Santana's "Moonflower"

Santana's fortunes have been something of a roller coaster since the band's "classic" lineup broke up in 1972. Between 1973 and early 1977, the band issued six albums, including one live album and a greatest hits compilation. Only Amigos of the all-new material albums reached the top 10. In early 1977, the band released Festival, which peaked at No. 27 on Billboard.

When it came to issuing Moonflower in October 1977, I'm not sure what everyone was thinking. It appears the band recorded a studio album, but either the band or the record company or both got cold feet and were unsure of its commercial potential. As a result, Moonflower was issued as a double album with a mix of live recordings of older hits and new studio tracks.

If there was a fear of no commercial appeal, that was soon proven to be unfounded. Propelled by a hit single, a cover of The Zombies' "She's Not There," Moonflower shot up to No. 10, the last of Santana's albums to do so until Supernatural 22 years later.

I remade Moonflower as an all-studio track, single-disc album.

SIDE A

1. Dawn / Go Within
2. I’ll Be Waiting
3. Flor d’Luna (Moonflower)
4. I've Waited All My Life
5. Zulu

SIDE B

1. Bahia
2. Transcendence
3. God Made You (for Me)
4. El Morocco
5. She’s Not There

I kept "Dawn / Go Within" as the opening track, and then rearranged the songs to best fit the two sides. "She's Not There" closes the album. However, the two sides are each about 16 minutes long, which admittedly makes it a fairly short album.

And that brings us to the Ecuador Sessions. This circulating bootleg includes (if the notes are to be believed) sessions from 1976-79. The details are sketchy, but according to the info on the bootleg, a number of songs were recorded at Automatt Studios in San Francisco with the lineup of Carlos Santana, Greg Walker, David Margen, Tom Coster, Armando Peraza, Raul Rekow, Pete Escovedo and Graham Lear. This is the same lineup, with the addition of Peraza, that recorded the studio tracks for Moonflower, which was also recorded at Automatt. It’s definitely not the same lineup that recorded the follow-up album, Inner Secrets – which was recorded in L.A. That leads me to believe that this session was recorded either as part of Moonflower’s sessions or soon after.

Therefore, since we’re short on tracks for Moonflower, I added two from this bootleg: “I’ve Waited All My Life” and “God Made You (for Me).” And that makes each side a little over 20 minutes long. The result is, I think, a much better album -- not plagued with older tracks with the limitations of being live recordings. 

I kept the cover the same.