We Called It Abraxas: Santana's Greatest Album｜Vinyl Monday

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Welcome (or welcome back) to Vinyl Monday! This is my series where I give the who/what/when/where/why and how I feel about classic albums in my collection. My thoughts on Santana’s genre-busting, reality-bending Abraxas (released 1970.) Subscribe for more Vinyl Monday and vintage fashion!

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Timestamps:

intro – 0:00
art/packaging/personnel – 2:15
Abraxas – 7:39
track listing/release – 15:35
my thoughts – 21:40
thanks for watching! – 35:54

Music:

#vinyl #vinylcommunity #santana

[abigaildevoe]

what's your favorite santana song? comment below!

[ApolloSuns]

Love that Santana is on here. The first 4 albums are gems. Abraxas is what made me want to start playing music

[samuelsmoak]

SANTANA HAS FINALLY ENTER THE VMCU LETS GOOOO. My favorite album from them is Santana 3. I just love how exhilarating and lively this album is, like all Santana albums but Santana 3 is different.

[michaeloconnor]

Another great review! I saw Tito in the 90s. Before playing Oye Como Va, he told a story. His band was playing a club and a pretty young girl came to the stage and asked of he would play that Santana song. He told her, “Young lady, we do not play Santana songs.” Then the owner of the club came to him and said that it was his daughter, and she would really like to hear that Santana number. He told the guy sternly, “We do not play Santana numbers!”
He went on to say, “Shortly after this happened, I received my first royalty check. At this time we would like to do that great Santana number . . .”

[lennydellarocca]

I've watched several of your videos. You're very, very professional. Very careful with your clothing and make-up etc. Very smart! The editing is really great. I like the depth of your dives into he music and the artists. It's apparent that you do a lot of reserach. I've learned things-little nuggests of trivia that I didn't know-and I grew up in those days. I love most of the LPs you talk about-I am 70, so the 60s and early 70s was my time. You obviously spend a lot of time making these videos. Most of all I love that a young person such as yourself loves this music as much an old geezer like me.

[robertoarsenal]

Incident at Neshabur is my fav from this great album. Another great episode Abbi

[JB_Eckl]

I'm a longtime producer and guitarist who got lucky enough to work closely with Carlos on several occasions, including having him mop the stage with me a few times in concert (the ultimate rite of passage). Abraxas will always be the definitive Santana album to me, and is easily in my desert island top 10 all around. I consider this to be one of the greatest rock band lineups of all time, just insane heavenly chemistry. Anyway, I'm here to say WOW you really get it--there are about 30 times where you had an insight about this music that made me say 'YUP' out loud. I'll be doing the deep dive on your channel; sub'd and bell'd!

[ManuelIngallinera]

Santana stayed in Oahu when I was there in the early ‘70s. I recall going to a record shop looking at sheet music as this scruffy dude stood next to me for a long while. I realized he was Michael Schrieve when a clerk asked him to sign the Santana poster as I was checking out. Later I saw Santana play at the Honolulu International Center with Neal Schon. Jose Feliciano joined them for an encore performance of Black Magic Woman. Abraxas is a truly great album and Samba Pi Ti is a favorite song. I also was at the Diamond Head Crater concert when Carlos Santana played with Buddy Miles. A few days after I left Hawaii at the end of 1972, I was at the front of the stage with Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne and other artists at the L.A. Forum to see Santana open for the Rolling Stones at the benefit concert for earthquake victims in Managua, Nicaragua. Abby, I am happy I discovered your channel today and appreciate all your insights into music.

[michaelshiflett]

I think you’re as good a musical journalist as I’ve ever seen. Congratulations on your continued progress 😊

[jamesmacdonald]

Caravanserai - astonishing. Miles ahead and some Mahavishnu too.

[SuperStrik]

Abraxas is an all time classic. Great album. My favorite Santana albums is Caravanserai.

