All about Santana – The Rock Band

In San Francisco, the young guitarist got the chance to see his idols, most notably King, perform live. He was also introduced to a variety of new musical influences, including jazz and international folk music, and witnessed the growing hippie movement centered in San Francisco in the 1960s. After several years spent working as a dishwasher in a diner and playing for spare change on the streets, Santana decided to become a full-time musician; in 1966, he formed the Santana Blues Band, with fellow street musicians David Brown and Gregg Rolie (bassist and keyboard player, respectively).

Although the band had concentrated on trying to produce albums with commercial appeal during the 1980s, changing tastes in popular culture began to reflect in the band's sagging record sales of their latest effort Beyond Appearances. In 1985, Bill Graham had to once again pull strings for Santana to convince principal Live Aid concert organizer Bob Geld of to allow the band to appear at the festival. The group's high-energy performance proved they were still a top concert draw the world over despite their poor performance on the charts. Santana regained a great deal of respect in both jazz and rock circles, with Prince and guitarist Kirk Hammett of Metallica citing him as an influence.

Santana band was quite legendary and extraordinary and they managed to bag quite a lot of awards and lists of fame. The band along with Carlos Santana, Michael Shrieve, David Brown, Jose Chepito Areas, Mike Carabello and Greg Rollie were honored and conscripted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. The band Santana received 3 Grammy Awards in the Latin category and a total of 8 Grammy Awards all in the year 2000. Carlos Santana himself has won various individual Grammy Awards.

That same year Santana formed an all-instrumental group featuring jazz legend Wayne Shorter on tenor and soprano saxophone. The group also included Patrice Rushen on keyboards, Alphonso Johnson on bass, Armando Peraza and Chepito Areas on percussion, and Leon "Ndugu" Chancler on drums. They toured briefly and received much acclaim from the music press, who compared the effort with the era of Caravanserai. Santana released another solo record, Blues for Salvador, which won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.

In 1990, Santana left Columbia Records after twenty-two years and signed with Polygram. The following year, he made a guest appearance on Ottmar Liebert's album Solo Para Ti, on the songs "Reaching out 2 U" and on a cover of his own song, "Samba Pa Ti". In 1992, Santana hired jam band Phish as his opening act.

Santana played a red Gibson SG Special with P-90 pickups at the Woodstock festival. In the time of Abraxas and Santana III (1970-1972), He used different Gibson Les Paul`s and a Black Gibson SG Special. From 1976 until 1982, his main guitar was a Yamaha SG 175B and sometimes a white Gibson SG Custom with 3 open coil pick-ups. In 1982 he started to use a custom made PRS guitar, which became his main instrument around 1988. Santana currently uses a Santana II model guitar using PRS Santana III pickups with nickel covers and a tremolo, with .009-.042 gauge D'Addario strings. Santana's guitar necks and fretboards are constructed out of a single solid piece of Brazilian Rosewood; this helps create the smooth, singing, glass-like tone for which he is known.

The rest we know is the beginning of a new history in the world of music.