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Santana: The Essential Album-by-Album Guide

The highlights of Carlos Santana's varied career, from the early band recordings to his solo reinvention

Rolling Stone

Posted Jun 12, 2008 9:59 AM

• Secrets of the Guitar Heroes: Carlos Santana

• The Ultimate Carlos Santana Playlist

SANTANA (1969)
Key Tracks: "Evil Ways," "Persuasion"
Quick Take: Santana's 1968 debut at San Francisco's Fillmore West received a standing ovation; its local popularity led to a spot at Woodstock, where it stopped the show. The instrumental "Soul Sacrifice," featuring Michael Shrieve's drum solo, is one of the high points of the Woodstock soundtrack album. Santana's overwhelming success at the festival led to a deal with Columbia, and within a few weeks of its late-summer 1969 release, its debut LP was #4 and eventually went double platinum. "Evil Ways" was a Top 10 single in early 1970.

Santana (Columbia)

ABRAXAS (1970)
Key Tracks: "Black Magic Woman," "Oye Como Va"
Quick Take: Abraxas sold 4 million copies and lodged at #1 on the album chart for six weeks. Abraxas yielded hits such as "Black Magic Woman" (#4, 1970), previously recorded by Fleetwood Mac, and veteran salsa bandleader Tito Puente's "Oye Como Va" (#13, 1971) and further solidified Santana as the band (and guitar player) that brought together fans of rock, jazz and latin music.

Abraxas (Columbia)

III (1971)
Key Tracks: "Everybody's Everything," "No One to Depend On"
Quick Take: Santana III, the first to feature 16-year-old second guitarist Neal Schon (who would start Journey just a few years later), topped the chart for five weeks in late 1971. It spawned two more chart hits in "Everybody's Everything" and "No One to Depend On." III is a little less focused than the previous two albums but still contains some of Santana's most nuanced fretwork.

CARAVANSERAI (1972)
Key Tracks: "La Fuente del Ritmo," "Stone Flower"
Quick Take: Caravanserai saw Santana's music stretching out into jazzier directions, perhaps due to the amount of turnover within the band. All but three of the tracks are instrumentals, and many of them explore quieter rhythms and subtler sounds. Thus, there's little in the way of six string magic, though "La Fuente del Ritmo" does cook.

Caravanserai (Columbia)

WELCOME (1973)
Key Tracks: "Welcome," "Yours Is the Light"
Quick Take: The two outstanding qualities which have separated Santana's music from that of its competitors — Carlos' expressive abilities as a guitarist and the talents of the band's various percussionists — are much in evidence throughout Welcome. The qualities which characterize the "new" Santana are the keyboard work of Tom Coster and Richard Kermode and the broad range of the material. Carlos himself has never played better.

Welcome (Columbia)

AMIGOS (1976)
Key Tracks: "Take Me With You," "Europa"
Quick Take: Amigos was the first Santana album that didn't attempt to break new ground. The several styles Carlos Santana delved into were consolidated into a varied, multidimensional album. The early days of happy Latin rhythms, congas and catchy vocal hooks and choruses are represented not only by the not-quite-hidden picture of the band's first album on the cover, but also by the very first strains of "Dance Sister Dance (Baila Mi Hermana)," which opens the album. If you're more taken by the harder, brasher rock of Abraxas and Santana, "Take Me with You" and "Let Me" will suit you better.

Amigos (Columbia)

MOONFLOWER (1977)
Key Tracks: "Dance With Me," "Zulu"
Quick Take: As a live record, there is no sense of a coherent set here, and the programming all too frequently sounds like it resulted from a greatest-hits mentality. There are a few tremendous moments, but not enough to sustain momentum over the four sides. So the package is masked with several studio tracks stuck at the beginning of each side to take the pressure off the live material. Keyboardist Tom Coster continues to be the band's hidden leader, playing alternately fiery and lyrical solos and fills on ten different instruments.

Moonflower (Columbia)

INNER SECRETS (1978)
Key Tracks: "Move On," "Stormy"
Quick Take: On Inner Secrets Carlos Santana shared lead-guitar duties with Chris Solberg, and it's hard to tell them apart. Lead singer Greg Walker's quasi resemblance to Steve Winwood is exploited in "Dealer/Spanish Rose," while Buddy Holly's happy-go-lucky "Well All Right" emerges as an extra long spiritual hosanna. Only "Stormy," the luscious Buddy Buie/J. R. Cobb classic, managed to survive this kind of treatment.

Inner Secrets (Columbia)

BLUES FOR SALVADOR (1987)
Key Tracks: "Blues for Salvador," "Trane"
Quick Take: Carlos Santana spent about a decade in the desert, making records with his band and on his own that were largely ignored and didn't sell well. His 1987 solo project Blues for Salvador started to get him back on track a bit. The title track was nominated for a Grammy, and the rest of the album shows some of the Latin fire that had left his more fusion-influenced work.

Blues for Salvador (CBS)

SUPERNATURAL (1999)
Key Tracks: "Smooth," "Maria Maria"
Quick Take: In late 1997 he signed to Arista, thus reuniting with label head Clive Davis, who had signed Santana to Columbia 30 years earlier. Their goal was to marry Santana's signature instrumental sound with contemporary voices in an attempt to connect with a modern audience. With guest performers and writers Wyclef Jean, Dave Matthews, Lauryn Hill, Rob Thomas, Everlast, Eagle-Eye Cherry, and Eric Clapton on board, Supernatural sold more than 10 million copies within a year of its release (21 million worldwide), putting the 50-something guitarist in the unlikely company of teen chart-toppers 'N Sync and the Backstreet Boys. The lead single, "Smooth" (cowritten and sung by Thomas), spent 12 consecutive weeks at #1.

Supernatural (Arista)

SHAMAN (2002)
Key Tracks: "The Game of Love," "Aye Aye Aye"
Quick Take: Though Supernatural was more fixated on pop potential, its guests also sounded like Santana fans, determined to share his Afro-Latin spirit. On Shaman, too many visitors sound as if they're climbing on a gravy train, handing over standard-issue love songs for Santana overdubs. It makes you wonder whether Santana ever met some of his collaborators. The parade of guest musicians sets the priorities on Shaman: nineteen-year-old Michelle Branch singing the sunny neo-1960s pop of the leadoff single, "The Game of Love," plus P.O.D. and Chad Kroeger for hard rock, Seal and Citizen Cope for lite rock, Musiq and Dido for ballads, Alejandro Lerner for Latin pop and Placido Domingo for, well, PBS? Santana, a more important musician than any of them will ever be, too often ends up sounding like a sideman.

Shaman (Arista)

ALL THAT I AM (2005)
Key Tracks: "My Man," "Just Feel Better"
Quick Take: Santana's revolving door keeps on turning, and with every star who passes through to sing lead on a track off their latest album, what was once a great American band steps closer to becoming a permanent gimmick. You'd think maybe Carlos and his band would change course. And they seem to initially: All That I Am opens with two spry Latin-rock adventures that hark back to pre-Supernatural Santana. After that, though, the celebrity parade begins.

All That I Am (Arista)