Santana
July 17th, 2008
One of the most influential albums from my teen years was the original Woodstock album. A three record set it was something that me and my friends played over and over and over again. I can’t begin to count the number of levels it impacted me on: musical, lyrical, political, sociological, just everything. I was thirteen years old when Woodstock was held, fourteen when the album was originally released: in many ways an open vessel just waiting to be filled with new music, new ideas and new influences. I was first exposed to so many artists and bands through Woodstock: Canned Heat, Richie Havens, Country Joe And The Fish, Joe Cocker, Ten Years After, Sly & The Family Stone and especially Santana. Their performance of “Soul Sacrifice” is considered by almost everyone to be one of the highlights of the album. While I’m the first to admit that I’ve never been that “adventurous” when it comes to music (I tend to stick to pop, rock, folk, singer-songwriter and country) there are a few places where I’ve found things I like outside of what I might consider my “normal” parameters. I love Bob Marley and the Wailers, and though I doubt I have a single other reggae album in my collection, I have almost of of Marley’s, several in the deluxe “Legacy” edition. I’m completely mesmerized by the My Fair Lady soundtrack, though it’s the only “Broadway” album I’ve ever listened to. Santana is another perfect example. Their “latin-tinged” rock not the kind of thing I would normally be drawn to. I don’t listen to any other music even remotely like it. And on top of that a lot of the songs are instrumentals. I’ve always, since the very beginning, been drawn to words, to lyrics. I don’t listen to much instrumental music at all. But there is something about their first three albums that truly captivates and fascinates me. But, even with Santana, that’s about as far as I go, the first three albums by the original Woodstock-era line-up. I lose interest in Santana’s work after that, as the original band gradually changed and Carlos took the music in a more jazz oriented direction. And I didn’t care at all for Supernatural, his big “come back” album from 1999, which, amazingly enough, turned out to be the biggest Santana album ever, released thirty years after their debut.
Santana, the band’s debut, was released in August 1969, the same month that the Woodstock festival took place. Their performance at Woodstock and the inclusion of “Soul Sacrifice” on the soundtrack album had an enormous impact on sales for this album. It stayed on the charts for over two years, peaking at number four. It contained not only the studio version of “Soul Sacrifice” but their first big hit, “Evil Ways” which was a Top 10 single. I didn’t listen to Santana a whole lot during the actual time period when this music was released. I had two of those first three albums and of course I heard the hits constantly on the radio (”Black Magic Woman,” “Oye Como Va,” “Everybody’s Everything” and “No One To Depend On”). I hadn’t purchased anything on CD when, in 1998, Sony/Legacy reissued the first three albums with bonus tracks and so I scooped them all up immediately. What a treat it was to rediscover these three albums and spend some time really listening to them.
Santana is a tour-de-force from start to finish. From the very beginning you know right away you’re in for something special. Composed of seven members, the original line up consisted of black, Latino and white musicians. The unique sound they developed was unlike anything that came before or after. Centered around Carlos Santana’s stinging guitar, Gregg Rolie’s swirling organ and three, count ‘em three, percussionists (two on congas and various other instruments and one on drums) the band coalesced together into an amazingly tight musical unit. The album begins with “Waiting” a classic Santana track that could have easily been another hit for the band. The congas kick in first, then the drums, then another set of congas, then the organ and finally the guitar. It’s the quintessential Santana sound. Some bands take several albums to find their footing but these guys were red hot from the get go playing together with a cohesion and accord that some bands never find.
Songwriting was mostly a group affair as five of the nine songs on the album are credited to four or more of the band members. Only “Jingo” and “Evil Ways” were written by outside sources. There’s no filler on this album. Each and every one of the tracks is something special. In addition to “Waiting,” “Soul Sacrifice” and “Evil Ways” my other favorites are “Savor,” “Jingo” and “Persuasion.”
As bonus tracks this 1998 reissue features three of the seven songs that Santana played at Woodstock: “Soul Sacrifice,” “Savor” and “Fried Neckbones” the latter two performances having never been officially released before (”Fried Neckbones” has never been released in any other form that I know of). One listen and it’s readily apparent why the crowds at Woodstock were so blown away by these guys. When the drum solo ends on “Soul Sacrifice” and the entire band kicks back in it’s pure magic. Six years later Sony/Legacy would go on to rerelease this album yet again as a two disc “Legacy Edition” this time including the entire seven song Woodstock performance and a bunch of outtakes and alternate versions. I haven’t upgraded to that version yet, but it’s on my list.
