Carlos Santana Biography

Carlos Santana

The guitar-playing legend's blend of blues, rock, and Afro-Cuban rhythms has kept him visible on the popular music front for more than 30 years. After moving with his family to San Francisco he became a founding member of the Santana Blues Band, later Santana. A month after appearing at Woodstock in 1969—one of the band's first gigs—Santana released its first album, Santana, which it followed with a series of gold and platinum albums during the 1970s: Abraxas, Borboletta, and Inner Secrets. Santana himself recorded many solo albums including the jazz influenced The Swing of Delight (1980), featuring Herbie Hancock and others, and the pop-oriented Havana Moon (1983) with Willie Nelson and Booker T Jones. In 1986, he wrote the score for La Bamba, the biopic of Ritchie Valens. In 1999, after a break of five years from recording, Santana released Supernatural, which sold almost ten million copies and won eight Grammy Awards.