This is the show which taped in LA last November.
Check your local PBS schedule:

“Latin Music Legends,” a musical variety show hosted by and starring Palm Springs resident Trini Lopez, will air as a national public television pledge break special in August, its locally-based produced have announced.

It will debut Aug. 14 on KVCR, broadcast to 5.5 million households in Southern California, and then air on PBS stations across the nation.

The show, taped at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles, is produced by local executive producers Dan Bohlmann, Robert Alexander of the Motion Picture Hall of Fame group and Mitchell Sussman of Raven Productions.

Besides Lopez, it will feature Julio Iglesias, original Santana lead singer Gregg Rolie, El Chicano, Tierra, Thee Midniters with Little Willie G, and Palm Springs resident Mark Guerrero, who performs a tribute to his late father, Lalo Guerrero.

Alexander said “Latin Music Legends” will air nationally on for 11 months and then “be taken to retail outlets and syndicated internationally.”

The show will air at 9 p.m.

Tags: El Chicano. East Los Angeles, Gregg Rolie, Julio Iglesias, Lalo Guerrero, Latin Music Legends, Latin Rock, Mark Guerrero, PBS, Santana, Thee Midniters, Tierra, Trini Lopez, Voices of Latin Rock, Willie G

Rain Dance is a new live CD taken from the same performance filmed for a potential DVD release (which has hit some technical buffers at present). The live CD is available to buy and download from Amazon.com and from the soon-to-be-revamped Gregg Rolie web space and also at Rolie Band gigs. There are some minor backing vocals overdubs but apart from that it’s the raw deal, as was played at the concert.
It is an independently produced item and Gregg’s son Sean Rolie handled the remixing chores. As Gregg states” I hired him because he’s good at what he does, not because he’s my son??” The CD was given the final production by Gregg and Ron Wikso.

It is initially released as a limited edition run of around 2000 copies. The CD is a document of a 2007 performance at the Sturgis Motorbike Rally concert. It features many of the old Santana favourites from the first three recordings. And there is one cut from the Abraxas Pool CD and which was re-imagined again on the Roots CD, which is Going Home. Give It To Me is also culled from the Roots CD recording. There are two newer songs Bailamos El Son and Across The Water.

The Santana back catalogue is well represented by Jingo, Soul Sacrifice, Black Magic Woman, Gypsy Queen, No One To Depend On, Oye Como Va and Evil Ways. The early band’s version of Albert King blues favourite As The Years Go Passing By with its Latinised double tempo burnout is also included. The CD timing totals around the seventy minutes of music mark.

Talking to Gregg on a blazing hot Texas morning found him reflective of the current state of the music and wider markets and wanting to represent the Rolie Band sound to fans at gigs as well thru the dwindling outlets now present for recorded music. “ We are doing around ten gigs this year and we are actively looking for more. The recent gig at the Hard Rock Café was great, they showed the original Santana band at Woodstock doing Soul Sacrifice from the film, projected on a screen in front of the stage and during the conga solos, the screen lifted and we went straight in picking the song up, where they had left it.”

He also reflected on the Gregg Rolie Band, “The band are great, because we all really enjoy each other and I think the sound reflects the fun we are having. We subtitle the band; “Santana- the way you remember it” And at that gig in New York recently, we had half of the original Santana, that’s about the closest you’re ever gonna’ get, to seeing that band together again!
Michael Shrieve came down and sat in and it was fantastic!
He is such a lyrical player and he makes me smile when he would do a certain thing or a fill and I’d remember his playing style, very on the jazzier end but just so stylish. Ron Wikso my regular drummer is heavier and a real solid player too.”

He remembered the recent remixing and augmenting of the Woodstock film re-mastering by Eddie Kramer. “Carlos redid his rhythm guitar parts as they was a lot of leakage in the sound. And there was a lot of tuning problems that day- the guitar was out of tune and the tuning stuff was difficult for everybody. Carlos’ solos were great and there was no problem there. Mike Carabello and Adrian Areas did some fine tuning on guiro and the timbale cowbell patterns as well, due to the leakage during the original set.”