Other Listens on July 17th:
Wrap Around Joy by Carole King
I had a lot of misgivings about this album. I didn’t buy it for almost a year after it was released. And the only reason I finally picked it up then was because Circuit City was having a storewide sale on CDs and it was one of the only things I could find that I was even remotely interested in (and I had to buy something!). My misgivings were for two reasons: on the one hand, though I consider myself a big, big Patti Smith fan (see my post about Horses), I am not been particularly fond of the four albums she’s made since 1996 (Gone Again, Peace And Noise, Gung Ho and Trampin’); and on the other hand I am always slightly suspicious of “cover” albums. It’s rare that an artist can really pull it off. Covers can be the greatest things in the world. There’s nothing like hearing a new version of a song that breathes new life into it or simply takes it to a place that the original didn’t. But they can also be the worst things in the world. There’s nothing as bad as a limp cover version that brings absolutely nothing new to the table and only makes you long to hear the original. (See my post about Shelby Lynne’s recent 
For me it started with Elvis Costello and his single “Alison” b/w “Welcome To The Working Week.” It was actually Costello’s second single (”Less Than Zero” b/w “Radio Sweetheart” being the first), but it was the one I stumbled on initially. From there I quickly discovered the first Nick Lowe single (”So It Goes” b/w “Heart Of The City”) since he had produced both of Elvis’ singles. And that led to Dave Edmunds. Edmunds and Lowe formed a band called Rockpile (with Billy Bremner and Terry Williams) in 1976. However, they didn’t release an official Rockpile album until 1980 (Seconds Of Pleasure) because they were signed to different labels (Lowe to Columbia and Edmunds to Swan Song). But between 1976 and 1980 they each released several solo albums that were, for all practical purposes, Rockpile albums. Edmunds released three classic albums in the late seventies, all of which featured Rockpile: Get It (1977), Tracks On Wax (1978) and Repeat When Necessary (1979). Lowe and Edmunds were perfect collaborators. Both were respected producers, both were masters of the two to three minute pop/rock song and both shared a love for The Everly Brothers. The major difference between the two (other than their uniquely individual approaches to music) was that Edmunds was not really a songwriter. He wrote and/or co-wrote a few songs here and there, but he was primarily an interpreter of other writer’s material, including Costello (”Girls Talk”), Graham Parker (”Crawling From The Wreckage”), Lowe (”I Knew The Bride”) and many others. Edmunds also brought a much more country perspective to the pub/roots rock he played and recorded. Songs like “Worn Out Suits, Brand New Pockets, “Queen Of Hearts,” “Home In My Hand” and “Sweet Little Lisa” are country through and through, though obviously filtered through Edmunds’ singular Welsh appreciation for the distinctive American music he clearly loved. He does a rave up version of Hank Williams’ “Hey Good Lookin’” on Get It.
I went to high school in Quartz Hill, California, a small town in the Mojave desert, about an hour north of Los Angeles. I actually lived in Lancaster the next town over. But, as Lancaster grew the school system couldn’t handle all the students so some of us who lived on the west side of town were shipped over to Quartz Hill. I hated growing up in the desert, a place I considered desolate, forlorn and altogether lacking in everything I was interested in. My friends and I would escape to Los Angeles at every opportunity. Whether it was to hang out at the Troubador listening to music or to catch one of the new movies that you could only see in LA, we would pile into someone’s car and head south almost every weekend (sometimes even on weekday nights if we could get away with it). I grew up loving movies and would see as many as I possibly could. One of my high school teachers had a film class (very unusual at the time) and we would watch, study and analyze 16mm prints of movies like On The Waterfront, Lust For Life, North By Northwest and countless others. I began to follow film directors the same way I followed musicians. Sam Peckinpah and Stanley Kubrick were my favorite directors. I remember going to see A Clockwork Orange for the first time in 1971. I was positively enthralled with the film. I’d never seen anything like it. One of the most impressive things about about the movie was the performance of Malcolm McDowell as Alex, the anti-hero of the film. It was a truly memorable roll and it launched McDowell on a career that is still going strong today.
