Santana Biography

In 1967 he formed the Santana Blues Band, they were outsiders on the predominantly white, middle-class West Coast scene, often baffling fans with jazz rock covers of obscure songs like the Mary Poppins tune, Chim Chim Cheree. But the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia was a fan and within two years, Carlos had renamed the band simply, Santana, bagged a slot at the Fillmore West and with the intervention of premier rock promoter Bill Graham, a slot on the bill at the 1969 Woodstock festival. Their performance, nearly destroyed by some LSD that Jerry Garcia gave to Carlos just before their slot, made Santana into household names overnight. Carlos was tripping badly during his performance. "All I could remember was how the neck of my guitar looked just like a snake," he recalls. But their performance led to a contract with Columbia and their eponymous debut album, released in 1970, which included the hit Evil Ways, reached the top of the US album chart. For the next two years, the band was one of America's most successful acts, selling as many albums as The Beatles. Follow up album Abraxas included a hit version of Fleetwood Mac's Black Magic Woman and Tito Puente's Oye Como Va while Santana III added Afro-Cuban percussion and spawned the hit single, 1971's Everybody's Anything.

But despite their massive success, Carlos embarked on potential career suicide in 1972 with the jazz-rock fusion of the album Caravanserai. The music would characterise most of the band's 70's output. Carlos also became a devotee of of Indian guru Sri Chimnoy, recording the Love, Devotion, Surrender album in 1973 with another jazz-rock devotee, John McLaughlin. It was a contemplative piece of spiritual jazz (ni-iice!) that was followed by 1973's Illuminations album, recorded with Alice Coltrane. "I wanted to follow John Coltrane," Carlos says now of the band's change in musical direction. "I wanted to understand how you could play one note and it could sound like the Pacific Ocean or another galaxy. How you could play a few notes and hear children, birds, bombs dropping in Vietnam." Er, yeah, cheers Carlos. The guitarist also cleared his life of the clutter that surrounds a successful rock musician - groupies, cars and drugs - and married his wife Deborah, the daughter of a jazz musician who helped him reshape his life. Several more jazz-rock outings on albums such as 1974's Borboleta, continued to split audiences although the band returned briefly to the charts with the 1977 album, Moonflower which spawned a hit single with a cover of The Zombies' She's Not There.

The '80s saw Santana return to their successful latin-rock formula. 1981 album Zebop spawned hit single Winning, while hit single, Hold On was taken from 1982 set, Shango. Willie Nelson guested on Carlos' solo album Havana Moon in 1983 and in 1987 the guitarist picked up a Grammy for his album, Blues For Salvador as well as providing the music for the film La Bamba. Another group album, Spirits Dancing In The Flesh was released to poor public reception in 1990 before the release of Milagro on Santana's own label, Guts and Grace, in 1992. The album was inspired by Santana's own charity, The Milagro Foundation, established with his wife Deborah. 25 cents from every Santana album goes towards the charity and to date, Milago has helped the families of firemen killed in 9/11, victims of the Asian tsunami and those suffering from the South African Aids epidemic. (Carlos donated all the £2.5m royalties from his 1999 World Tour to Bishop Desmond Tutu to help fight the Aids epidemic).

No one could have forseen the the massive resurgence in Santana's popularity in 1999 with the release of the album, Supernatural. Carlos handpicked a team of guest singers and musicians including Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean, Eric Clapton and Matchbox 20's Rob Thomas who sang on the multi-million single, Smooth. The album went on to sell 25m copies worldwide. Its two sequels, 2002's Shaman (which featured collaborations with Seal, Macy Gray and Dido) and his latest album, All That I Am, (stand up Steven Tyler, Joss Stone and Sean Paul), are Santana albums in name only say critics. They were conceived by American music mogul Clive Davis and feature Carlos soloing away on guitar alongside a younger, sexier partner on a series of slick, R&B tinged outings. But Carlos is immune to any cries of 'cynical marketing ploy'. "I'm still playing the blues. I'm just putting it into context," he says, adding in his cherished hippie-speak: "Santana? It's to do with the music that brings a cohesive oneness within the family." Right on baby!