Rain Dance is out now and a must for Gregg Rolie fans, Hammond B3 enthusiasts, Latin rockers and Santana completists.

Tags: Gregg Rolie, Michael Shrieve, Rain Dance, Ron Wikso, Santana

Here is a CD essay for Sony-Legacy on the fabled Jose Feliciano-
it also includes transcribed comments from Gregg Rolie of Santana,
who met, played and jammed with Jose in 1970 and 1971.
It contains an overview of many memorable Feliciano
music moments plus an encapsulated history.

INTRO
Jose Feliciano is a Hispanic superstar and a forerunner of the current mega-popularity of Latino music in all styles across the contemporary world. His unique and universal interpretations of other stellar musicians’ styles, plus his own self-penned material, make him pre-eminent among equals.

Feliciano although born blind, at an early age developed a passion for both singing and playing the guitar. His extraordinary, soaring, soul-drenched vocals and his inspired acoustic and electric guitar playing, has won him fans in the rock, jazz, folk and Latin world music genres.

Included in this package, is his ground breaking version of Light My Fire, which Feliciano made his own. His own compositions Destiny, Rain and Chico And The Man, stand alongside radical re-workings of California Dreamin’, Hi-Heel Sneakers and In My Life the Beatles favourite, among others.

This package is notable for including his controversial version of the US National Anthem, The Star Spangled Banner, to which Feliciano was the first artist to seriously deconstruct the song for the 1968 World Series in Detroit. His heartfelt rendition was a chart success but also brought him much controversy, with many people feeling he disrespected the anthem. This of course is not true; he was simply the first to explore and interpret the deep feelings inherent in the piece.

Jose Feliciano is a musical pioneer, a legend who has maintained his prolific output to this day. He is ever evolving on his own terms and continually making music of quality and distinction.

Jose Feliciano is a modern Latino superstar, a uniquely talented singer and guitarist who has written many superb songs but is also greatly revered as an interpreter of other artists’ material. He is one the forerunners of today’s massive Latino music market and recognised as the first solo Latin artist to “crossover” into the English market. (Other notable early Latin crossover acts were Trini ‘If I Had A Hammer’ Lopez and Richie ‘La Bamba’ Valens).

Feliciano’s melisma (meaning his vocal tones, clustering of notes, and singing techniques) is beyond compare. His
voice manages to soar freely above his accompaniments but is also tinged with a melancholy that inflects his music with his own brand of Latino soul. His voice aches and seems to cry out the lyrics, deeply touching the listener’s emotions. Perhaps, much like his contemporaries Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles, Feliciano’s blindness gives him an extra aural sensitivity, allowing him to transmit a song’s inner meaning.

Jose Feliciano was born in Lares, Puerto Rico, on September 10th 1945. By the time the family immigrated to New York City the young Jose (one of eleven children) was becoming versed in playing first the concertina and then, his real passion, the guitar. He practised constantly with a fierce dedication and developed his singing style and phrasing, playing along to 50’s rock and roll records. His fluent and fiery guitar was a perfect foil to his amazing vocal range and frenzied bursts of staccato acoustic guitar. This, and his ease with the electric guitar idiom, won him many fans in the rock, jazz, and Hispanic music markets.

Feliciano began playing professional dates at the age of nineteen and soon his mesmerising stage presence was attracting a lot of attention. Recording mainly in Spanish, he still managed to create an early but significant stir at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival. At this stage he was recording boleros for the RCA label, resulting in hits for the Latin market.
By 1968, his first ‘English’ album for RCA ‘Feliciano’ was a breakthrough smash, just missing the Number 1 spot in the US charts. One standout from that set was his inspired re-working of The Doors’ Light My Fire. Although already a huge hit twice (US Number 1 and later charting at Number 83) with a sultry vocal from Doors’ singer Jim Morrison, Feliciano gave the song a distinctly Latin flavor, adding a plucked acoustic guitar middle section, tumbao conga rhythm, superb string arrangement, Jose’s soaring tenor vocal, and finally an audacious jazzed-up outro.

