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Carlos Augusto Alves Santana (born July 20, 1947)
is a Mexico|Mexican guitarist, originally from
Autlán de Navarro, Jalisco.  

He became famous in the late 1960s and early 1970s
with his eponymous band Santana, which created a
highly successful blend of salsa music|salsa, rock
music|rock, blues, and jazz fusion  Their sound
featured his high-pitched, clean guitar lines set
against Latin music|Latin instrumentation such as
timbales and congas.  Santana continued to work in
these forms over the following decades, and
experienced a sudden resurgence of popularity and
critical acclaim in the late 1990s.  Over his
career he has sold an estimated eighty million
albums worldwide.

==Early life==

Carlos Santana's father was a mariachi violinist
and young Carlos learned the violin originally,
but switched to the guitar when he was eight years
old.  After a family move to Tijuana, Santana
began playing in clubs and bars; he remained in
Tijuana when his family moved to San Francisco,
California, but soon joined them.  

==Santana Blues Band==

At the end of 1966, Tom Frazier (guitar) wanted to
form a new rock band. Frazier joined Carlos
Santana (guitar/vocals), Mike Carabello
(percussion), Rod Harper (drums), Gus Rodrigues
(bass guitar), and Seattle native Gregg Rolie
(organ/vocals), to form the Santana Blues Band. 
After a while the name was shortened to just
Santana.  Promoter Bill Graham saw them and the
band debuted in June 1968 at the legendary The
Fillmore|Fillmore (later Fillmore West), where
many of the great San Francisco bands began. 
Santana's recording debut occurred on The Live
Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper with
Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield. 

==Early success==

Soon signed to Columbia Records, the band released
a largely instrumental, self-titled album, Santana
(album)|Santana in 1969.  The group at this point
consisting of Carlos Santana (guitar), Gregg Rolie
(Musical keyboard|keyboards and vocals), David
Brown (bass guitar), Michael Shrieve (drums),
José Areas|José "Cepito" Areas (Percussion
instrument|percussion) and Michael Carabello
(Percussion instrument|percussion).

On the tour to support the album, the band played
at Woodstock Festival|Woodstock  Music and Art
Festival.  They were one of the surprises of the
festival; their set was legendary, and later the
exposure of their eight-minute instrumental "Soul
Sacrifice" in the Woodstock film and soundtrack
albums vastly increased Santana's popularity. 
Santana became a huge hit, reaching number four on
the U.S. album chart, and the catchy single "Evil
Ways" reached #9 on the Billboard Hot 100.

In 1970 the group reached its early commercial
peak with their second album, Abraxas
(album)|Abraxas, which reached number one on the
album charts and went on to sell over four million
copies.  The innovative Santana musical blend made
a number-four hit out of English blues-rockers
Fleetwood Mac's "Black Magic Woman", and a
number-thirteen hit out of salsa champion Tito
Puente's "Oye Como Va".  Abraxas has since been
placed on several "best albums of all time" lists.

Rolie and Santana started going different ways
musically, however. Santana wanted to move toward
more ethnic Latin music|Latin pieces, while Rolie
was more influenced by the progressive rock
movement, wanting to highlight more keyboards into
the music, and play long instrumentals. The
progressive movement pushed for longer songs,
thematically linked music across all of the songs
on an album, and used heavy influences of
classical music. Carlos wanted shorter songs, the
influence of the music of Mexico and his family
heritage, with heavier emphasis on percussion. 

Because of Woodstock and the success of the first
two albums, the band started to disintegrate. 1971
saw major changes in the band and its lineup. 

A teenage San Francisco Bay Area guitar prodigy,
Neal Schon, was asked to join the band. He was
also asked by Eric Clapton to join Derek and the
Dominoes. Choosing Santana, he was brought into
the studio to help clean up the "success mess",
brought on by the band's new-found fame, Schon
helped complete the third album, Santana 3. Schon,
with a classical music background, was also more
inclined to lean toward progressive rock (and at
the same time he was helping Santana, he formed
the band Azteca with Larry Graham, which
eventually after further changes became Graham
Central Station).

In any case, Santana 3 was another success,
reaching number one on the album chart, selling
two million copies, and spawning the hit singles
"Everybody's Everything" and "No One to Depend
On".

After Santana came back from a South
American|South American tour, which was cut short
in Peru when all their gear was confiscated, they
started working on a new, fourth, album,
Caravanserai (album)|Caravanserai. During the
studio sessions, in December of 1971, Rolie
decided that it was time to go. He left and went
home to Seattle, opening a restaurant with his
father, and later became a founding member of
Journey (band)|Journey.

==No fixed lineup==


When Caravanserai did emerge in 1972, it was with
individual credits on each track, and marked the
end of Santana as a band with a fixed membership. 
It also marked a strong change in musical
direction towards jazz fusion|jazz-rock fusion. 
As such it earned considerable critical praise,
although it was less accessible than Santana's
first three albums.

Now using the name Devadip Carlos Santana,
bestowed upon him by spiritual leader Sri Chinmoy,
Carlos Santana's next project was Love Devotion
Surrender, a collaboration with jazz-rock
guitarist and fellow Chinmoy disciple John
McLaughlin (musician)|John McLaughlin.  Backed by
musicians from both Santana and the Mahavishnu
Orchestra, the album was a tribute to John
Coltrane filtered through joint spiritual ecstacy;
critical and popular reactions were mixed.  

Expandsect 

Carlos Santana used the Santana name and a series
of changing musicians to continue to tour around
the country, releasing several albums.  Santana
had five top-forty singles in the late 1970s and
early 1980s, with "Winning" in 1981 and "Hold On"
in 1982 both reaching the top twenty.

