Caravanserai by Santana. CBSSBP 474046

Reviewed by Gordon Campbell

Cartas Santana is one mean guy. At Altamont even before the Angels started their rough stuff he stopped his set to snarl at the crowd "I don't play no be-ins and I don't play no love-ins, and I sure as hell don't play no fuck-ins, so that couple out front that's balling gonna stop right now". They did.

In the Woodstock movie his facial expressions ran the gamut from sullen mean to agonised mean, and in the film Fillmore one of the less engaging moments has Carlos money hassling with the redoubtable Bill Graham. And winning. So don't take the quasi-mystical aliusions on the cover and track titles of this one too seriously. It's the same old Santana, a few electronic and Faster touches have been added but basically the same Latin bag they do so well. The material is better than the last LP with fewer vocals than ever, thank God. This record also sees the virtual retirement of the Carlos Santana Guitar Lick, that one riff he has repeated with mantra-like regularity on every track he has ever recorded. If you want to hear the best before deciding, try the last two cuts on side one.