
Rob Thomas and Carlos Santana
Photo: J Vespa/WireImage.com
Santana's "Smooth" GRAMMY Feat: For The Record
Few guitarists are instantly recognizable within hearing a couple of notes. There's Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, B.B. King, and Eddie Van Halen. Surely, you can add Carlos Santana to that mix.
Through his 50-year-plus career, Santana has sprinkled his patented minor-key runs all over Latin-flavored rock classics such as "Black Magic Woman," "Oye Come Va" and "Jingo," influencing generations of guitarists in the process.
And indeed, few musicians have been able to make such an indelible mark 30 years after their debut release. But that's exactly what the Mexican-born guitarist did with 1999's Supernatural.
Released three decades after Santana's eponymous 1969 album, Supernatural went super nuclear. On the strength of the hits "Smooth" featuring Rob Thomas, "Put Your Lights On" featuring Everlast, "Corazón Espinado" featuring Mana, and "Maria Maria" featuring the Product G&B, the all-star-packed album became Santana's most successful work by far, selling more than 15 million copies and netting eight GRAMMYs and three Latin GRAMMYs.
Adding to Supernatural's monstrous footprint, two tracks put Santana in the GRAMMY record books.
The ubiquitous No. 1 hit "Smooth" earned the GRAMMY for Record Of The Year at the 42nd GRAMMY Awards in 2000. Later that year, at the inaugural Latin GRAMMY Awards, "Corazón Espinado" earned the Record Of The Year Latin GRAMMY.
As a result, and for the record, Santana became the first and only artist to date to win both a Record Of The Year GRAMMY and Record Of The Year Latin GRAMMY.