I can trace my love of music directly back to a transistor radio I had when I was 10 years old. I actually had two radios: a small, portable transistor radio and a bedside clock radio. I had lots of paper routes when I was growing up (I once had three different ones at the same time) and I would almost always take my radio along with me as I was cycling through the neighborhood delivering papers. If it was summer I might sometimes be listening to a baseball game, but most of the time I was tuned in to WING-AM or WONE-AM, both out of Dayton, Ohio. I lived in the very small town of Bellbrook, Ohio (about 15 miles or so outside of Dayton) from the age of 9 to 13. In my bedroom, reading or studying I would almost always have the clock radio turned on. I found it so cool that I could set it to come on automatically and wake me up for school. I was always curious to find out what song would be playing when the radio suddenly started to gush out hit songs each morning. But where I really became hooked was bedtime. My mom wouldn’t let me listen to the clock radio when I went to bed, so I’d sneak my transistor radio under my pillow. I found the perfect volume setting where I could hear it if I pressed my ear down hard enough, but no one else would know it was on. There was many a night I would fall asleep with one sixties pop nugget after another playing just inches away from my ear. I went through a lot of batteries this way as the radio would often play through most of the night. I’d eventually wake up and turn it off, but sometimes that was many hours later. As I got older I eventually got a record player and began to buy 45 singles and 12″ albums. But I still listened to the radio a lot as well. In those days I only had a handful of singles and albums and I was always listening to the radio looking for new songs. It was all about the song in those days. I gradually became more and more aware of the artists, but at the beginning it was the song, just the song.
You won’t find many bigger Gram Parsons’ fans than me. Well, I’m sure there are some true “fanatics” out there who are even more pathologically obsessive (and excessive) than I am. But, I’m up there pretty close to the top myself. Both his solo albums are in my Top 10 All-Time Albums. I have a cherished, framed, original poster from his run of shows at Liberty Hall in Houston with Emmylou and the Fallen Angel band in 1973. I’ve got a fair amount of bootlegs, vinyl, CD and CDR. I even compiled my own bootleg, The Genuine Early Years, with some material that I’ve never seen anywhere else. The first Flying Burrito Bros album, 1969’s The Gilded Palace Of Sin, is also in my Top 10. Gram only made two albums with The Flying Burrito Bros, The Gilded Palace Of Sin and Burrito Deluxe. Burrito Deluxe was a disappointment to everyone, partly because Gram had apparently lost interest in the band (and maybe music in general). He was fired from the band shortly after that release. And therein lies the first problem with the legacy of the Burritos. Many people tend to (unjustifiably) write off anything the Burrito’s did after Gram left. The two albums he made with them, along with a handful of outtakes, have been repackaged over and over and over. I mean we’re only talking about two albums here folks. The trend began with the vinyl issue of Close Up The Honky Tonks in 1974. At the time this was an excellent idea, collecting some of the best tracks from the original two albums, a couple of stray 45s and a bunch of unreleased outtakes. But the labels have continued to repackage and rerelease this same material ad naseum since them. The very first CD I ever bought was the 1988 compilation called Farther Along: The Best Of The Flying Burrito Brothers. There’s a 1997 single disc that combines the entire two albums. There’s a 2000 release on A&M called Hot Burritos! Anthology 1969-1972. I have a 2002 release on A&M Chronicles titled Sin City: The Very Best Of The Flying Burrito Bros. The exact same CD was released a few years later with the same cover, same songs, same booklet, same everything, just renamed The Definitive Collection. And don’t even get me started on the European anthologies and compilations. There’s another good half a dozen, all with the exact same material. As you may have guessed by now the labels keep putting these out because idiots like me keep buying them even though there’s absolutely nothing new. Enough already. 
I’m not your typical record buyer. I never have been. I’ve long maintained that most people do not buy records based on things like liner notes, album credits or record reviews in newspapers and magazines. But I certainly do. When I see an album by an artist that I’m not familiar with I always look to see who’s playing on it. If there are people I know I’m more likely to check it out. I’ve bought tons of albums based on a review I read somewhere. I have my favorite music writers and I know their tastes so I can often tell what the chances are I’ll like something based on who reviewed it and what they thought of it. I think most people have always bought records based on radio exposure or having seen an artist live. People need to hear something before they’re likely to put out hard earned cash for the album. That’s changing now somewhat with the demise of terrestrial radio and rise of the internet. But, still, most people buy things they have already heard, and liked, somewhere, be it the radio, TV, the internet, a bar or in a friend’s car.
