Abraxas (1970)

Abraxas is the second studio album by the American rock band Santana. It was released on September 23, 1970, by Columbia Records and became the band's first album to top the Billboard 200 in the United States. In 2020, Rolling Stone magazine ranked the album number 334 on its list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time".

Title

The title of the album originates from a line in Hermann Hesse's 1919 book Demian, quoted on the album's back cover: "We stood before it and began to freeze inside from the exertion. We questioned the painting, berated it, made love to it, prayed to it: We called it mother, called it whore and slut, called it our beloved, called it Abraxas..."

Songs

Carlos Santana had been interested in Fleetwood Mac's leader and songwriter Peter Green, having seen him perform at the Fillmore West in San Francisco, and decided to cover the band's song "Black Magic Woman" (both had also been influenced as guitarists by B.B. King). The band added a cover of Gábor Szabó's instrumental "Gypsy Queen" to the end. "Oye Como Va" was a hit by Tito Puente in the early 1960s and the group played it live regularly, as they realized it was good for audiences to dance to.

"Incident at Neshabur" was co-written by Santana and his friend Alberto Gianquinto, who played piano on the track. Gregg Rolie played the other keyboards, contrasting with Gianquinto's jazz-influenced style. It ran through various time and key signatures.

The instrumental, "Samba Pa Ti" ("Samba for You"), was written by Santana when he saw a jazz saxophonist performing in the street outside his apartment. It was later covered by José Feliciano, who added lyrics, and also by Angélique Kidjo, who put lyrics in Yoruba, on her album Oyo. It is also one of the tracks featured in Nick Hornby's book 31 Songs.

Cover art

The album cover features the 1961 painting Annunciation by German-French painter Mati Klarwein. According to the artist, it was one of the first paintings he did after relocating to New York City. Carlos Santana reportedly noticed it in a magazine and asked that it be on the cover of the band's upcoming album. On the back of the record sleeve the cover art is just credited to 'MATI'. It is now considered a classic of rock album covers. Klarwein went on to design album artwork for many notable artists, including Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Gregg Allman, and Earth, Wind & Fire.

Critical reception

In 2003, the album was ranked No. 205 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, at No. 207 on the 2012 revision of the list, and then again at No. 334 in its 2020 release. In 2000, it appeared at No. 202 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums. The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. In 2015, the album was listed among Billboard's 50 Essential Latin Albums of the 50 Past Years.

Rock critic Robert Christgau, in one of his capsule reviews in The Village Voice, at the time of the album's release, gave it a rating of only C+, which denotes "a not disreputable performance, most likely a failed experiment or a pleasant piece of hackwork".

Legacy

Abraxas was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in their National Recording Registry in 2015.

Personnel

Santana

• Carlos Santana – lead guitar, backing vocals, producer
• Gregg Rolie – keyboards, lead vocals
• David Brown – bass
• Michael Shrieve – drums
• José "Chepito" Areas – percussion, congas, timbales

Michael Carabello – percussion, congas, possibly keyboards on "Singing Winds, Crying Beasts" (the latter disputed by Santana)

Additional personnel

Rico Reyes – backing vocals on "Oye Como Va" and “El Nicoya”, percussion on "El Nicoya"

Alberto Gianquinto – piano on "Incident at Neshabur"

• Fred Catero – producer
• John Fiore, David Brown – engineer
• Bob Venosa – graphics
• MATI – illustrations
• Marian Schmidt, Joan Chase – photography