The story
Latin rock band from San Francisco, California, USA, led by guitarist Carlos Santana. The band was formed in 1966 under the name Santana Blues Band. In 1967, the band changed its name to Santana. They debuted as Santana at Bill Graham's Fillmore West theater in San Francisco on June 16, 1968. Steered on by Graham, they first came to a wider public attention after their performance at the Woodstock Festival in 1969. This initial exposure made their first three albums hits at the time, all with Columbia, the first record company that signed the band. By 1972 / 1973 however, there were rifts in the band and two of its members left to form Journey.
Caravanserai from 1972 marked the start of a new, more jazz oriented chapter in Santana's career, as the band now moved away from rock and towards a more experimental and complex sound. The triple live album Lotus concludes that period. Over the next decades, line-up changes were common, the music at times evolved more commercially and pop oriented although never losing the initial latin influence.
Santana left Columbia in 1991 and signed with Polydor for their 1992's Milagro album and the subsequent releases, until Clive Davis signed the group to Arista in 1998, with whom they achieved their greatest commercial and critical success: so far, Santana has won a total of 8 Grammy Awards and 3 Latin Grammy Awards which were all awarded in 2000 for the 1999 Supernatural album (which also earned them their first No. 1 hit Smooth).
From Discogs, written by its community.
