Studio Album · No. 1
Santana Songwriting Credits by Santana
Produced by David Rubinson · Engineered by David Brown
Holds writing credit on 7 of 9 tracks
Authorship Breakdown 7 / 9 documented
Scored across the 9 tracks with documented writers, by whether Santana carries a lyricist or composer credit.
Share of the 9 tracks where a band member is credited, by role.
By the Numbers
The debut is mostly band-built instrumentals and extended jams, with Carlos Santana and his bandmates Gregg Rolie, David Brown, Michael Shrieve, Michael Carabello, and José Areas credited across the writing. "Evil Ways" is a cover of a Clarence "Sonny" Henry song first cut by Willie Bobo, and "Jingo" adapts Babatunde Olatunji's "Jin-go-lo-ba" into a percussion-heavy showcase. The closing "Soul Sacrifice," the same arrangement the band had played weeks earlier at Woodstock, runs past six minutes as a group instrumental driven by congas, timbales, organ, and guitar. The record fuses Latin percussion, blues phrasing, and psychedelic rock into a sound the band wrote and arranged largely on its own.
Santana is the debut studio album by the band Santana, released in 1969 on Columbia Records following their legendary performance at Woodstock. The album introduced the San Francisco group's groundbreaking blend of rock guitar, blues grit, and Afro-Cuban percussion to a national audience, a combination that had no precedent in mainstream rock. "Evil Ways," written by Clarence "Sonny" Henry, became the band's first Top 10 hit and defined the Latin rock sound for years to come. The frenetic instrumental "Soul Sacrifice," co-written by the entire band, was performed at Woodstock and captured on film, arguably the group's most iconic early document. Though most of the songwriting came from Gregg Rolie and outside contributors rather than Carlos Santana himself, the album established Carlos's guitar as the band's defining voice, expressive, fluid, and unlike anything else in rock at the time.