Many albums followed in the 1970s and 1980s|80s,
including collaborations with Willie Nelson,
Herbie Hancock, Booker T. Jones, Wayne Shorter,
Ron Carter and The Fabulous Thunderbirds.
In 1988 Santana won the Grammy Award for Best Rock
Instrumental Performance for Blues for Salvador.
In 1990 Santana left Columbia Records after 22
years and signed with Polygram.  In 1991, Santana
made a guest appearance on Ottmar Liebert's album
"Solo Para Ti", on the songs "Reaching out 2 U"
and a cover of his own song, "Samba Pa Ti". 

==Return to commercial success==

The classic Santana lineup of their first two
albums was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame in 1998.

Santana's record sales in the 1990s had been very
low, and towards the end of the decade he was
without a contract.  However Arista Records' Clive
Davis, who had worked with Santana at Columbia,
signed him and encouraged him to record a
star-studded album with mostly younger artists. 
The result in 1999  was Supernatural
(album)|Supernatural, which included
collaborations with Rob Thomas (musician)|Rob
Thomas of Matchbox Twenty|Matchbox 20, Eric
Clapton, Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean, and others.  

The first single was "Smooth (song)|Smooth", a
dynamic salsa-ish stop-start number co-written and
sung by Rob Thomas, and laced throughout with
Carlos's guitar fills and runs.  The track's
energy was immediately apparent on radio, and was
played on a wide variety of station formats.  It
spent twelve weeks at number one on the Billboard
Hot 100; a music video set on a hot barrio street
was also very popular.  Supernatural started
selling in large numbers and reached number one on
the album chart; suddenly Carlos Santana was the
comeback story of the year.  The follow-up single,
"Maria Maria", also reached number one and spent
ten weeks there.  Supernatural eventually sold
over 15 million copies in the US alone, making it
Santana's biggest sales success by far.

Supernatural and the different tracks on it then
won nine Grammy Awards, including Grammy Award for
Album of the Year|Album of the Year, Grammy Award
for Record of the Year|Record of the Year for
"Smooth", and Grammy Award for Song of the
Year|Song of the Year for Thomas and Itaal Shur. 
Santana's acceptance speeches described his
feelings about music's place in one's spiritual
existence.

In 2002, Santana released Shaman (album)|Shaman,
revisiting the Supernatural format of guest
artists including P.O.D., Seal (musician)|Seal,
and others.  Although the album was not the
runaway success its predecessor had been, it still
produced two radio-friendly hits:  the infectious
"The Game of Love" featuring Michelle Branch
reached #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spent many
weeks at the top of the Billboard Adult
Contemporary chart; then "Why Don't You and I"
featuring either  Chad Kroeger from Nickelback or
Alex Band from The Calling (the original and a
remix with a different singer were combined
towards chart performance) also reached the Hot
100 top ten.    "The Game of Love" went on to win the
Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with
Vocals.

==Discography==
===Albums===
:(by the band Santana unless otherwise
stated)
*Live at the Fillmore '68 (released 1997)
*Santana (album)|Santana (1969)
*Abraxas (album)|Abraxas (1970)
*3 (1971)
*Caravanserai (1972)
*Carlos Santana & Buddy Miles Live! (1972;
C.S. with Buddy Miles)
*Love Devotion Surrender (1973; C.S. with John
McLaughlin (musician)|John McLaughlin)
*Welcome (1973)
*Lotus (1973)
*Illuminations (1974; C.S. with Alice Coltrane)
*Santana's Greatest Hits (1974)
*Borboletta (1974)
*Amigos (1976)
*Festival (1976)
*Moonflower (1977)
*Inner Secrets (1978)
*Oneness: Silver Dreams, Golden Reality (1979;
C.S.)
*Marathon (1979)
*Zebop! (1979)
*The Swing of Delight (1980; C.S.)
*Shango (1982)
*Havana Moon (1983; C.S.)
*Beyond Appearance (1985)
*Viva Santana! — The Very Best of Santana
(1986)
*Freedom (1987)
*Blues for Salvador (1987; C.S.)
*The Very Best of Santana vols 1 & 2 (1988)
*Persuasion (1989)
*Latin Tropical (1990)
*Spirits Dancing in the Flesh (1990)
*Milagro (1992)
*Nineteen Eight-Six (1993)
*Sacred Fire: Live in South America (1993)
*Soul Sacrifice (1994)
*Santana Brothers (1994; C.S. with Jorge Santana
& Carlos Hernandez)
*As Years Go By (1994)
*Santana Jam (1994)
*Every Day I Have the Blues (1994)
*With a Little help from My Friends (1994)
*Jin-Go-La-Ba (1995)
*Dance of the Rainbow Serpent (1995)
*Evil Ways (1997)
*Jingo (1997)
*Between Good and Evil (1998)
*Awakening (1998)
*Supernatural (album)|Supernatural (1999)
*Jingo Maniac (2000; C.S.)
*Mother Earth 2000 (2001)
*Nuclei/2 (2001)
*Shaman (2002)
*Ceremony: Remixes & Rarities (2003)
*Jammin' Home (2004)
*All That I Am (2005)

==See also==
*Best selling music artists

==External links==
*http://www.santana.com/ Official site
*http://santana.lyrics.info/ Carlos Santana lyrics
organized by album from http://lyrics.info/
lyrics.info
*http://www.worldmusiccentral.org/artists/artist_p
age.php?id=855 Carlos Santana profile at World
Music Central