Guitarist. Born July 20, 1947, in Autln de Navarro, Mexico. His father, Jose, was an accomplished expert violinist, and Carlos learned to play the guitar at age 8. In 1955, the family moved from Autln de Navarro to Tijuana, the border city between Mexico and California. As a teenager, Santana began performing in Tijuana strip clubs, inspired by the American rock & roll and blues music of artists like B. B. King, Ray Charles, and Small Richard. In the early 1960s, Santana moved again with his family, this time to San Francisco, exactly where his father hoped to locate function.
In San Francisco, the young guitarist got the likelihood to see his idols, most notably King, perform live. He was also introduced to many different new musical influences, including jazz and international folk music, and witnessed the growing hippie movement centered in San Francisco inside the 1960s. Right after several years spent working as a dishwasher in a diner and playing for spare change on the streets, Santana decided to turn into a full-time musician; in 1966, he formed the Santana Blues Band, with fellow street musicians David Brown and Gregg Rolie (bassist and keyboard player, respectively).
With their highly original blend of Latin-infused rock, jazz, blues, salsa, and African rhythms, the band (which swiftly became known simply as Santana) gained an immediate following on the San Francisco club scene. The band’s early success, capped off by a memorable performance at Woodstock in 1969, led to a recording contract with Columbia Records, then run by Clive Davis. Their very first album, Santana (1969), spurred by a Top 10 single, “Evil Ways,” went triple platinum, selling over four million copies and remaining on the Billboard chart for more than two years. Abraxas, released in 1970, went platinum, scoring two far more hit singles, “Oye Como Va” and “Black Magic Woman.” The band’s next two albums, Santana III (1971) and Caravanserai (1972), had been also critical and well-known successes.
As the band’s personnel changed frequently, Santana (the band) came to be associated almost exclusively with Santana himselfwho soon became the only remaining member of the original trioand his psychedelic guitar riffs. In addition to his work with his band, Santana recorded and performed having a number of other musicians, notably drummer Buddy Miles, pianist Herbie Hancock, and guitarist John McLaughlin. Along with McLaughlin, Santana became a devoted follower in the spiritual guru Sri Chimnoy during the early 1970s. Disillusioned using the heady, drug-addled globe of 1970s rock music, Santana turned to Chimnoy’s teachings of meditation and to a brand new kind of spiritually-oriented music, marked by a common jazz album he recorded with McLaughlin, Love, Devotion, Surrender, in 1973.
Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, Santana and his band released a string of successful albums in their distinctive style. Notable albums of this time period included Amigos (1976) and Zebop (1981). During the 1980s, he continued to tour and records each solo and with the band, but his popularity began to decrease with the commercial audience’s dwindling interest inside the jazz/rock blend. Nevertheless, Santana earned critical acclaim throughout the decade, winning his very first Grammy Award, for Ideal Instrumental Performance, for the 1987 solo album Blues for Salvador. He toured extensively, playing in sold-out auditoriums and on tours like Live Aid (1985) and Amnesty International (1986).