Santana

About Santana

Carlos Santana and his band managed to do something genuinely unusual in rock history: they made Latin percussion and jazz-influenced guitar solos work at Woodstock. While most people were either going full psychedelic or leaning into blues rock, Santana showed up in 1969 with congas, timbales, and a tone that felt both spiritual and impossibly tight. Their performance of Soul Sacrifice became one of the festival's defining moments, even though most of the crowd had probably never heard of them.

The band formed in San Francisco in 1966, pulling from Carlos's Mexican heritage and the city's experimental scene. Their self-titled debut in 1969 had Evil Ways, which became their first real hit, but it was Abraxas in 1970 that turned them into something more than a great live act. That album had their version of Oye Como Va, a Tito Puente cover that somehow became definitive, and Black Magic Woman, which Fleetwood Mac's Peter Green wrote but most people assume is a Santana original. The guitar tone on that record—sustained, vocal-like, with that signature Mesa Boogie warmth—became Carlos's calling card.

Through the seventies, Santana the band became more of a rotating collective around Carlos himself. Caravanserai in 1972 went deeper into jazz fusion, losing some of the pop accessibility but gaining respect from musicians. Welcome split its sides between Santana and John McLaughlin, getting extremely spiritual and occasionally self-indulgent. The hit-making momentum faded through the eighties and early nineties, though the core sound never really changed.

Then 1999 happened. Supernatural arrived with Smooth, a Rob Thomas collaboration that became inescapable. The album won nine Grammys and sold something like 30 million copies, which seems impossible for a 52-year-old guitarist who'd been playing the same Woodstock setlist for three decades. Maria Maria, produced by Wyclef Jean, kept the momentum going. It was a strange late-career renaissance, turning Carlos into a elder statesman who could collaborate with anyone from Everlast to Dave Matthews.

The blueprint for post-Supernatural Santana became pretty clear: get younger vocalists, keep the guitar sound consistent, aim for adult contemporary radio. Shaman, All That I Am, and Guitar Heaven followed this formula with diminishing returns. Carlos kept touring extensively, his band always featuring top-tier musicians even if most audiences couldn't name them.

Now in his seventies, Carlos still tours regularly, still plays that PRS guitar, still gets that liquid sustain on every solo. The band is essentially a brand at this point, but there's something admirable about the consistency. He never really chased trends after Supernatural, never pretended to be anything other than what he's always been. The mystical interviews about consciousness and angels can be a lot, but the guy made Latin rock a legitimate mainstream thing and kept it going for over fifty years.

Crowds move the entire time. It's the percussion that does it—the congas and timbals create this hypnotic pocket that makes standing still impossible. Carlos plays with eyes closed, fully inside the music. Sets stretch long because the band locks into extended grooves, turning songs into conversations between instruments. People who came for "Smooth" end up transported.

Known for Smooth, Black Magic Woman, Oye Como Va, Maria Maria, Evil Ways

See Santana Live