When Santana was great!

https://youtu.be/1Iel_DGhklw

or, the jordan crawford or something.. total disregard for feel and integration, just "here i go shredding away, look out everyone"

oh man. Excerpts:

[u]It certainly was a very hot one!

Cast of characters:

Carlos Santana
Rob Thomas
Itaal Shur (co-author)
Matt Serletic (producer)
Brian Yale (Matchbox Twenty bass player)
Bono (Bono)
Marcus Raboy (Music Video Director)
Marisol Maldonado (Thomas’ wife, the Spanish Harlem Mona Lisa)

The year was 1999. Carlos Santana and Rob Thomas recorded “Smooth” and it quickly became one of the most ubiquitous and successful singles of all time. Whether you love it or hate it, “Smooth” remains a career defining moment for both Santana and Thomas, and continues to evoke strong and passionate reactions seventeen years later. Here now is the untold and often harrowing story of how “Smooth” came to be, in the words of those who lived through the life-changing experience.
Chapter I: A Hot Day

Carlos Santana: It is difficult to remember much about the song “Smooth” featuring Rob Thomas because I do not care and it does not really matter. But I believe it all started when Jamiroquai rang me on the telephone to tell me about his boring day.

This may or may not be 100% real.

Matt Serletic (producer): It’s been confirmed again and again that Jamiroquai made no such call. Everyone knows Jamiroquai has no phone. And if he did, he wouldn’t know how to use it. [laughs uncontrollably]

Itaal Shur (co-writer): Santana’s people reached out to me to see if I had a song up my big sleeves that would close out their concept album. The only direction they gave me is that it should make the listener visualize sexual-intercourse.[/i]

Thomas: I didn’t even know who Carlos Santana was at this point. I actually thought he was the guy that who was in charge of Libya

and

Thomas: “Room 17” was a great song. Maybe the best I’ve ever heard. It made me super horny. I loved it. But something was missing. So I changed the lyrics, the melody, and everything else about it. When I sat down to re-write my intention was not only to write a song that makes the listener want to bone another human being, but to write a song that could [here, Thomas closes his eyes] kill God.

Maldonado: Mr. Santana was not pleased with the line about the Spanish Harlem Mona Lisa. I don’t blame him. That line means nothing to Rob, and it makes me throw up every time I think about it.

Santana: I said, “What the hell is this Spanish Harlem Mona Lisa crap all about, white boy?” Rob said nothing for a moment. Finally, he smiled like a murderer and told me nothing means anything until the Kingdom of Heaven burns. I have to admit, the kid had guts. [laughs]

http://www.gq.com/story/santana-rob-thomas-smooth-oral-history?mbid=social_facebook

Just got my copy of the super deluxe Japanese reissue of Lotus in the mail. It was triple vinyl originally, and a double CD when it was reissued in the 90s, but now it's a triple CD, fully remastered in surround sound (it's a hybrid SACD) to replicate the original quadrophonic mix, plus it's got 7 previously unreleased tracks adding 35 minutes of music. It's in a 5"x5" package that folds out like the vinyl edition used to, has two thick-ass booklets, a poster, and a whole bunch of other shit. It's crazy. No plans for a US release as far as I know.

Shit that sounds awesome. Lotus is such a great record. SACD is the one surround format I still don't have – otherwise I would be all over that.

I had my eye on that, importcds had it for $6x, now it's $72, too much.

If you saw the physical package, you wouldn't hesitate. It's seriously one of the most beautiful things ever. And the music sounds fantastic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Hs2SjSqJjw

I wrote a big piece about Santana's "white suit" years for VinylMePlease, because I've always wanted to write about this whole era, and they accepted the pitch.

digging that article phil and ALSO digging these santana albums that i haven't revisited since i was 14 prob

There are some pretty dope tracks on those '70s records, especially when he's not soloing. I like the ones that are basically Rhodes, bass, and a blizzard of thinly-recorded percussion.

Been on a run listening to the first three Santana albums. That original band was something else. I really am impressed on how those records sound as the way they pan it out with the percussion gives it a real deep stereo sense of space.

The Santana records, the main kit is panned a bit to the right with one of the percussionists and then they have the other panned usually to the left. Then the deep congas are right in the middle of the mix with the bass. I'm sure some of those big old style CBS studios they used probably helped too, as all of those Columbia records usually always sounded great.

You listen to some of the Dead's studio recording with their two drummers, it's like the band loses a bit of the low end out of the percussion. It would have definitely been cool to have a studio version of That's It for the Other Ones with that kind of production quality of the first three Santana records.

Best music.

If you had asked me previously if had heard Lotus I would have said yes, but I'm listening to it today and I have no recollection of Leon Thomas' yodelling on it. I saw Santana around the time it was recorded (1973? 1974?) but he must have been replaced by then. Anyway, cool record.

Leon Thomas also sang on "Welcome" which was the studio record before Lotus. I don't think Lotus was released in the US until the CD age. "Borboletta" is also a fusion record too and worth hearing too.

I just started into the next group of Santana groups hearing Amigos, Festival and Moonflower for the first time this year. Only heard them once though so far...

Man, Caravanserai is a very satisfying listen. Easily one of his best.

yea it is really good!

I heard Abraxas for the first time in ages over the weekend and it prompted me to listen to some more. I don't think I'd heard Caravanserai for 20+ years.

Man, Caravanserai is a very satisfying listen. Easily one of his best.

early sunday evening with sunshine colours filling the house.
glass of wine poured.
food on the go in the oven.
this album is the absolutely perfect soundtrack.