The 1966 tour through Australia, Europe and especially the UK is more historically significant and more musically consequential. There’s no denying the power and the majesty of those performances. The acoustic performances are positively ethereal. Dylan sounds truly stoned out of his mind yet perfectly in the moment. His harmonica playing on those tracks is unlike anything else I’ve ever heard. He wanders off into unbelievable solos and riffs that wind over, under and around themselves like twisted angelic musical prayers. And, of course, the electric sets are truly groundbreaking. The ferociousness of the band, the power that each and everyone of them brings to each song is truly unique in recorded music. This was a band, with Dylan at the helm, doing battle with their audience each and every night. It brought out something in them that’s never been touched since. I once had a talk with an artist I was working with as an A&R man. He is a truly rare, extraordinary and unique songwriter with not an ounce of business sense in his body. A show he and his band did at 12th & Porter, here in Nashville, in late 1999 remains one of the finest, most powerful and moving performances I’ve ever seen live. Hands down better than most of the concerts I’ve seen by the rich and famous rock stars. Most likely you’ve never heard of him. I haven’t kept in touch with him since I left the music business. Last I heard he was living on the side of a mountain outside Knoxville, Tennessee. We were talking about music, about audiences, about connecting with listeners, about following your true muse wherever that took you and most of all about the difficulty of doing that when no one else seemed to be able to come with you. He too is a big Dylan fan. Think of the irony, and in the end the true triumph of Dylan’s 1966 tour I said. Here he was being booed, not just casually, but deeply and forcefully, by every audience, every night. I don’t care how famous, how self-assured, how strong, how deeply set in your beliefs you are, that must do an incredible trip on your head. And here we are forty years later and this music is commonly, widely even universally, considered some of the most important live music ever recorded. Talk about full circle. It’s Vincent Van Gogh 100 years later with a guitar. Though, thankfully, Dylan didn’t have to die before his genius was recognized. 
Songwriters are a funny bunch. Lord knows I know I lot of them. I can divide successful songwriters into three categories: 1. pure songwriters who don’t aspire to a “recording” and/or “performing” career, they’re happy “just” writing songs; 2. artists who have a viable recording/performing career and also write their own material; 3. songwriters who are not content with just writing the songs, they also want to be performers and make albums, but they never really make much progress along those lines. The third category is by far the largest. There seem to be very, very few songwriters who are happy just to write the songs (and hits) that others record. They do exist, though it seems they were far more plentiful back in the 40s, 50s and 60s. Those were the times when professional songwriters would write the songs and the labels and producers would find suitable artists to record the songs. It was a very honorable profession. There are still some songwriters like that around, but not many. It seems these days that everyone who writes songs wants to also perform and record. I think we can blame this “evolution” on two things: 1. Carole King, Neil Diamond, Neil Sedaka and others from the 60s who started out as professional songwriters, had big success, but then went on to have even bigger success performing and recording their own material; 2. Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Jackson Browne and a dozen other songwriters from the 70s who wrote, performed and recorded their own songs and became superstars doing so. Hey, it’s certainly not for me to say who should aspire to more than simply writing songs. All I know is that I’ve seen a lot (and I mean a lot) of songwriters who would be a lot happier if they would simply stick to what they do best, which is write songs. But almost every single one of them wants to be a star. They get sucked into that shadow dream. The reality is that for every one musical artist that succeeds there are hundreds, if not thousands of others out there struggling to find what most sane people would consider even the modest success. The used record store bins are littered with their CDs. And let me also say this, so I’m not misunderstood by my songwriting friends. I have countless albums that I love and treasure recorded by little or completely unknown songwriters. I’m very, very happy these albums were made even though they were not commercial successes. But for everyone of those there are a lot more albums of total drivel recorded by people who should never have been given the chance or opportunity to walk into a recording studio. I’m just saying I think the world could use a lot more pure songwriters. Those that I’ve known who are content to write songs and don’t give a hoot about making albums and playing concerts seem to be the happiest. There’s a lot to be said for knowing what you’re good at and sticking to that. And some of them even make a album now then just for the hell of it, but they have nothing invested in the success of said albums. And sometimes those are the best.
