Coster, the new keyboardist, proves to be twice as good and half as interesting as his predecessor.  And at the end of the sessions, drummer Mike Shrieve, who made a name for himself at Woodstock with one of the greatest drum solos ever, left the band.

By now the roster was on revolving door mode anyway.  Upwards of thirty or more musicians and singers have claimed membership in the band over the years.  And every one of them has been top grade.

Essential albums:

The first three, for sure.  These are what the legend is built upon.  Welcome is good, Borboletta is better and rocks more.  Amigos is quite good, getting into more of a funk mode.  Yeah, it’s a little too cheery and light in places, but it cooks.  One of Carlos’ solo albums, 1979’s Oneness – Silver Dreams, Golden Realities, has some interesting stuff on it.

From the later ‘70’s, Moonflower from 1977 is a must-have.  It’s a double album with studio and live tracks mixed together.  Inner Secrets (1978) and Marathon (1979) are also worth a listen.  There’s a live album from 1975 called Lotus that is well worth tracking down.  Originally released only in Japan as a three-record set, I found it at a store specializing in imports.  It’s great, and a nice broad snapshot of the band in the Welcome era.  And it’s available now on 2 CD’s.

The ‘80’s started off well with ‘81’s Zebop, but after that things kind of tapered off.  They started using more synths and even synth drums in the studio, and the writing could, frankly, have been better.  The band started getting its groove back with 1990’s Spirits Dancing In The Flesh.  There was a long hiatus from the studio, but the live Sacred Fire is quite good.

And then came Supernatural.  Their biggest selling album, and surely one of the top 25 of all time.  It was a huge collaboration with a half dozen famous young guest stars, including Rob Thomas, Dave Matthews, Lauren Hill, and some old guy named Eric Clapton.  It sold over 15 million copies in the US alone and took every Grammy you could name.

And the album?  Well, it’s . . . pretty good . . . I guess . . .  Actually, the first song, Da le Yaleo, smokes!  Old school Santana at its best.  From there, it kind of slides downhill rather quickly.  Such is the nature of collaboration, I’m afraid.  Rob Thomas’ “Smooth” is the high point, and there’s some other tunes that work pretty well, some that don’t . . . on the whole it’s rather spotty.  But the good stuff was great, and the lesser stuff didn’t exactly suck.  I bought it, and I still play it.

The idea behind it, and the two albums that followed (Shaman and All That I Am) was to show how great Carlos is when he’s working with interesting people on interesting songs.  But the best example of this, the album that I think showcases his gift, the 2010 collection, Guitar Heaven.  Carlos and the band, with a smattering of guest singers, cooking as only they can cook on some rock classics.

Their version of Def Leppard’s “Photograph” is worth the price of admission, along with the AC-DC cover, “Back in Black.”  It was also an inspired choice to let Joe Cocker sing “Little Wing,” and this version of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” is, maybe, even better than Jeff Healey’s.  Truly inspired, front to back.  Every bar band should own a copy.

And if we’re going to talk about essential Santana albums, we should mention the one that Carlos is NOT on!  Remember, I said we’d get back to Greg Rolie?  Well, in 1997 he got together most of the original Santana band, including drummer Mike Shrieve, guitarist Neal Schon and most of the percussionists, and did an album called Abraxas Pool.  Like secretarial pool, but with people that were on Abraxas, get it?

For those who think Santana was never as good as on the first three albums, this one will justify their position.  It absolutely smokes, and with Schon on guitar you hardly miss Carlos.  It’s the album that Caravanserai never got to be.  Trouble is, it came out just before Supernatural, and promptly disappeared without a trace.  That’s a shame, because it’s twice as good.  Anyone into Santana should have it.

So Who Is This Guy, Anyway?

That’s a good question!  Carlos Santana is one of the few front men in rock history that was NOT a singer.  Hendrix, Clapton, Stevie Ray, they all sang.  Carlos holds court from behind his Paul Reed Smith guitar, while the singers, from Greg Rolie through Leon Patillo, Greg Brown, Alex J. Ligertwood and others, come and go.

