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Santana
The Essential Santana
(Columbia/Legacy)
Heart
The Essential Heart
(Columbia/Legacy)
First Appeared at The Music Box, December 2002, Volume 9, #12
Written by John Metzger
Let’s face it — Carlos Santana’s albums fail, more often
than not, to capture his brilliance. Granted, not an album goes by without its
share of fabulous guitar solos. But many of the songs tend to be a tad
overproduced, wallowing in whatever passes as the pop music fad of the year.
This is as true of his 1969 debut as it is of this year’s Shaman. Yet,
each album has also featured something worth savoring. No wonder so many
compilations have been made from his work.
The Essential Santana is the
latest of these — a 33-track, double-disc affair that truly lives up to its
name. Nearly one-third of the songs are culled from Santana’s finest efforts —
his self-titled debut, Abraxus, Santana III, and Caravanserai
— while the rest offer a terrific overview of his career through his
collaboration with John Lee Hooker (The Healer) in 1989. It’s true that
the second disc isn’t quite as good as the first. But together, they do form a
cohesive whole, spotlighting the spiritual genius of a man who can brighten the
darkest of days with just a few glistening notes from his guitar.
Similar treatment is given to Heart’s career via a
36-track, two-disc retrospective titled The Essential Heart. Like the
Santana collection, this set lends a sizeable portion of its space to the band’s
finest outings Dreamboat Annie and Little Queen. Though the group
quickly sank into tired, generic, hard-rock tripe, some of the later material
showcased here isn’t quite as bad as the albums from which they came. Most
notable is a cover of Bob Dylan’s Ring Them Bells. Nevertheless, nothing
the band ever did was quite as lovely as Dog and Butterfly or quite as
inspired as Crazy on You and Magic Man, each of which is, of
course, represented here.
The Essential Santana — 
The Essential Heart —
The Essential Santana is available from Amazon.com.
To order, Click Here!
For Canadian orders, please
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The Essential Heart is available from Amazon.com.
To order, Click Here!
For Canadian orders, please
Click Here!
For UK orders, please
Click Here!
Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2002
The Music Box
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