Feliciano’s smash version charted at Number 3 and he subsequently won two Grammies in 1969 for Best Pop Song of the Year and Best New Artist of the Year. With the release of Hi-Heel Sneakers (charting at US Number 28), his career gained a seemingly unstoppable momentum. Hi-Heel Sneakers is a sexy lope thru this R&B inflected piece (originally by Tommy Tucker) with sensational, psychedelic, dreamy strings and a sly, syncopated groove with Jose doing a great vocal percussion piece. Feliciano went down a storm in England too, on a heavy/progressive music bill (including Free, Traffic, Black Sabbath and more) at The “Hollywood” Festival in Staffordshire in 1970. He wowed the late night audience, who were huddled around bonfires, with versions of California Dreamin’, Windmills of Your Mind, Sunny and Hi-Heel Sneakers and encored with Light My Fire, all included in this set.
California Dreamin’ is a melancholy, imploring reworking of The Mamas And The Papas classic. Here Feliciano is almost praying to God for his redemption. Hear how he stretches notes, bending his voice along with his scat singing and unison, grooving guitar plus gorgeous Spanish vocals added for la gente! His self-penned song Rain is another string-drenched piece, complete with swirling flute work. Sunny is simply and starkly beautiful. Windmills Of Your Mind – featured in the film The Thomas Crown Affair – is a 60’s curio, again with impassioned vocal and stunning guitar. Hitchcock Railway and Susie-Q are sturdy takes on Joe Cocker’s version and Dale Hawkins’ original. They appeared on the Souled and Fireworks albums respectively.

Gregg Rolie, keyboardist and singer who also reinterpreted such hits as Black Magic Woman, Oye Como Va and Evil Ways, fronting the young Santana band (another up-and-coming group of Latin music superstars) jammed with Feliciano in Hawaii later in 1971 and recalled the young Feliciano’s attitudes, “He jammed with us in Hawaii and played a few dates with Santana and he was just so gracious to us, so honest and that is exactly what his music and voice is like, honest! He was really unaffected by his fame and he was a really big star. His version of Light My Fire was incredible, you imagine he did a song that was a hit twice by The Doors. There’s only one way to make that happen, make it so different or make it like brand new and he did that. He made it happen in such a different realm, it could have been the first one!”

In My Life was one of many significant Beatles covers that Jose gave fresh life to — John Lennon is on record as saying he enjoyed Feliciano’s versions of Day Tripper and Help. Jose retains the song’s poignancy and gives a beautiful feel to one of John Lennon’s finest compositions. She’s A Woman is another Beatles classic, this time from the pen of Paul McCartney, and here Jose adds a joyful Brazilian samba feel, complete with agogo bells, and guiro percussion. McCartney’s classic, Yesterday, receives a masterful instrumental Latin treatment.

Also included here are The Bee Gees’ song Marley Purt Drive, a gospel driven performance. Destiny is another flavourful Feliciano original. He wrings out every drop of soul from Hey! Baby. Chico And The Man was another Feliciano original and the theme for the highly successful TV show, starring the ill-fated Freddie Prinze, in which Feliciano appeared regularly.

The last cut on this collection is perhaps one of the most significant and controversial for Jose: his version of The Star Spangled Banner. Since then has been not unusual for a major music artist to treat the US National Anthem with a different twist. Names spring to mind such as Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock in 1969 and Marvin Gaye in 1983. However, prior to these two eminent versions, Feliciano brought his own achingly soulful rendition to the 1968 (the year of Vietnam and the assassinations of both Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy) World Series in Detroit before 54,000 and it brought an immediate firestorm of controversy down on him. He was the first artist to explore the song’s inner compassionate beauty. For many years after, he felt his brave, heartfelt version had dogged and stalled his career in the USA.

