Carlos Santana Biography

Carlos Santana

Carlos Augusto Alves Santana aka Carlos Santana was born July 20 1947 in Autlan de Navarro, Jalisco, Mexico with a father of musical arts. When at the age of five he took up the violin which then developed his interested in music. Years later after his family moved to Tijuana it was then he began to play with the guitar, the instrument that would lead to his greatness. He was fascinated and surpassed his guitar heroes; they were John Lee Hooker, T. Bone Walker, and B.B. King. In 1961 Santana moved from Mexico to San Francisco, United States. In 1965 he graduated from Mission High school to then supported his family by getting a job as a dishwasher. He loved the San Francisco music scene, so to be able see his favorite artists he would sneak into Bill Graham’s Fillmore Auditorium, like artists such as Muddy Waters & The Grateful Dead and Various musicians who sang jazz rock or the blues. Before 1970 Tom Frazier wanted to come up with a band with Tom playing the guitar, Santana playing the guitar & vocals, Mike Carabello playing the Percussion, Rod Harper playing the Drums, Gus Rodriguez playing bass guitar and a Settle native Gregg Rolie playing the organ & also doing vocals and they formed the “Santana’s Blues Band.” Later on the band became known as “Santana” with Santana, Rolie, David Brown on Bass, Bob Livingston on Drums and Marcus Malone on the Percussion. There has been curiousity on how the band picks up the Latin influence. Neither Santana or Rolie had an sympathy for the style. It has been known that Santana & Rolie hang out at the San Francisco Aquatic Park with conga players where they would get together and play music. At that time in his life he was being exposed to all kinds of music in San Francisco. In the Bay Area Gabor Szabo became one of Santana’s Favorites, having a Latin Percussion to the band girls would dance to the beat of his music. Santana found out that the audience enjoyed the Latin Percussion and it was a key element in his music.

Santana was signed to Colombia Records and at Colombia it was there they recorded their first album. After the first album they weren’t satisfied so they had to make some changes so they dropped Livingston from the band and replaced him with Michael Shrieve who was worked on jazz & rock music. Marcus Malone was forced to quit due to some personal problems so the band brought back Michael Carabello and he brought along an accomplice who happens to be Jose Chepito Areas a percussionist known in his country, Nicaragua and because of his experience he was also a key element into making the band what it is today. A fan of Santana, Bill Graham has convinced promotes to let Santana play at the Wood Stock Music and Art Festival to let them perform before the releasing of their first album. In 1970 the band sold over 4 million copies of their second album, Abraxas, it became # 1 on album charts. After Woodstock & the Success of both albums the band known as Santana started going in different directions, Rolie with a other members of Santana wanted to make the band into playing hard rock music but Santana wanted to stay with the idea of blues, jazz, and rock music. After This has happen Chepito Areas was seriously affected by a fatal brain hermorrhage and Carlos wanted the band to play with a temporary replacement but the band felt like it wasn’t the same without Areas. So this started to lead to the break up of the band known as Santana. A Teenager from the San Francisco Bay Area joined Santana and with the Return of Areas and with Coke Eescovedo. Santana’s Third Album, Santana 3 which reached #1 on album charts And it sold 2 million copies. There were still problems going on with the band. Santana Was Worried that members of the band that were doing drugs would affect the performance of the band. David Brown left the group