The longest-running, most successful partnership in the history of rock takes flight anew, as legendary Rock And Roll Hall of Fame inductees Carlos Santana and Clive Davis, Chief Creative Officer of Sony Music Entertainment, collaborate on the brand new concept album, GUITAR HEAVEN: THE GREATEST GUITAR CLASSICS OF ALL TIME, released September 20th on Arista Records. The album was co-produced by Carlos Santana and Clive Davis with tracks produced by Matt Serletic and Howard Benson.
Working from their collective encyclopedic knowledge of rock, Carlos Santana and Clive Davis devised a list of guitar-centric titles – and then invited a Who’s Who of guest vocalists to perform on every track. Singers range from Chris Cornell (on Led Zeppelin’s ‘Whole Lotta Love’), Pat Monahan (on Van Halen’s ‘Dance the Night Away’), Chester Bennington and Ray Manzarek (on The Doors’ ‘Riders on the Storm’), Rob Thomas (on Cream’s ‘Sunshine Of Your Love’), Scott Weiland (on the Rolling Stones’ ‘Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’’), Chris Daughtry (on Def Leppard’s ‘Photograph’), Gavin Rossdale (on T. Rex’s ‘Bang A Gong’) to rapper Nas (on AC/DC’s ‘Back In Black’), veteran Joe Cocker (on Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Little Wing’), and more.
A very special dedication to George Harrison comes together on GUITAR HEAVEN…, with ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps,’ featuring singer india.arie and master cellist Yo-Yo Ma. “Listening to the song,” Olivia Harrison told Carlos, “it made me jump for joy and cry at the same time.”
Along with these stars, Carlos offers “supreme validation and compliment” to his full-time band for their work on GUITAR HEAVEN…, their first entire full-length studio album recording together. Band members who join him on the album include Dennis Chambers (drums), Benny Rietveld (bass), Karl Perrazo (timbales), Tommy Anthony (rhythm guitar), Freddie Ravel (keyboards), Andy Vargas (background vocals), and Raul Rekow (Congas). Bill Ortiz (trumpet) and Jeff Cressman (trombone) also appear on the record.
“To create these songs,” said Carlos, “it took an incredible amount of trust – from Matt Serletic, and from Howard Benson, and all these incredible singers, all these incredible musicians, they had to trust me, and I trusted Clive, so it’s a chain reaction of love, because that’s the highest form of love that there is on this planet: Trust.”
“The cuts are special and the guest stars are special,” said Clive Davis. “But what is unique and why this album stands for more than just the individual songs or titles, is that they were indeed chosen because they’re guitar classics. And they celebrate the guitar because of the performance of Carlos Santana.”
GUITAR HEAVEN… is the first new studio album by Santana since their trilogy of consecutive blockbuster Arista releases: Supernatural (1999), Shaman (2002), and All That I Am (2005). All three albums were produced by Carlos Santana and Clive Davis. They represented a warm and well-received reunion with the executive who first signed Santana to Columbia Records (after seeing them at San Francisco’s Fillmore West in 1968). Clive oversaw their formative years starting in 1969, with the release of their higly impressive self titled debut album on August 18th, the Monday after their unforgettable Saturday performance at Woodstock Music.
Three decades later in 1999, Supernatural became – and remains – an unsurpassed industry phenomenon selling over 25 million copies and winning an unprecedented 9 Grammy’s. Featuring the massive hit singles ‘Smooth and ‘Maria Maria’, it was the album that reinforced Carlos Santana’s reputation as a global musical force and leader.
Supernatural was a hard act to follow – but 2002’s Shaman gave Santana a second consecutive US multi-platinum album, propelled by the UK Top 20 single ‘The Game of Love’ featuring Michelle Branch. Third in this series of collaborative albums was 2005’s All That I Am, a US number 2 album that featured the single ‘Just Feel Better’ with Steven Tyler of Aerosmith.
It has been more than 40 years since the original Santana Blues Band played its first shows at Bill Graham’s Fillmore West in San Francisco, opening for The Who in October 1967. Santana is unique among all the first generation Bay Area bands for sustaining its success on the charts and on the road as a sold-out stadium attraction. Santana have sold over 90 million albums worldwide and Carlos Santana is both a global superstar and cultural icon. In an extraordinary career he has worked with Miles Davis, Shakira, Michael Jackson, Willie Nelson, Lauryn Hill, Eric Clapton, Tina Turner, John Lee Hooker, the great jazz vocalist Leon Thomas, Wyclef Jean, Cee-Lo, Joe Cocker and Herbie Hancock to name just a few. His virtuoso guitar playing has been a huge influence on Prince and Metallica’s Kirk Hammett. GUITAR HEAVEN: THE GREATEST GUITAR CLASSICS OF ALL TIME carries the continuum to the next generation.
This biography was provided by the artist or their representative.