This collection is just the tip of the Feliciano iceberg, so chill out and savour this tremendous artist’s repertoire.
Look further afield and check out You Tube for some great video clips. Long live the master, the one and only Jose Feliciano!!

Jim McCarthy
Sussex, England
February 2007

(Jim McCarthy is the author of
Voices of Latin Rock-
Foreword by Carlos Santana)
Published by Hal Leonard.

Tags: Gregg Rolie, Jose Feliciano, Light My Fire

Santana 3 or the Third Album, as it is also known, is a primal masterpiece, filled with some of Santana’s best music. The ensemble playing is freer and more fluid and the band embarked on darker, deeper, more mysterious grooves.

Santana’s San Franciscan Mission District based music, had no parallels, it wasn’t salsa, it wasn’t bugaloo, and it wasn’t straight ahead blues or rock. It contained elements of all this music but totally existed in it’s own universe, both re-defining Latino music that had gone before (Mongo Santamaria, Ray Barretto, Richie Valens, Cal Tjader etc) and creating a totally contemporary definition of what it meant to be the vanguard for a new, emerging Latino culture.
Santana 3 is the final part of the effortless trilogy, the original band brought to the international music scene.
Their meteoric rise to fame, with their stunning appearance at the Woodstock Festival in 1969, and the subsequent release of their first recording Santana, galvanized not only the festival audience, putting Latin rhythms on the world map, but significantly, Santana also positioned themselves in the arc of USA music history, as a potent, representing, first wave musical force for young, aspiring Latinos in the USA.

The group’s core lineup remained with Carlos Santana (Guitar, Vocals) Gregg Rolie (Keyboards, Vocals) David Brown (Bass) Mike Carabello (Congas) Jose Chepito Areas (Timbales, Congas) and Michael Shrieve (Drums). Santana’s openness to guests and allowing others to share the spotlight brought in two important additions.
Most importantly, the fifteen-year-old guitar whiz Neal Schon. Shrieve and Rolie discovered the fiery Schon, playing in a band called Old Davis at the Poppycock Club in Palo Alto. Carlos, although established as a guitar phenomenon, had no anxiety about the young Schon coming in. In fact, the two together pushed each other to new heights. Remembers Shrieve, “ God knows how Neal felt, coming into the Santana band with Carlos. Neal brought a young fire into the mix and he also picked up on Carlos’ melodicism. Neal was a burner and he could take things really high. Carlos and Neal shared a lot of the same gifts.”

The other newcomer to the ensemble, Thomas “Coke” Escovedo, was another Mission based percussionist (originally playing with Pete Escovedo, as The Escovedo Brothers). Coke was asked to tour with the band in early 1971, due to Chepito Areas, their dynamic, and impossibly talented Nicaraguan timbalero, suffering a sudden and almost fatal brain aneurysm. Coke was brought in to the band, after they had tried out Willie Bobo, (A percussionist and band leader, from New York’s Spanish Harlem, who was a major influence on the Santana group, supplying their first smash hit “Evil Ways”) for the February 1971, Soul To Soul Independence Day Concerts in Accra, Ghana, in Africa.

The recording began mostly at night at the newly opened Columbia Studios on San Francisco’s Folsom Street. Santana were ensconced in Studio B and the recording took shape, partly from long jamming sessions and also songs that had been formulated thru more structured means. Chepito Areas made the sessions, he had made a miraculous recovery; re-appearing with his astonishing musical chops intact. As the band ascended the heights of super stardom, the excesses associated with the music scene in those riotous times had increased as well. The fact that this record is so coherent, and musically cohesive, speaks volumes for the group’s unique musical chemistry.

“Batuka” is the funky opening cut, showing off the feral side of Neal Schon’s guitar work. Behind a backdrop of Carlos, Gregg and David’s ensemble parrying, the percolating rhythm section sets up a cowbell-led pattern that introduces Schon’s wild guitar work.