There’s a lingering impression that Carlos has always been a sideman in his own band.  Greg Rolie sang and wrote much of the material on the first set of albums.  Tom Coster came on board just as the band’s direction was changing, so it was assumed that he was leading the charge.  On the cover of Love, Devotion, Surrender, we see that McLaughlin has an arm around Carlos, as if he were the guide and teacher.  And then there’s the whole life-changing relationship with Sri Chinmoy.  It would be easy to think that Carlos was being led around by the nose.

But wait just a conga-thumping minute, there, bucko.  What’s the name of the band?  Not Rolie, or Coster, or Devadip.  It’s SANTANA!  In the beginning it was the Santana Blues Band.  There’s a good reason for that.  You scratch a little below the surface and it’s pretty easy to see who the he-bull is in that pasture.  Carlos and Rolie started disagreeing over the band’s direction, and it was Rolie who left.  Eventually he had a falling-out with Chinmoy, as McLaughlin had years earlier, and the band never did change its name to Devadip anyway.

As a band leader, Carlos most resembles Miles Davis.  The famous jazz trumpet player and composer surrounded himself with talented people, and then took advantage of all that talent to make HIS band better.  Whether it was John Coltrane or Wayne Shorter, Bill Evans or Herbie Hancock or John McLaughlin or Marcus Miller, no matter how well they wrote or played, no matter how much each in turn dominated the sound and direction of the music, there was never any question who was the boss.

It was Carlos who decided to mix rock with latin, move on to jazz, then funk, then experiment with electronica and then break out his rolodex and invite the younger generation to his party.  And it was HIS party.  Everybody’s interviews after the Supernatural sessions was about how honored they all were to be let into his world, to see what The Master would do with the raw materials they brought to his forge.  It’s Carlos’ world, everybody else just dances their funky booties off.

And frankly, I can think of worse places to be.

The way to catch Carlos is live.  It’s where the whole reputation was built.  I understand it was Bill Graham, their long-time manager and former owner of the Fillmore and Fillmore East, who convinced them to not randomly jam so much.  He felt that they should concentrate on songs.  You can hear the difference on the ’68 Fillmore album, mentioned above.  It comes from the days when they were more interested in showing off their chops than making cohesive music.  Good call, Bill.

I’ve had the privilege of seeing them in concert twice.  The first time was 1978 at the old Boston Garden, for the Inner Secrets tour.  Great show.  Just after the heavy Devadip period, but he was still hanging with Chinmoy.  He did a thing that night that apparently he didn’t normally do.  Whenever he was getting ready to really rip off a solo, he would quickly lick the fingertips of his left hand.  I know several people who’ve seen him live, and also quite a bit of footage of him, and nobody’s ever seen him do that.  Cool move, though.

The second time was at the 1982 or 1983 California State Fair, in Sacramento California.  Remember, the California State Fair lasts for about a month.  They have a big concert every night of the fair, plus lesser acts during the afternoon.  That year, Bill Graham Productions was booking the shows, so it was logical that Carlos and the gang would be there.

What was NOT logical was the situation they’d find themselves in; as the OPENING act for The Police.  Now, this was just as the Synchronicity album was topping the charts, so it’s understandable that they’d be the headliner.  But with a month of shows, nobody could figure out why Carlos was opening.  After all, Sacto is practically his back yard, and Bill Graham was his manager.  It was anomalous enough that there was speculation in the newspapers as to why it was.

The impression of coercion was not dispelled by the show itself, either.  Santana came out and did their scheduled 45 minute set, and just about burned the place down.  And when they were done . . . they were done!  No encore, no goodbye, nothing.  The place went nuts!  Out came the Police, who actually put on quite a good show, but nobody cared.  By the second song half the crowd had left, and most of the rest were screaming “Carlos!!”

Sting indeed!

So Carlos hit 65 last year.  If he comes to your town, go see him.  You’ll kick yourself if you don’t, especially if you like his music well enough to read this far.  Don’t miss the opportunity.  And if they finish with Toussaint L’Overture, don’t bother getting out your lighter.  He’ll burn brightly enough without it.