Number 60

Carlos Santana...legendary guitarist and new age flake that he is, has always seemed best to me in measured doses. Santana has been around since the late 60's and has delivered a variety of music through his career. Fusion rock, jazz, arena rock, pop and even subtle bits of hip hop have bore the Santana stamp marked with his screaming, stinging guitar lines and Latin based percussion. A sense of adventure and passion laid under an insinuating groove is his trademark. But, as great as he is, I can only take so much of Santana. There's nothing wrong with him or his music, it's just a gut reaction. That's why I'm well served by his CD at Number 60:

Santana - The Best Of Santana (1998)

Before his unexpected comeback with 1999's Supernatural CD, it seemed like Carlo's Santana was destined to eek out his living on the oldies tour circuit. Santana was mainly known for the early phase of his career, when the name Santana stood for an actual band. The Santana band of the first three albums, which included Chepito Areas (percussion), Mike Carabello (percussion), Mike Shrieve (drums), David Brown (bass), Gregg Rolie (organ and vocals) and Neal Schon (guitar) in addition to Carlos Santana played a style of rock that fused Latin rhythms and rock song style. It was a style never heard before and earned them a spot at Woodstock. Even now, 40 years later, these early songs still have a timeless majesty to them tied to indelible melodies.

This time period is well represented on Best of which includes the instrumental "Jingo", "Evil Ways", "Oye Como Va" and the Fleetwood Mac song that would become their signature tune, "Black Magic Woman". These songs and a few others on the disc dominate the Best of and show how powerful a band they were. Sadly, after three albums this version of the band broke up (maybe not too sadly, as the remnants of this band became Journey).

The other known phase of Santana came when he adopted an Arena Rock sound along the lines of Journey. The Latin percussion was downplayed in favor of sturdier, more predicable rhythms and blazing fast guitars over an anthemic chorus. This version of Santana is also represented with "Open Invitation", "Hold On" and my childhood favorite "Winning". Also included is "All I Ever Wanted", the first Arena Rock song my wife knew that I didn't (she was really happy about that).

When not in either of these phases of his career, Carlos Santana had a tendency to get ambient and jazzy as reflected in "Europa" and "Bella".

As much as I liked this CD and the hits included, I'm pretty satisfied with the songs I have here. Supernatural was a Grammy winning hit album and featured my favorite Santana song, "Smooth". He's had a few other pleasant hits since then, but for my money nothing can match his Best Of CD.