After coincidentally coming across the above clip, I spontaneously decided to post it. In general, I’m not a huge fan of instrumentals, but when the music is that exciting, I don’t miss the vocals!
This version of Soul Sacrifice by Santana was captured during the band’s legendary performance at Woodstock in 1969. They played on Saturday afternoon, August 16, the second day of the festival. Soul Sacrifice was the second-to-last tune of their eight-track set, which also included Waiting, Evil Ways, You Just Don’t Care, Savor, Jingo, Persuasion and Fried Neck Bone And Some Home Fries. Except for the last song, all of these tunes appeared on Santana’s eponymous debut album, which was released on August 30 the same year.
To me it is just electrifying to watch this clip. The band was absolutely killing it! In addition to Carlos Santana (guitar), the line-up included Gregg Rolie (keyboards), David Brown (bass), José Areas (percussion, congas), Michael Carabello (percussion, congas) and Michael Shrieve (drums), who had just turned 20 and was the youngest performing musician at Woodstock.
Soul Sacrifice is credited to Santana, Rolie, Brown and Marcus Malone, the band’s initial percussionist when it was formed in San Francisco in 1966 and known as the Carlos Santana Blues Band. However, by the time Santana started work on their first studio album in May 1969, Malone was no longer with a band due to serving a prison sentence for manslaughter.
Sources: Wikipedia, Setlist.fm, YouTube
Christian's Music Musings 
What a band! It boggles my mind that Shrieve was only 20, even moreso now since my oldes son turned 20 a couple days ago. Just look at how much fun those guys were having up there. Of course, Carlos says his guitar appeared to be squirming like a serpent of some sort…
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Agree, it doesn’t get much better than that in terms of musicians truly being engaged. That was the key reason why I posted the clip.
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Boy, I love this song. Nobody does this stuff better than Santana. (I was listening to them just yesterday). Apart from Santana’s band, do we even HAVE another band like this? I posted this clip when I did a thing on Woodstock a while back. And I think the next time I do one of my blogger’s playlists one of their songs will be on it. And yes, Carlos was tripping his brains out in this video.
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Apart from the caliber of the musicians, what I find really cool about the clip is how engaged they look – it’s like they’re living song. And it doesn’t even have any vocals, yet I still totally dig it!😀
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You are maturing my son. 😂
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Perhaps that’s what going on. Who knows what’s next. Maybe I’ll start digging Santana’s more experimental jazz-focused records!😀
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Yes, your next stop will be full-on jazz. And then you’ll say, “Who the hell needs vocals? What was I thinking?” 🙂
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While it’s hard to imagine after just raving about CSNY’s second-to-none harmony singing, never say never!
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This never gets old. Great music from a great band. a song and an album that gets regular play at my place.
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