Gregg Rolie recalls, “We played “Batuka” with Zubin Mehta and the L.A. Philharmonic, for the Bell Telephone TV Hour. They had sent us a taped piece from Leonard Bernstein to learn”.
Coke and Carabello brought in part of the tune “No One To Depend On”, which was in some elements related to an earlier Willie Bobo tune called “Spanish Grease”. They collaborated with Rolie at his Mill Valley home. Rolie wrote the thunderous middle section, and replete with it’s rolling funk-rock riffs this became an instant crowd favourite. This was the second single and demonstrated Santana’s unique take on cha-cha-cha.
“Taboo” was a song Gregg Rolie played frequently at rehearsals until the band developed the sultry piece into the atmospheric ambient finished recording. Carlos’ guitar and Rolie’s vocals intertwine in an ethereal mix until the outro builds to a scorching climax courtesy of Neal Schon’s piercing fretwork.
Here we see Santana using the studio more as an aural instrument itself. “No One to Depend On” finishes with delayed backwards echo and “Taboo” punches its way thru its climax, with a forceful big sound. The sound is enhanced, more open, with studio effects used in an integrated setting. Eddie Kramer, who worked closely as Jimi Hendrix’s producer was on hand to engineer some of the songs but the finished credits went to Glen Kolotkin and the Santana musicians.
“Toussaint L’Ouverture” (named for the Haitian revolutionary by the radical Mission based pianist Alberto Gianquinto) is a pinnacle in Santana’s recorded history. A towering piece that had been jammed from the first album days, Toussaint smokes furiously and features ecstatic soloing from Carlos on it’s fervent intro followed by hot percussion breaks by Carabello and Chepito. The finale is an intense build with wailing breaks by Rolie, Schon and Santana until it’s abrupt end. Deafening silence remains, echoing musical magnitude.

“Everybody’s Everything” was the first single release and has a soul-based vibe with added texture by the East Bay’s Tower of Power’s horn section it is also notable for a crazed wah-wah pedal driven solo by Schon pushing Chepito’s bubbling drum track even further.
“Guajira” is a Santana classic, Shrieve loved Carlos’ beautiful piercing guitar on this cut.
“This is some of my all-time favourite playing by Carlos, starting with Chepito’s bass intro, Carlos’ playing is exquisite, the way he plays over the time change from 4/4 to 6/8, it’s still my favorite music”. Rico Reyes from the neighbourhood supplied a memorable soul filled Spanish vocal and co-wrote the song with David Brown and Chepito in Hawaii.
On “Guajira,” Gregg Rolie was open to a salsa piano solo proffered by Mario Ochoa, another seasoned Latino musician from the earlier generation. “Jungle Strut “was a hip Gene Ammons saxophone soul-jazz instrumental, on which Bernard Purdie, the hip funk drummer of that time originally played. Shrieve was exploring the outer edges of funk with David Garibaldi (the sensational drummer from Tower Of Power) and Santana used it as another vehicle for multi soloing, over a boiling percussion section.
The penultimate track rounding out the recording was “Everything Is Coming Our Way”, a sensitive Carlos song, in contrast to, but also complimentary to all the preceding music. Gregg Rolie with guidance from Carlos supplies a swirling Hammond organ solo that helps resolve the aching vocal by Carlos himself. Coke Escovedo brought in Tito Puente’s “Para Los Rumberos” to the sessions and the furiously driven performance features Luis Gasca on hot trompeta flourishes, ending the album on a high note.

