Santana's Guitar Heaven

[jgcable]

Yeah, this dumb album was the brainchild of Clive Davis at Arista, not Santana. It was a terrible idea, and I'm sorry Carlos went along with it. He used to have a lot more integrity than that. But selling millions of pop albums (and going through an undoubtedly expensive divorce) will do things to people.

As for the folks who think Santana sucks, do yourself a favor and go buy the albums Caravanserai and Lotus. In the early '70s, after his early "hit" albums, Carlos was hanging around a lot of serious jazz guys and developing his playing. He's never been a huge technician, but his playing on his early '70s fusion albums was very much to the point and clearly influenced by Miles and Coltrane. He had an incredible amount of soul in his playing and a knack for really good note choices and placement.

I agree that Carlos has mostly been coasting since the late '70s, though, and his playing has fallen off sharply ever since about the mid-'90s.

I have heard all of his stuff. I don't think he sucks. I just don't think he as good as people say he is. Its almost painful for me to hear his playing over the last say 10 years of so at least.
I am sure he is surrounded by people telling him how great he is in the studio when he is recording basically dribble for guitar solos.

[pro-fusion]

Back in the day, he was good for the time, and of course he hasn't been focused much on technique ever since he stopped hanging around with John McLaughlin and Stanley Clarke.

I specifically remember the point at which his creativity took a dive. He had released a nice instrumental album called Blues for Salvador in the late '80s and talked about abandoning rock etc. Never happened. He started making pedestrian rock albums again, and it was never the same after that. Supernatural and all the guest singer crap was just the final straw for me. I haven't bought his new albums or seen him in concert for many years.

But I still love his older music and always will. He was a major influence on me.

[fullmetalguitar]

Can't stand this fucker. And here's why: I saw him at the NAMM show either last year or the year before. This dude was walking around like he was Jesus Christ. He was surrounded by security, body guards and his entourage. And the way he was walking with this smug look on his face, clearly he thinks he's pretty freakin' special. I've seen people a lot more famous than him walking around NAMM without any security at all. Note to Carlos: if you're too damn cool to be bothered by fans, don't go to convention full of musicians! Add the fact that I'm not impressed by his playing, and I think he's a douche. Oh, and he destroyed one of my all time favorite songs on this cd.

[pro-fusion]

Back in the day, he used to be known as a pretty cool and humble guy. I guess all his recent success has gone to his head.