Santana is a Latin music influenced Grammy Award winning, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, rock band. Founded in San Francisco in the late 1960s, it is based around the compositions and playing of lead guitarist and founder Carlos Santana. The band first came to widespread public attention when their performance of their Latin rock song "Soul Sacrifice" at Woodstock in 1969 provided a contrast to other acts on the bill. This exposure helped propel their first album, also named Santana, into a hit, followed in the next two years by the successful Abraxas and Santana III.
In the years that followed lineup changes were common. Carlos Santana's increasing involvement with guru Sri Chinmoy took the band into more esoteric music, though never quite losing its initial Latin influence.
In 1998, the group was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, with Carlos Santana, Jose Chepito Areas, David Brown, Gregg Rolie, Mike Carabello and Michael Shrieve being honored.
The band has earned eight Grammy Awards and three Latin Grammy Awards, the latter all in 2000. Carlos also won Grammy Awards as a solo artist in 1989 and 2003. Santana has sold more than 90 million records worldwide, making them one of the world’s best-selling groups of all time. In 2013 Santana announced a reunion of the classic line-up for a new record, predicting a 2014 release.
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