Huh I don’t think I’ve heard Caravanserai at all. I guess I need to listen to it today.

My copy is whipped... I'm due for an upgrade. Shouldn't be hard to find but I never see it clean, whereas I have probably 5 copies of Abraxas I've picked up on the cheap or free

On unperson's recommendation, I listened to "Africa Speaks" and found it to be quite good on the whole. A little overlong- I guess he cut 40 tunes and edited down to 11 running 66 minutes. Anyway, it's really a good listen and happily is recorded well. As usual for a Santana record, the percussion sounds fantastic.

I was surprised in poking around how much music he's put out in recent years. I only just found out earlier this year that he'd done an album with the mostly-original Santana band, and hadn't been aware of his album with the Isleys at all. Anyway, I'm pretty impressed that he's out there still making new music.

was also pleasantly surprised by Africa Speaks, almost bailed at the corny spoken word at the beginning, glad I didn't

SHIT GODDAMN

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKprh6mejgg

Also want to report that through the Emitt rhodes thread of all places I discovered that Jose "Chepito" Areas put out a solo album in '74 that's on Spotify and is quite dope. A lot like early Santana, but with less guitar and more horns, plus the keyboard player utilizes an Arp from time to time.

“Yours Is the Light” from Welcome sounds like Carlos enlisted The Free Design to front the band.

Count me in the Lotus brigade. There's this great moment on it where he busts out momentarily with the melody from "My Favorite Things", ending it with a climb up to a high-pitched wail. If you need only one moment to grasp the man's essential greatness (and I pretty much did)...

FWIW, I believe the moment in question happens during "Incident At Neshabur." Count me in too - as good as those first three albums are, I think Lotus is THE Santana masterpiece, easily Carlos's greatest album, not to mention the greatest configuration of the band.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiYBWwE0EvI

Somebody points out in the comments on that video that Carlos Santana was only 26 in 1973.

In my high school art class, one of my fellow students seemed to paint nothing but portraits of Miles Davis and Carlos Santana. On our outing to the art gallery, he kept encouraging us and the teacher to take turns listening to Lotus on his Walkman.
I still haven't heard it, though, partly because I found Welcome pretty dull and so wasn't that interested in exploring his jazz phase any further.

Lotus is closer to Agharta than any kind of jazz. It'll take your head off.

Goddammit:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/carlos-santana-anti-trans-comments-concert-1234811691/

he old. the crowd seems to be fine with it...

i tell you what, sometimes it seems like i ain't got nobody that i can depend on.

it's actually pretty fucking wild, carlos santana feels the need to get up and stage and announce his beliefs about my gender identity. carlos, i put half a sliced up chicken sausage in my leftover gluten-free spaghetti for lunch. what are your feelings about that? is it right? wrong? please, carlos, the world is waiting to hear your opinion about this pressing issue!

shutting up is so utterly free and these dudes still gotta say "I'm weighing in!" fuckin', awful.

I've noticed this thing with many boomers who are generally/generically progressive is do not get them started on Trans issues or pronouns.

The free love generation

this guy has always been a pseudo spiritual nitwit

like what is this horseshit supposed to mean?

“Here is my personal goal that I strive to achieve every day. I want to honor and respect all person’s ideals and beliefs whether they are LGBTQ or not,” he wrote. “This is the planet of free will and we have all been given this gift. I will now pursue this goal to be happy and have fun, and for everyone to believe what they want and follow in your hearts without fear. It takes courage to grow and glow in the light that you are and to be true, genuine, and authentic. We grow and learn to shine our light with Love and compliments. Have a glorious existence. Peace.”

"please remember me for how much my triple live album _lotus_ shreds and not for the colossally dumb shit i said towards the end of my life. thank you."

Devadipshit Carlos Santana

okay lol

On the big 1999 album he wrote shit like "Dave Matthews! My soul brother! May our souls dance through the cosmos!" or some shit -- the sort of thing that Woody Allen would make fun of in 1977. These hippies are more dangerous than the GOP because they support a kind of inclusion that looks and talks like them

"please remember me for how much my triple live album _lotus_ shreds and not for the colossally dumb shit i said towards the end of my life. thank you."

I'm trying very hard to do exactly this.

I actually did like Santana and Lotus is a great live album, but I'm not sure he ever made a truly great studio album - I have reservations about even the best of them, and after 1975, I'm not sure he ever put out another track that I'd want to listen to again, let alone a whole album. He could still be a great guitarist - in late 1980, on three consecutive nights, Bob Dylan had three different guitarists sit in on "The Groom’s Still Waiting at the Altar" and Santana came out on top - but it also means he's no longer anything more than a good show on the nostalgia circuit. And now that's been ruined by his transphobia.

I'm not sure he ever made a truly great studio album - I have reservations about even the best of them, and after 1975, I'm not sure he ever put out another track that I'd want to listen to again, let alone a whole album.

I don't want to have the conversation in any more depth than this, I really don't, but I'll rep for everything from the debut through Borboletta, which was 1974, and then it was pretty much 45 years of pandering swill until Africa Speaks, which came out in 2019. (That was when I interviewed him.)

So I guess he’s not great anymore.

people live too long now.

if he had choked on his own vomit and died when he was 30 we would all have santana tattoos. well, i wouldn't but more people would. you gotta think of these things when you are young. remembering to die that is.

(i will always love pretty much everything he did in the 70s - like, ALL of it - but that plane crash in january of 1981 - so soon after brother lennon - i'll never forget where i was. hardees. waterbury, connecticut.)