Santana - Santana (Debut Album) {MOFI Vinyl}

“Perfect Timing”, this phrase is thrown around freely but it couldn’t have been more apropos for the San Francisco jam-band Santana in the summer of 1969. Santana had their coming out party at the Woodstock Music Festival and around the same time Santana’s self titled debut album was released. If there was ever a perfect time for a debut album, it is was the time Santana was released. Santana had an audience of nearly a half a million people at their disposal at Woodstock and fresh debut album waiting at the stores for these new fans. Chances are many of the people who were at Woodstock especially the local crowd may not have heard of Santana unless they were in the bay area to catch one of their shows.

Santana is such a strong debut album, it is a melting pot of genres including rock, Latin, blues and soul. There is a hit single “Evil Ways” which peaked at #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts which introduces Santana to an even greater pop audience on AM radio. The album is also loaded with some short stirring instrumental jams concluding with the epic “Soul Sacrifice”.

Carlos Santana absolutely shines with his diverse guitar playing with many blues and jazz undertones. Keyboardist and vocalist Gregg Rollie just tears it up on “Persuasion” and my favorite the intense and bluesy “You Just Don’t Care”. 

Santana is not an audiophile gem by any stretch but the Mobile Fidelity vinyl is great. A nice clean analog sound and it gives a true live feeling to the music, you feel the band is right there with you in your listening room. The vinyl is a high quality 180 gram pressing, flat and dead quiet and is mastered from the original stereo master tapes, still hear a bit of that tape hiss on the quieter tracks but that is what you want, no noise reduction, just a good clean reproduction of the master.

Santana peaked at #4 on the Billboard Album Charts and was designated by Rolling Stone Magazine as 149^th Greatest Album Of All Time.

Tracklisting:

Side One

1.    "Waiting" (C. Santana, G. Rolie, J. Areas, D. Brown, M. Carabello, M. Shrieve) – 4:07

2.    "Evil Ways" (Clarence "Sonny" Henry) – 3:58

3.    "Shades of Time" (C. Santana, G. Rolie) – 3:13

4.    "Savor" (C. Santana, G. Rolie, J. Areas, D. Brown, M. Carabello, M. Shrieve) – 2:47

5.    "Jingo" (Babatunde Olatunji) – 4:23

Side Two

1.    "Persuasion" (C. Santana, G. Rolie, J. Areas, D. Brown, M. Carabello, M. Shrieve) – 2:36

2.    "Treat" (C. Santana, G. Rolie, J. Areas, D. Brown, M. Carabello, M. Shrieve) – 4:46

3.    "You Just Don't Care" (C. Santana, G. Rolie, J. Areas, D. Brown, M. Carabello, M. Shrieve) – 4:37

4.    "Soul Sacrifice" (C. Santana, G. Rolie, Marcus Malone, D. Brown) – 6:34