Santana by Santana

Santana is the debut album released 1969 of the San Francisco rock group Santana. The album features the line-up of Carlos Santana (guitar, vocals), Gregg Rolie (organ, piano, vocals), David Brown (bass guitar), Michael Shrieve (drums), Michael Carabello (timbales, congas, percussion), and Jose 'Chepito' Areas (timbales, congas, percussion). It is a release of largely instrumental music, recorded by what was originally a purely free-form jam band. At the suggestion of manager Bill Graham, the band took to writing more conventional songs for more impact, but managed to retain the essence of improvisation in the music. The album was destined to be a major release, given a headstart by the band's seminal performance at the Woodstock Festival in August the previous month. Although "Jingo" failed to create much interest when released as a single, "Evil Ways", the second single taken from the album, was a U. S. Top 10 hit. The album was the first of Santana's two self-titled albums, the other being their third album in 1971. The album peaked at #4 on the Billboard 200 pop album chart. In 2003, the album was ranked number 150 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. ℗ Originally released 1969. All rights reserved by Columbia Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment