Quad LP/Tape Poll Santana: Welcome [SQ/Q8]

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Rate Welcome

  • 8

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 6

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 5: Mediocrity Central

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 4

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 3

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 2

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 1: Sux

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    13

EMB

2K Club - QQ Super Nova
Since 2002/2003
Joined
Feb 8, 2004
Messages
4,101
Location
The Top 40 Radio of My Mind
Columbia PCQ 32445, from 1973.

Side 1:

Going Home
Love, Devotion & Surrender
Samba de Sausalito
When I Look Into Your Eyes
Yours is the Light

Side 2:

Mother Africa
Light of Life
Flame-Sky
Welcome


ED :)
 
11 A SPECTACULAR ALBUM!! I own an SQ, Q8, expanded CD and a 2 CD set w/Buddy Miles/Santana. I had the 2 ch LP before the Quad came out. Flora Purim, John McLaughlin, Wendy Haas (from Azteca) and Leon Thomas all make this a jazz fusion tour-de-force. The original 2ch and SQ LP's have an embossed cover, which became gold print on all other issues. The original LP's also have a header strip, like an OBI. Love, Devotion & Surrender, When I Look Into Your Eyes, Flame/Sky and Yours is the Light are the highlights here. GET IT!!
Santana-Welcome-392888.jpg
mf2TS3byw6yt0-xvJ9X60bQ.jpg
 
Probably the most underrated Santana album from the "fusion" trilogy (Caravanserai, Welcome, Borboletta), had it as LP, MC, 8T and strangely enough one that Columbia didn't release on CD for a long while (i got the Castle two-pack as soon as it came out), probably because it doesn't have "strong" numbers - it sounds always very delicate. As with the other Santana releases up to Borboletta a stellar quad mix and a true shame for Sony to not release it today on digital.
While is not one of the most accessible tracks of any Santana album, to me "Flame-Sky" is the highlight of the album.
Many tracks of Welcome found their way on the triple "Lotus", and in some cases with improved versions (Samba de Sausalito, for example: the Lotus version smokes!).
Worth noticing that is the only Santana quad 8 that has a faded track, "Mother Africa" between program 1 and 2. All other quads rearranged the track list in order to preserve the songs.
 
Like labelmates Chicago, the early Columbia Santana was experimental as well as commercial in nature. But where Chicago became more commercial (and less interesting) over time, Santana went the other way, toward jazz fusion, experimentation, which didn't net them any hits, but makes them a lot more listenable today. WELCOME is another strong entry in the cycle, with an exciting quad mix to match.

FWIW: the 8-track tape, by necessity, has, IIRC, "Mother Africa" separated into two parts on Program 1 and 2.

ED :)
 
Now I think Caravanserai is freakin' BRILLIANT!!!! but there's something that's missing in Welcome...sounds kinda limp or uninspired to me...but I'll keep listening to them cause all of the Santana quads are in medium to heavy rotation on my playlists....
 
With musicians like John McLaughlin, Flora Purim, Wendy Haas and Leon Thomas, how can you go wrong? 6 people voted so far: 3 10's and 3 9's. Vox populi.

In glorious mono, here's Love, Devotion & Surrender. Just as the Doors' Waiting for the Sun, it's NOT on the album of the same name, instead it's on Welcome: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYSkcs-FAbE

Yours is the Light w/Flora Purim (Mrs. Airto Moriera): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3DnCzrfLhI

615_001.jpg
 
I think it helps to be a major fan of fusion, jazz, or latin music in general to find it easy to embrace the band, starting with WELCOME. Despite its title--and unlike the transitional CARAVANSERAI--it doesn't offer hints of past glories. Like BORBOLETTA, it always seemed to be a hermetic kind of album, very enjoyable (and even more so in quad) if you're open to what at the time seemed a disinterest on everyone's part of commerciality, which was very evident in places on CARAVANSERAI which, having gotten to the top ten, might deceive you into thinking its music was as commercial. But Santana were moving ahead to their own drummer (in more ways than one). AMIGOS brought them out a little bit more, and LOTUS could almost be considered a retrospective-in-concert of the band up to that point.

I would only suggest the usual: some well aged 'gasoline' (as Mr. Sinatra used to say), or other or no fuel of your choice, but plenty of time to relax and just let it embrace you. Repeated listenings generally bring rewards.

ED :)
 
I think it helps to be a major fan of fusion, jazz, or latin music in general to find it easy to embrace the band, starting with WELCOME. Despite its title--and unlike the transitional CARAVANSERAI--it doesn't offer hints of past glories. Like BORBOLETTA, it always seemed to be a hermetic kind of album, very enjoyable (and even more so in quad) if you're open to what at the time seemed a disinterest on everyone's part of commerciality, which was very evident in places on CARAVANSERAI which, having gotten to the top ten, might deceive you into thinking its music was as commercial. But Santana were moving ahead to their own drummer (in more ways than one). AMIGOS brought them out a little bit more, and LOTUS could almost be considered a retrospective-in-concert of the band up to that point.

I would only suggest the usual: some well aged 'gasoline' (as Mr. Sinatra used to say), or other or no fuel of your choice, but plenty of time to relax and just let it embrace you. Repeated listenings generally bring rewards.

ED :)

Linda, you're mobbing me!!!! OK OK OK!!!! I'll listen to it more often; I know you were Airto's student (duuude, awesome) and can't blame you for sewing a scarlet letter on me...

Ed, I wish you were a doctor so I could go with your prescription to the pharmacy and get a discount for beer and Tullemore D.E.W.!!!! Excellent recommendation , doctor....Caravanserai was a Top Ten LP? I agree with you , it's a "hermetic" LP...Thanks for putting it into perspective....
 
Caravanserai began Santana's "less commercial" period. When that one hit, I bought the 2ch LP and visited a friend's dorm room. He said, "when are they going to play something?" Don't throw Pearls Before Swine! Caravanserai began Santana's "Brazilian period," especially with the cover of Tom Jobim's Stone Flower (IMHO, the best track on Caravanserai.) Although there were other influences, Welcome & Borboletta continued that trend. BTW: Airto guested on Borboletta. Lotus also featured his Xibaba (she-ba-ba). After the live Lotus, which featured that aggregation, he returned to a more commercial "Mexicali" sound with Amigos. Amigos' cover hinted at that with the monkey holding Santana (1st album.)

Santana was my favorite band in the '70's. They could do no wrong. Have seen them beaucoups times live.
 
Caravanserai was a Top Ten LP? I agree with you , it's a "hermetic" LP...Thanks for putting it into perspective....

As weird as it may seems, here in Italy yes: 15th on the total annual album sale, max. chart position 3. It wasn't too hermetic when it came out.
 
Dear Dr. Bishop; your prescription is working wonders...now I'm starting to get it....since it's a different style , it was not being assimilated as Caravanserai was....The T. D.E.W. also helped a lot!
 
Here's a chart list for Santana in Italy.
For each album, first number is the highest chart position; second number the annual chart sale rank.
Lotus was a import-only album (triple japan = very expensive), however it sold well.
Nice to see that even a very odd album as T.A. Coltrane "Illuminations" charted.

1971
Abraxas: 4 / 13
3rd: 1 / 6

1972
w. Buddy Miles 6 / 30

1973
Caravanserai 3 / 15
w John McLaughin 2 / 29

1974
Welcome 4 / 9
G.Hits 7 / 35
w T.A.Coltrane 25 / 90

1975
Borboletta 4 / 15

1976
Amigos 1 / 2

1977
Festival 3 / 18
Moonflower 3 / 14

1978
Inner secrets 8 / 28
 
Linda, you're mobbing me!!!! OK OK OK!!!! I'll listen to it more often; I know you were Airto's student (duuude, awesome) and can't blame you for sewing a scarlet letter on me...

