Woodstock (Saturday, August 16, 1969)

Sound DNA

• Rock
• Blues Rock

• raw
• frenzied
• psychedelic

About

Santana’s 45-minute performance at the Woodstock Festival served as the band’s introduction and breakthrough to a mass audience. The group was added at the last moment by their manager, San Francisco music promoter Bill Graham, who insisted on their inclusion in return for helping manage the festival. The band’s debut album had yet to be released, so audiences were truly virgin ears, as they laid eyes on a band that would go on to become one of the following decade’s brighter stars. Their eventual hit single, “Evil Ways,” is the one previously unreleased track from their performance. Along other album cuts, including the landmark 11-minute performance of “Soul Sacrifice,” and Baba Olatunji’s “Jingo,” “Savor” and “Persuasion,” as well as non-debut-album jams such as the stomping blues of “Shades of Time” and “Fried Neck Bones and Some Home Fries,” their moments on the Woodstock stage provided the group with the perfect forum for their jazzy, Latin-tinged, often instrumental, rock ‘n’ roll — and introduced a generation to a legendary guitarist in Carlos Santana.

via Apple Music

Tracklist

Credits