Jingo Santana!!!

According to family and friends who went to the first Woodstock, Santana stole the whole show. My Uncle even tells me that he was so impressive that everyone he knew thought his first album was already out and could be bought in that August of 1969. Sadly he had to wait till October of that year to get the album. Santana's mix of fusion and Latin and Afro sounds makes it unique for it's time. The guitar solos and heavy bass line and of course the organ appealed to me. In High School I wanted to recreate the artwork on the front for a t-shirt, but was shot down by the teacher explaining how difficult it was to do.

I did not need to stumble upon Santana by myself, but I had to look around for his stuff through a variety of places. My father picked up the first album way after his early seventies popularity was at it's peak. My uncle had most of his albums and had his CD's as well. He told me to grab most of the records and listen how great he sounds. The ones in his collection were his first three plus he had an album with Santana and John McLaughlin. That album I did not listen for quite some time after I found out about the Mahavishnu Orchestra.




I took these albums home and studied them. I pulled out my 60's book on music and read the short description about Santana. It's all I needed to do. Under both my uncle and the book it told me to listen to the Woodstock stuff first. I did even though it was only one song. The best song on the album actually. The song "Soul Sacrifice" was amazing. This time I focused on a 17 year old drummer by the name of Michael Shrieve. He was extremely talented. He was able to keep pace with the percussionist in the band. It all came together when he did his drum solo. It maybe simple, but this like Tony Williams was one of the youngest great drummers out there.

I went back to the first album and listened all they way through, not once, but twice. I was impressed all the way. I thought this album had those moments of everything that I mentioned and more. I even thought Greg Rolie's vocals were top notch. It was a extremely great album. I love this album what can I say. It did define more then the sixties, it defined a new exploration in music. If you don't own this album then you should, its a classic just on its own.