Jeez, doncha know NEVER to argue with the Quad Goddess :kitty: ?!? Are you mad, man ?!? :D

Ed, I wish you were a doctor so I could go with your prescription to the pharmacy and get a discount for beer and Tullemore D.E.W.!!!! Excellent recommendation , doctor....Caravanserai was a Top Ten LP? I agree with you , it's a "hermetic" LP...Thanks for putting it into perspective....

Anytime, my good fellow...:brew

To put things in perspective, my belief is that Santana seized their opportunity to truly experiment and indulge where others (think Chicago) actually, with time and success, regressed and basked in having hits and #1 albums (and of course it later happened to Carlos, since later albums and perhaps most of all SUPERNATURAL were very successful as 'comebacks' of sorts, but little but a shadow of past work and an attempt, with that one, to be 'modern,' ugh...). Also remember that Santana was a serious signing by Columbia, which placed a lot of ads early in the wake of "Jingo" which was released just in advance of their debut album. Their appearance at Woodstock was one of the few by a 'new' act (Bert Sommer and Sha Na Na also fit into that rubric for 1969) and it turned out to be an important showcase for them, though the success of SANTANA was primarily due to word-of-mouth by fans and critics telling of its quality and vibrance (and it holds up today as timeless in a way that Creedence also was but that ABBEY ROAD is not). Publicity and getting a hit out of an edited "Evil Ways" didn't hurt, either; nor did the success of SANTANA ABRAXAS and III and their respective Top 40 singles. That was an early key: this was an exciting yet commercially oriented band that might have first seemed a novelty due to the latin influence of their percussion unit but was keyed by a natural urge to rock and Carlos' love of the blues. As time went on, it was obvious that at least some within the band loved Miles, too; or at least Miles' sense of doing-my-own-thing stubborness and authority. CARAVANSERAI was made, IMO, in that spirit, a band beginning to make music strictly for itself and, if they got a hit out of it, fine; if not, that was fine too. And so it went with many albums to come, starting with WELCOME. This might not have been what their record company wanted but, in the Miles' fashion, a past track record and a certain prestige became attached to Santana, and the intricacy and imagination of their music, IMO, actually got better and beyond the obvious. But like Miles and Trane, that also often required more intent and repeated listening on our part; I know it did for me, since I was used to the hits and a more blatantly commercial sound. Trust me (and Linda) when I say that just relaxing and drinking in this set of albums--and then going back to them a bit later, perhaps--should do the trick. If they were lesser works we wouldn't be discussing them at such length, but then, there was a time when Trane's Impulse! classics were regarded not necessarily as works of genius (as they were later), but as simply exploratory and eclectic from a man considered committed to finding his own sound and connection to God and unconcerned about what anyone else thought. I think Santana's albums from this period, while not great, meet the test of the recording aesthetic of Miles and Trane (any other assumption would then presume that the band and Columbia believed that this was commercial pop/rock material and that the public would embrace it as it did CARAVANSERAI, which is absurd as a premise. Everyone involved must have known they were not only challenging themselves to new musical directions).

So just sit back and enjoy, ignore everything I just wrote....:phones

ED :)
 
Ed,
think the 70s has been a incredible time for music, there was a openness of discovering something new that has been long gone. That's why i posted the chart above for Santana: all three "fusion" albums (caravanserai, welcome and borboletta) were highly successful even in the commercial sense.
I know, it's hard to believe such kind of music were big hit sellers at their time, but looking yesterday at the hitparadeitalia page showed a lot of impossible-to think-high-on chart albums for many many years.
Another time, the same place.
 
I'm going to cast a 7 on this for now after the first time hearing it in quad. It is a great album with some great parts. I will definitely revisit this one eventually to see what I missed the first listen. I've been taking in a lot of quad Santana lately as I a have almost completed a Santana quad discography. But when you take in albums quickly and back to back you can tend to miss the finer points.
 
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