The bonus tracks are a further snapshot of the experimental Santana band, “Gumbo” is a ferocious crowd pleaser, complete with a dual guitar funk interlude, which allowed Carabello and David Brown to do some tambourine propelled dancing onstage.
Mike Carabello attests to “Gumbo”, being influenced by both Sly Stone and Dr John’s Gris Gris album. “We were dedicated to being different, “Gumbo” was a soup of each person’s musical flavours”

“Folsom Street”, named for the new Columbia Studios at Number 1, was never played live and is a rarity with a loping rhythm and a solid band performance. “Bambele Bambeyo” is pure Santana trance music. Aided by Rico Reyes on vocals and Victor Pantoja on congas, the percussion is sublime. With it’s chants, the band takes us all the way back to Africa. Carlos provides free-floating guitar atmospherics, at least eight minutes into the session.

The second bonus disc sees the original Santana captured as the last act on the last night at the Fillmore West, as Bill Graham so aptly puts it, ‘What better way, than to close with the sounds from the streets, Santana!”
The third album was given it’s first airing here and as the sun set on a generation with the Fillmore’s closing, the Santana band closed the auditorium with a powerful, ragged and passionate show. Most of the above is here, the band slams thru their set but with a one-off version of “In A Silent Way”, written by Joe Zawinul and made famous by Miles Davis. Their version heats the song up and Carlos and Neal snarl and maul with Brown’s bass rumbling throughout. Chepito’s metallic timbales slice thru the frenzied haze with the precision he was famous for. Santana ran into problems shortly after, constant touring, plus mismanagement, with subsequent disagreements on musical direction crippled one of the truly great music acts.
Times changed for these musical revolutionaries, caught up in a roller-coaster ride lasting just three or so years. However, the years have been good to the original Santana’s legacy, with their inspired music standing the test of time by remaining timeless.

Jim McCarthy
San Francisco
November 2005

Jim McCarthy (with Ron Sansoe) is the author of Voices Of Latin Rock,
an in-depth look at Santana and the Latin Rock revolution.
(Published by Hal Leonard Corp).

This piece originally was the CD liner noted for the
2 x CD Sony/Legacy Extended Edition
Of Santana 3 or the Third album. (2005)

Tags: Carlos Santana, David Brown, Gregg Rolie, Jose Chepito Area, Michael Shrieve, Mike Carabello, Mission District

Singled Out Classics: Black Magic Woman

02/25/2009 

(antiMusic) We have a very special edition of Singled Out for you today! Legendary rocker Gregg Rolie (founding member, lead singer and keyboards for Santana and Journey) checks in with the inside story of one of Santana’s biggest hits “Black Magic Woman” which Gregg sang lead vocals on. You can hear and see him sing the classic tune on his forthcoming live DVD- more on that later, but right now here is Gregg with the story behind “Black Magic Woman”:

Black Magic Woman is still one my favorite songs to sing and perform even after almost 40 years. It took me about a year to convince the band that we should do this song. It was one I had a passion for and I knew I could sing it. Some songs are made for you and other songs you just sing. This one was made for me. A little known fact is that Mike Shrieve (drummer for Santana) turned me on to Black Magic Woman. He knew I was a big Peter Green fan from his involvement with John Mayall’s Blues Breakers where Peter took Eric Clapton’s place as the lead guitarist and played on the album “Hard Road”. Mike gave me the Fleetwood Mac album with lead guitarist Peter Green and I found Black Magic Woman penned by Peter. It became a #4 Hit for Santana and one of the most recognizable Santana songs for decades to follow. I’m sure glad Mike gave it to me.

Now about that DVD. Here is the official announcement: You’ve heard his voice and keyboards on such classic Santana hits as “Black Magic Woman”, “Evil Ways”, “No One To Depend On”, “Everybody’s Everything” and “Oye Como Va”, now legendary Santana / Journey founding member, and Rock n Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Gregg Rolie is preparing to release a DVD of his band in concert at the Sturgis Motorcycle Ralley in 2007. Shot with 17 cameras, the Gregg Rolie Band whip up an exciting memorable performance featuring all the beloved Santana hits, as well as tracks from his 2001 critically acclaimed solo CD ‘Roots’.

Along with preparations for the new DVD release, Gregg Rolie will be featured on the PBS special Trini Lopez Presents The Legends of Latin Music. Filmed at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles last October, the program will be aired in March 2009.