[gaodene]

I love the inclusion of Gabor szabo in this. I learned about him in the 90s from a video Carlos made about his musical influences (along with Brazilian artist Bola Sete) and been in love with Gabor’s music since

[jazzzman]

Thank you! It’s a joy to hear your appreciation for this album. And you’re right, as a high school kid in ‘69-‘70, there was SO much new and impressively creative music emerging…but Santana emerged at a higher level, with their rhythmic sophistication, melding of influences, and the palpable passion in Carlos’ playing. I knew nothing of the many genres of “Latin” music, the “authenticity” or lack thereof was totally lost on me, but this music was so beautiful, powerful and exciting all at once. In the years since, Carlos has done a fine job of surviving in the evolving music biz, while still providing enough heartfelt performances to keep from becoming too stale. No easy feat!

[Kang]

I absolutely love this album it is truly unique in rock history. Being Latino myself it made me feel heard in society at large within the realms of American popular music. My father had turned me on to this record and to this day I can't get enough of it. Thank you for your review and some of the history of the record. Be well and have fun.

[dougrobison]

Dear Abby, (sorry I had to do that!) I grew up in the Bay Area starting high school in 1969. I saw Santana then and Carlos has been my hands down favorite artist since. I even got to shake his hand in Santa Rosa, Ca where his son Salvador was playing a hole in the wall. Abraxas is, of course, a seminal work that I love and leads to Caravanserai. The album critics said would kill Santana's career (lol). AU CONTRAIRE! Caravanserai is also seminal. But I digress! Abraxas: unbelievable; mind bending; life altering; I have the original pressing!
Love your work, Glad you love Carlos ( I might have had to stop watching you if you didn't!! ) And yes Santana/McLaughlin - A love supreme - is also a favorite of mine.
My Fav song: Europa

[glennandadriansrocktalk]

I love this album and have loved it for decades. Those first three Santana albums are incredible, but this is easily the best of them. Still have my pristine copy purchased new in the 1980s. I was in the habit of putting all my albums on cassette for most listening. Thanks for the Gabor Szabo info as well, I have that VMP version of the album but honestly it came as part of the subscription I briefly had with them and hadn't given it its due yet. Thanks Abby, you keep picking bangers to feature. It feels like you're going through my own record collection most of the time and finding the gems.

[IMQ]

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you for covering Abraxas. It's one of my favorite albums, and I must have about a dozen copies of it across different formats. It's one of those albums where I can't just listen to a song or two and must hear the whole thing. There is a spiritual quality to it and it seems to fit whatever mood I'm in at the time.

[RabbiSteve]

Another great Vinyl Monday video essay, Abby. And you called it with Christgau. I have felt that he is mostly about hype and is a poser, since I first started to read him back in the 1970’s. IMHO, you are way better and more insightful than anything that, not only Christgau, but many, if not most of that generation of so-called “rock critics”. My favorite from that time, and maybe for all time, is Paul Williams (not the song-writer, and no relation). Wrote out of his love for the music and his writing and insights show it.

And kudos for shouting out MOUNTAIN CLIMBING. What a great album!

[drewburns]

I love how Santana, in addition to writing great songs of his own, chose such good songs to cover; Fleetwood Mac leading into Gabor Szabo leading into Tito Puente makes the first side of this record absolutely fantastic!

EDIT: Quick background on why the band got kicked out of Peru - the military government at the time was trying to purge the country's cultural scene of "foreign" influence, and actually incited a group of radical college students to burn down the stage Santana was set to perform on before they even got there! This crackdown on rock music spelled the end for a lot of Peru's classic early 70s rock bands. The channel "Bandsplaining" does a good summary of this time period in their cumbia video.

[takfam]

Damn you're good. This album is part of my life, as my parents bought it when it first came out. I was only 6 or 7, and it still serves as a deeply ingrained backdrop in my memory of that time. My young parents loved Santana so much, they hauled us three kids--I was the oldest, age 7 at the time--to the Diamond Head Crater Festival in Honolulu on New Year's Day 1972. Santana and Buddy Miles were the headliners.