Guitar giant Carlos Santana turns 64 on July 20 and - to do a question raised by Paul McCartney decades ago - yes, we even need him. There`s a natural uplift to the lofty tones and melodic lines that release from his fretboard that Santana would identify as a present from the sacred spirits and almost of us simply see a production of the vision and technical scope of Carlos himself.
Santana`s blend of Latin music, rock and love has been a barometer of six-string invention since his band played the later 1960s street festivals in San Francisco that led to the group Santana becoming a house band at promoter Bill Graham`s Fillmore West before graduating to the point at Woodstock. After the group`s 1969 debut album, Santana, the relief has been a well-documented account of commercial highs and lows, leavened by a systematically high degree of artistic achievement, especially on stage.
Carlos` unmistakable tone has likewise been a consistent part of his long line of recordings and tours. Although he essentially sounds the same irrespective of what instrument he plays, he developed and cultivated the fundamentals of his sound using a bevy of Gibson guitars.
His first hallmark instrument was a red Gibson SG Special with P-90 pickups, which he played at Woodstock and on Santana. Santana stuck with the SG model until 1972, when he began playing Gibson Les Paul Standards and Les Paul Customs, adding perhaps only a bit more heat and roundness to his tone. He made this passage at nearly the same sentence as the sessions for his thrilling collaboration with John McLaughlin, Love Devotion Surrender.
The remainder of the `70s were something of a Gibson golden era for Carlos. During 1974, when the dazzling live set Lotus was recorded, he appeared on stage with a white Gibson SG Custom with three-pickups. For various days he employed a Gibson L6-S, a rare mutation on the L5-S with a 24-fret neck. Al Di Meola was besides an L6-S endorser for various years, but the model never really took off. Nonetheless, this underappreciated guitar has since been seen in the men of a bevy of world class players that includes Prince, Keith Richards, Glenn Phillips and bluesman Junior Kimbrough.
In celebration of Carlos Santana`s birthday - and his monumental tone - here is a summation of the large string-slinger`s top 10 guitar solos:
10. "Europa"
This instrumental performance from 1977`s Moonflower, a half-studio/half-live two-LP set, remains a towering achievement of melody. It`s both a show of Santana`s ability to mint a catchy tune sans lyrics and his astounding control over feedback, which makes his every note simmer. And so there`s that trademark tone, a sweet singing midrange-heavy sound that seems plucked straight from guitar Olympus, but actually helped define that rarified place.
9. "Soul Sacrifice"
Right out of the box - on the debut LP Santana - "Soul Sacrifice" became a foundational composition in Taurus` and the band`s repertoire. With a hard six-string riff offsetting timbales and congas, it`s a work in percussion with solos that burst from the mix. The strain often stretches to 20 minutes live, but the edition on the band`s debut taps succinctly into to the heart of Santana`s magical sound.
8. "Jingo"
Getting to the African core of much Latin and Caribbean music, the roots of "Jingo" can be traced to spirituals and play songs. The tune`s a call-and-response playground for the Santana band`s percussionists and their leader`s guitar, which takes a serial of keening leads that are complete examples of the cut edge his SG with P-90s was able of delivering.
7. "Samba Pa Ti"
Carlos was experimenting with guitar sounds during the qualification of 1970`s Abraxas, mixing up his amps and fine-tuning his hold of feedback for his group`s sophomore album. He was also working with volume swells and other aspects of manual extended technique. But what makes his lines in this groove fest so memorable is the sizzle he achieves by leaving his wah-wah pedal cocked open through the full performance, creating sweet, warm and creamy distortion.
6. "She`s Not There"
The solo on this air from 1977`s Moonflower is a sucker punch. The song progresses pretty often as Rod Argent wrote it, with Carlos adding little guitar punctuations at the close of each lyric phrase until its mid-section, when he punches down the wah-wah, turns up the volume, snaps on some delay and goes hell-bent-for-leather with one of the most maniacal six-string utterances of his career.
5. "Black Magic Woman"
As often as Santana, the album Abraxas cast the die of Santana`s future with its brilliance. The grouping was looking for a hit when Fleetwood Mac frontman Peter Green suggested they use his yet-unrecorded "Black Magic Woman." The answer is the call that put Santana on the mainstream`s map and outlined his power-soaked sound in its weeping melody lines.
4. "Evil Ways"
Yet another gem from Santana, this strain also lulls with its smooth vocal performance and set back groove until Carlos pushes his book toward the sky and rips out a respite full of a youthful aggression that provides stark contrast to the remainder of the line and would seem unknown to the case of mature compositions he typically explores today.
3. "Hope You`re Feeling Better"
This Abraxas tune shows Carlos` early pop chops, with his dynamic solo truly serving the vocal-driven tune, which hopped onto the charts. His guitar break is too one of his more purely rock based riff romps, ducking the chromaticism of lots of his Latin and jazz influenced playing to hit like a tornado.
2. "Oye Como Va"
Like "Black Magic Woman," "Incident at Neshabur" and "Hope You`re Feeling Better," Latin big-band leader Tito Puente`s "Oye Como Va" is yet another tune from Abraxas that remains in the Santana band`s repertoire today. The figure gives Carlos a hazard to get support to his Jalisco roots, where music like this echoed from AM radio when he was growing up. His guitar solos weave melodies that do right from the cold streets, with all the musical and percussive flair of the great Puente`s own playing.
1."Incident at Neshabur"
This is a fully realized jazz masterpiece that owes as often to Santana`s Latin roots as it does to the modal jazz of Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Even today, this line is frequently the band`s longest number and goes down every tributary they prefer to pursue. For Carlos, it`s a musical and harmonic stretch-out that puts his skills as an improviser to the fore. And on, yes, Abraxas (once again), it`s a deliberate contrast to the more pop-oriented architecture of "Black Magic Woman" and "Hope You`re Feeling Better" that shows the impudence and limitless originality of the first Santana group lineup and the leader`s fertile imagination.
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