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No conversation about great guitarists is complete without mentioning Carlos Santana. After all, the man ranks in at number fifteen on Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. Ever since his birth on July 20, 1947, or more appropriately since he first picked up a guitar at age 8, Santana has been blowing minds with his incredibly adroit fret play.
Santana cites Blues singers like John Lee Hooker and B.B. King as his greatest idols and influences. This makes sense considering Santana’s signature tone. With emphasis on clarity and an eschewing of effects pedals, one can trace a direct line from Santana’s Blues-based fusion of Jazz and Rock to the tasteful note choice and vibrato noodling emphasized by Chicago and Memphis kingpins like Muddy Waters and Santana’s hero John Lee. What Santana brought to the table, though, were Latin influences like congas, timbales, and Salsa basslines. This made his band, appropriately named “Santana” a near-instant success in San Francisco in the mid ‘60s, and led to Santana’s career-defining appearance at Woodstock in 1969. The guitar Santana played was a red Gibson SG Special and had P-90 pickups. The awesome crunch and super noodly sound of this guitar would play a large part in Santana’s overall sound during much of the ‘70s, with him sometimes using a Gibson SG with regular humbuckers.
Carlos became even more experimental in the ‘70s with songs like “Dance Sister Dance” and albums like “Amigos” being particularly jazzy in influence. This weakened Santana’s popularity among casual fans although diehard devotees were noticing that his guitar playing was getting better. This was due in part to the fact that, in 1976, Santana began using a white Gibson SG Custom. This beauty had three open-coil pickups and delivered the tasteful, bright sound that peppered many of Santana’s interesting songs during this time. Santana the band started losing even more mainstream popularity the ‘80s to the point where Santana’s albums and singles were rarely hits and Santana the man was considered an amazing guitarist but not a particularly entertaining artist. Because of this, Santana found himself appearing more as a guest on friends’ albums. This was arguably his greatest outlet as it allowed him to focus solely on jamming. Santana played with Aretha Franklin, John Lee Hooker, Vernon Reid, and many more stars during this time and he furthered his craft and honed his tone into an even more astonishing clarity. In 1982, Santana began primarily playing PRS guitars. PRS, at the time, was a virtual unknown in the market and many credit Santana with popularizing the brand when it was near collapse. The custom Santana I, Santana II, and Santana III models were perfectly suited to Santana’s bold tone. Boasting a “Santana Wide Fat” neck and mahogany body and three way pickup selectors, this was the perfect guitar to show off Santana’s often perfect fret work.
Continue Carlos Santana part 2>>
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