Celebrating its 40th Anniversary, this year Warner Home Video’s will be releasing a Blu-ray and DVD Ultimate Collector’s Edition with high definition picture and sound of ‘Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music’, which will also feature two hours of bonus material, some of it newly-discovered. Much to th e elation of fans worldwide, extra footage of Santana’s historic Woodstock performance will be included. Held at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas on Saturday March 23, along with Santana alumni Michael Shrieve, Gregg will reside on a discussion panel of performers, filmakers and key technicians who helped create the timeless music classic and Oscar winning ‘Best Documentary’ Woodstock.

“The first time I played with Gregg everything just clicked. In a humble way, it was very much like McCartney and Lennon. You know when there’s chemistry there. Drummers came and went; congeros came and went, but his feeling and my feeling…sometimes it was hard to tell who was the needle and who was the thread.” Carlos Santana

Gregg Rolie is responsible for co-founding two phenomenally popular, multi-platinum super groups – Santana and Journey. In 1998, the world class keyboardist/vocalist/producer was inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame as part of the original Santana band. Formed in San Francisco in 1969, the multi-cultural ensemble produced three groundbreaking hit albums which yeilded several FM staples. “There’s one unique ability of the band,” Gregg told music critic Ben Fong-Torres, “and that was that it created music that there is no name for… Santana’s music is such a jell of different material that there just is no name for it, and there’s no one that plays it like Santana does.” Departing after the pioneering jazz fusion offering ‘Caravansarai’ in 1972, both band members Gregg Rolie and Neal Schon went on to form quintessential 1980s hit-makers Journey. After co-writing and producing the band’s first 7 albums, along with constant touring, Gregg decided to leave Journey once the hugely successful 1981 live double LP ‘Captured’ was issued. During the ’80s Rolie wrote, produced and played on the Santana albums ‘Shango’ and ‘Freedom’, and released his debut, self-titled 1985 solo album and its 1987 follow-up ‘Gringo’, before co-founding the all-new Journey-esque rock group The Storm at the tail end of the decade. The Storm released two albums: ’92′s eponymous disc that yielded the #13 Billboard Hot 100 hit “I’ve Got A Lot To Learn About Love” and ’96′s ‘Eye Of the Storm’. That same year, Rolie, along with five other original Santana members, formed Abraxas Pool, a spirited collaboration that resulted in the 1997 critically acclaimed album of the same name.

Thirty-five years after Gregg and Carlos met in San Francisco, 2001 marked the release of Rolie’s third solo album ‘Roots’. The first-ever release on Bay-Area based Tower Records’ new proprietary label 33rd Street, ‘Roots’ finds Gregg revisiting the incredible brew of sounds he helped conjure up in the late 60′s. Rolie calls Roots’ twelve original selections “Latin rock plus”; the instrumentation is Latin percussion, with organ, guitar, horns, and lots of great solo work and songwriting”, adding that “I really wanted to go all the way back to my Santana roots”.

The Gregg Rolie Band consists of founding Santana member Michael Carabello on Congas, Adrian Areas (son of original Santana percussionist Jose Chepi to Areas) on Timbales, drummer Ron Wikso (who was also in The Storm), Kurt Griffey on guitars, internationally acclaimed bassist, Chapman Stick artist and Santana alumni Alphonso Johnson and former Jean Luc Ponty keyboardist Wally Minko. “If you are having a good time at anything you do, you are going to do a good job at what you do,” Gregg recently told music critic Jim Harrington. “That’s really where the key to this band is. We really just enjoy each other a tremendous amount and have a lot of fun with this. We will get up to playing about 50 dates a year, and really that’s about all I want to do.” The Gregg Rolie Band will be performing throughout 2009 with tour dates listed on his official website.

For more information: www.GreggRolie.com

Tags: Black Magic Woman, Carlos Santana, Gregg Rolie, Mike Shrieve, Woodstock