Carlos Santana: Caravanserai

"Though Santana were a major draw in their San Francisco hometown and had become favorites of influential impresario Bill Graham, they were virtual unknowns outside their city when they began playing the Woodstock Music & Art Fair at 2 p.m. on Saturday, August 16, 1969. By the end of their 45-minute set, they were on their way to being superstars. The energy and focus of their performance, so loose and funky and also precise, is still palpable, and Carlos Santana, the band's leader and guitarist, appears to be inhabiting another plane (in a sense he was, due to an ill-timed dose of a hallucinogen). The band's self-titled debut album, released a few weeks later, was an instant hit."

"Watch and listen to the film of them onstage at Woodstock: the flurry of percussion, all the metal and wood and rawhide and human hands, is where the ear goes first. Carlos, then 22, became enamored with Afro-Cuban music after he'd been playing for quite a while. He grew up in Mexico, first in the small town of Autlán and later in Tijuana, where his father supported his family playing violin in mariachi bands. Money was tight, and José Santana would be gone from his family for months at a time. He taught Carlos to play violin, and the boy eventually turned to guitar, falling in love with blues players like B.B. King, Jimmy Reed, and Muddy Waters."

"This grounding in blues would serve Carlos well when his family relocated to San Francisco. They settled in the Mission district, where he attended high school, washed dishes in a local restaurant, and paid close attention to the city's rapidly developing rock sounds. At the same time, the Mission was a West Coast outpost for new developments in Latin music, and the young guitarist was a sponge. He'd encountered a wide range of Latin styles while living in Tijuana but didn't fully embrace it, and remained suspicious."

""If you said 'Latin' to me at that time, I would think about what I saw on TV-Desi Arnaz and 'Babalu' and guys"

Santana entered Woodstock as largely unknown outside San Francisco, despite local popularity and support from Bill Graham. Their 45-minute set began at 2 p.m. on August 16, 1969, and ended with momentum toward superstardom. The performance combined loose, funky feel with precision, and Carlos Santana’s guitar playing stood out as intensely focused. After Woodstock, their self-titled debut album released weeks later became an instant hit. Carlos Santana developed musical interests through early exposure to Afro-Cuban music, violin lessons from his father, and guitar influences from blues artists such as B.B. King, Jimmy Reed, and Muddy Waters. In San Francisco’s Mission district, he absorbed emerging rock sounds while encountering Latin music developments, initially with suspicion.

Read at Pitchfork