Music » Latin Rock Music

Slide-pack edition of this release, a no-frills CD packaging featuring an outer slipcase with the original cover artwork and an inner 'slider' including a CD. There is no CD booklet in this package. The Best of Santana features 16 tracks from Carlos and the boys' most successful and prolific period up through the '70s. Features 'Jingo', 'Evil Ways', 'Black Magic Woman' and many more. Sony/BMG. 2007.

Release Date: 1999-06-15, Audio CD, Bmg/Arista

Released in 1970, Abraxas, Santana's second album, sees the band expanding its already wildly diverse Latin rock sound by adding deeper elements of blues and jazz to the sizzling mix. Abraxas is home to two more of the group's signature monster hits: the hypnotic, rhythmically hectic interpretations of Tito Puente's "Oye Como Va" and Fleetwood Mac's "Black Magic Woman." Sundazed's exact vinyl replica of this calienté classic is sourced directly from the original Columbia masters.

Release Date: 1998-03-31, Audio CD, Sony

Japanese limited edition pressing includes 3 bonus tracks packaged in a miniature LP sleeve. By the time Santana arrived on the San Francisco scene in 1968, the Grateful Dead's freeform antics were already legendary. But Santana was a jam band of another order, fueled by Latin rhythms, blues, bebop, and straight-ahead rock. Having set the audience at the 1969 Woodstock festival on its collective ear, the band did the same for the nation with its self-titled debut. Songs such as 'Evil Ways', 'Jingo' and 'Soul Sacrifice' contain extraordinary ensemble playing, powered by percolating congas and timbales and topped by the grippingly human cry of Carlos Santana's guitar. CBS. 2006.

34 signature tracks totaling over 2 1/2 hours of music, includes classics from Eric Burdon & War plus all-time War hits 'Low Rider', 'The Cisco Kid', 'The World Is A Ghetto', 'Summer' and more. Slipcase. Rhino. 2003.

Easy comparisons to Los Lobos have long dogged New Orleans' own cross-cultural pot-stirrers, the Iguanas. But the band's return from a four-year recording respite here cuts a subtle, distinctive musical swath all its own, culminating in what's arguably the most rewarding album of their career. While informed on "Machete y Maiz," the evocative "Un Avion," and the haunting slinkiness of "Abandonado" by the same rich conjunto/Tex-Mex/Chicano R&B influences as their East L.A. soulmates, the band's creative axis of vocalists Rod Hodges and Joe Cabral and bassist Rene Coma (powered by drummer Doug Garrison and Derek Huston on sax) has inspired anything but a predictable artistic orbit here. Anchored by the loping, sunny pop daydream "Yesterday" and the title track's gently optimistic radio paean (a collaboration between Hodges and Dave Alvin), the band simmers zydeco, blues, and smart pop hooks into a mix that veers from the sly playfulness of "Sugarcane," "Mexican Candy," and the tragi-comic squalor of "The Liquor Dance" to more traditional party-hearty rhythms of "Flame On" and "Zacatecas." Its production is as subtle and spacious as its evocative songs, a languorous hour of music that evokes the dappled sunlight and fevered grooves of a half-dozen cultures. --Jerry McCulley

War peppers their music with Latin rhythms and instrumentations, mixing in elements of funk with oldies rock & roll to create a nonstop summer-block-party sound. Hits like "The Cisco Kid" and "Why Can't We Be Friends?" are characterized by the band's lower-register vocals and beg for a singalong. "Spill the Wine, " a hit during Eric Burden's tenure with War, lacks the freer, good-time feel of the later material, but "Low Rider, " a bottom-heavy salsa driven by a raunchy harmonica, remains one of the band's most popular songs. The Best of War ... and More goes beyond retro appeal, displaying a timeless quality. --Steve Gdula

If you only want the essentials, this is the package to get. Greatest Hits is an early collection, dating back to 1974, and it does a good job of skimming the cream from the band's classic 1969-71 period, which yielded the first three albums, Santana, Abraxas, and Santana III. It also avoids the great, sprawling mass of ephemera and second-line material that pads Santana's later catalog: The peaks after '71 are far more thinly spread--and are seldom as lofty. On the other hand, if you're an enthusiast, you might want to take a step up to the grander Best of Santana or Viva Santana collections, each of which covers more ground. --Gavin McNett

No Description Available
No Track Information Available
Media Type: CD
Artist: SANTANA,CARLOS
Title: CARAVANSERAI
Street Release Date: 09/30/2003
Domestic
Genre: ROCK/POP