There’s a great version of Jerry Jeff Walker’s classic song, “Mr. Bojangles,” on his 1969 Atco album, Five Years Gone. I didn’t discover Walker until a few years later when he released his self-titled album on Decca (still my favorite album of his and still unavailable on CD). It’s referred to in the liner notes as “the famous drunken recording made early in the morning on WBAI with David Bromberg.” It’s just Walker and Bromberg playing acoustic guitars live at a radio station. It was recorded in November 1967, during a period when Bromberg would regularly back up Walker. David Bromberg is what you might call the textbook example of a “musician’s musician.” He’s played with a ton of people over the years. There’s a great tape circulating of Emmylou Harris playing live on a radio broadcast in 1969 (this was six years before her “debut” album Pieces Of The Sky) with Bromberg backing her. He’s played on sessions with everyone from Bob Dylan to John Prine to Willie Nelson to The Eagles playing everything from fiddle to guitar to mandolin to dobro to bass.
I worked a four different record labels in the nineties. They were all independent labels. I never worked at a major label. Still, I think I have a pretty good idea of how the record business works and what’s involved. That’s why I just don’t understand the reluctance on the part of most major labels to make so much of their back catalog available digitally. Back in the “old” days when CDs ruled it made more sense. At each of the labels I worked at we would license material from major labels. Albums they just didn’t want to bother reissuing on CD. I used to talk to the folks that worked at these labels a lot. They would say their bottom line was 20,000 CDs. If they didn’t think a reissue could sell at least 20,000 copies they weren’t interested. It wasn’t worth their time and energy. Now, 20,000 is a LOT of CDs to sale, especially on a reissue. So, it was no wonder that a lot of albums languished in the vaults. Their reasons were pretty simple to understand. To make a reissue financially viable they had to pay for remastering, new artwork, pressing up CDs, distributing those CDs, warehousing the CDs, etc. Now an indie label could do the same thing much cheaper. We didn’t have to sell near that many CDs to break even or to make money. But that’s all changed now. To make an out of print album available as a digital only release, on iTunes, or wherever, the costs are dirt cheap. All you have to do is make a decent transfer of the master tape to digital files. Sure, you can remaster it if you want, but that’s not always necessary. For a few hundred dollars someone can transfer the tape and presto, you’ve got the digital files. No artwork costs. No distribution costs. No pressing costs. No warehousing costs. So, it boggles my mind why the labels don’t seem to be making more of an effort to make more albums available. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, I could make a list of at least 100 albums in a flash that I would buy as digital downloads if only they were available. With all the trouble the labels are having making money these days it’s just incredible that they are not diving into their catalogs and making all this great music available. Each album might not sell 20,000 copies or anywhere near that, but really, how many would they have to sell to break even? I don’t understand it. They’re just letting money sit there on the shelves of their vaults.
For some reason I’ve never been able to completely understand, America seems to require that most of our “artists” stick to one medium. As far as I can tell Elvis was the last musical artist to also have a real career in another field (film). And really, even he wasn’t taken seriously as an actor. Recent American history is full of case after case of artists trying to cross over from one medium to another and, often times, failing miserably. Now, to be fair, sometimes they are just plain bad at the new “field” they are trying to work in (Madonna as an actress?). But I think there’s more to it than that. It seems our first impulse is to automatically scoff at the very idea of an actor fronting a rock band. Or a musician writing a novel. Or a singer wanting to act. Sometimes it works but I think those cases are the exceptions. Jimmy Buffett and Kinky Friedman have both written many successful novels. Kris Kristofferson has done pretty well bouncing back and forth between films and music. But then you have Keanu Reaves and Russell Crowe both fronting rock bands (and neither getting much respect). I have a terrific country album that Sissy Spacek made in 1983 (Rodney Crowell produced it). I don’t think many people even knew it existed at the time. Mick Jagger and David Bowie both tried acting back in the 70s. I just find it interesting that it seems the initial reaction from our culture is to try and pigeonhole artists into one field. The very fact that they excel in one area of creativity seems to indicate that they may also be able to flourish in other areas given the chance. Now, sometimes if an actor “sneaks” a performance into a film it’s more easily accepted. Gary Busey played lead guitar and sang all the vocals in the 1978 film The Buddy Holly Story and did a fantastic job (the music even won an Oscar). Sissy Spacek did all the vocals in the 1980 Loretta Lynn biopic Coal Miner’s Daughter (for which she won a Best Actress Oscar). The soundtracks to each film featured their vocals, not the vocals of the stars they were portraying. But the thought of either of them doing an album outside of a movie didn’t generate much interest.