Santana cover

Santana

Released

Released the same month that they stole the show with a spectacular mescaline-fried slot playing Woodstock, Santana hits like one of those “no way this is a debut” albums: they already sound fully formed, able to compress sprawling jams’ worth of instrumental interplay into three and four-minute doses of radio-ready hits. Like a West Coast mutation of the Latin soul explosion concurrently emerging from NYC, Carlos Santana and his band built such a powerful foundation around their percussive drive — Michael Shrieve, Michael Carabello, and José “Chepito” Areas were absolute monsters from the get-go here, with bassist David Brown adding some low-end adhesive — that the band’s own namesake guitarist feels more like a secret weapon than the catalyst. The prominence of Gregg Rolie on vocals (workmanlike if passionate) and keyboards (Booker T. Jones with a brandy snifter full of greenies) gives the pop-friendly stuff like their version of the Willie Bobo-popularized “Evil Ways” and the manic energy of “Persuasion” its most obvious charge. But then you hear Carlos absolutely erupt on a gnarly-yet-expressive solo in a cut like the Olatunji cover “Jingo” or the serrated blues of “You Just Don’t Care” or the guaguanco acid drop closer “Soul Sacrifice” and it hits: oh right, that’s why his name’s on the cover.

Nate Patrin

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