A Santana Sunday Celebrating the 2023 Birthday of Guitar Shaman Carlos Santana

by Robert Wilkinson

Our Shamanic Sunday features one of the greatest guitarists of all time! We’re celebrating Carlos Santana's birthday!

Carlos Santana (July 20, 1947) is a 10 time Grammy winning Mexican and American musician who became famous in the late 1960s and early 1970s through his pioneering sound fusing rock and Latin American music. He’s a world servant, a global spiritual teacher, and activist for a better future.

Today we take a quick trip through his best. I’m sure you’ll rock out!

From 1969 at Woodstock, his first big radio hit, ”Evil Ways,” which we’ll follow with the singular and awesome live LSD inspired 9 minute performance of "Soul Sacrifice"

Here’s a full 87 minute video of Santana live courtesy of Bill Graham! Classic footage! Santana Live at Tanglewood August 1970

This year I found this fantastic one hour 44 audio recording from December 1968, 6 months before they released their first album and 8 months before they skyrocketed to fame at Woodstock. This is very early Santana with some songs that never made it to any other album. Serious conga and organ action! Santana Live at the Fillmore - 1968

Here’s his first studio album that took the world by storm! In its entirety, the 1969 album Santana. (the link takes you to the first cut, and the rest are there in order). Here's his second studio album that continued to blow minds everywhere! In its entirety, the 1970 album by Santana, Abraxas

From October 1973, his one hour 35 concert in Africa! Santana Live in South Africa - 1973

He went below the radar screen between 1971 and 1975, and then staged a HUGE comeback to the top of the top with his 1976 album Amigos

He supported that album with a tour that was as good as any I’ve ever seen! He was the second headliner at the First Sunday Break, where many of us were doing conscious meditations all over the arena focused through Carlos’ playing! (“In the silence of the Sound, WE are all One Together.”) It was an astonishing show, and he took the crowd places it had never been before.

Here’s a great 76 minute live concert video from the tour that included the Sunday Break! Santana Live in Sapporo Japan March 1976

From November 1976, another live 93 minute video performance of Santana Live in Edinburgh, Scotland November 1976

From the 1982 US Festival, Carlos and the band looking good offering up “Oye Como Va” and “Nowhere To Run”

From Montreux in 1988, Santana and Wayne Shorter in a great video of “Elegant People”

From Nov 1989 at Watsonville, CA, Carlos cranks out a 2 hour 10 minute show! Santana Live at Watsonville - 1989

From September 1990, a live 109 minute video performance of Santana Live at Electric Ladyland Studio in NYC September 1990

From 1993, here’s an hour 36 concert! Santana – Sacred Fire Live in Mexico

This is an extraordinary studio album by Santana from 1999 where he collaborated with some of the best of the best, Supernatural

Here’s a full 2 hour show from the “Supernatural” tour! Santana Live in Tokyo – 2000 – Pt. 1 and Santana Live in Tokyo – 2000 – Pt. 2

From 2003, the official music video of “Hold On”

From the 2003 Brazilian Jazz Fest, Carlos and Wayne Shorter in a beautiful video of ”Apache.”

Everybody ups their game at Montreux! Santana appeared at the 2011 festival, and gave the world 26 of his best! Santana Live at Montreux - 2011

Also in 2011, another great 2 hour concert, this time in Jakarta! Santana Live at Java Jazz Fest 2011

To close this tribute, Santana at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Fest - 2014

For our first encore, 2 hours live in Las Vegas! Santana Live in Las Vegas 2015

For our second encore, Carlos is back at Montreux for an hour and 43 of Santana Live at the Montreux Jazz Festival 2015

For our third and last encore, an amazing duet by Carlos and the Blues Master Peter Green! From his induction in the rock and roll hall of fame in 1998, Carlos and Peter performing the song written and made famous by Peter in his Fleetwood Mac days, the haunting and beautiful “Black Magic Woman”

Thanks for the inspiration over the years! I witnessed your peak at The First Sunday Break in 1976 when you turned to the Sun and blew everyone's mind with your playing. I also had the privilege of seeing you again at Jones Beach in NY a while back, and truly, through the years you’ve made it clear you're beyond what most guitarists think is "knowing your instrument."

For those who want to know more about what this legend is up to, please go over to Santana.com and check out what's there.

Also, muchas gracias por presiding over a global effort to create a different reality for millions through Architects of A New Dawn. That link takes you to the Mothership, and if you want to check them out on FB, here’s Facebook - Architects of A New Dawn. As it says on the site,

"AOAND is a project inspired by Carlos Santana, to create a new global network, featuring uplifting and positive media content. We wish to inspire, uplift, engage, and transform the global community through music and positive media, and help bring about a world where we choose peace over conflict and love over fear."

Aum and blessings on that one! Happy Birthday, Carlos, and many, many more.

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It turns out Kim Carnes (July 20, 1946) shares the same birthday as Carlos! So I'll send up a big happy via her monster 1981 #1 hit "Bette Davis Eyes." That song was literally the #2 song of the decade! We'll follow that with her #15 hit "Crazy in the Night" (Yes, that's the awesome Waddy Wachtel on that screaming lead!), move into her soft #2 hit, "Don't Fall In Love With A Dreamer," and close with a great Live On Fridays performance of "Bette Davis Eyes."

For you astrologers, Kim has a Moon in Aries very close to Bette Davis' Sun, and Bette had a Moon conjunct Pluto in Gemini close to Kim's Uranus. Interesting that Kim would rocket to international stardom singing about an icon whose Sun is on her Moon.

© Copyright 2023 Robert Wilkinson

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