This record was released with different coloured LP art backgrounds, including red and pink. Actually, it might just be red and pink, although I did hear there were others. But I can't recall ever seeing any. I've had several copies of this LP over the years, all red. I originally bought the record for the song Winning, which I'd heard on the radio. It's the best song on the album, although there’s a lot of great riffs here. But Winning was a hit, and it wasn’t the usual stuff I was hearing in 1981. It had substance. It wasn’t a puff pastry, like so many radio hits of the day, and none of the musicians who played on it wore pompadours because they thought it was the cool thing to do.
Winning is a Russ Ballard song, sung beautifully by Alex Ligertwood, and it has a happy vibe to it. It sneaks up on you at the end of side one - a pleasant surprise after all the fiery musicianship spinning around and around leading up to it. It’s not as intricate or complicated as some of the other songs on this record, but the band really seems to be having fun with it.
I have an so-called audiophile pressing of this record and it sounds wonderful.
By the time Santana released Zebop! The band had spent several years noodling about in fusion-land, and not with a lot of commercial success. As a result, they were more-or-less invisible, especially if you consider being in the charts a way of remaining, well, visible.
They were nowhere to be seen. They hadn't had a hit single in 10 years, not since 1971's Everybody's Everything. Winning finally gave them another one.
Zebop! was much more commercial-sounding than anything they'd released in a long time, and as such became the band's first Top 10 album since 1976's Amigo.
Winning was the third single pulled from the project. Neither of the first two - Changes and Searchin' - had done much. But something clicked with their updated take of the Russ Ballard chestnut and radio audiences lapped it up.
The album also marked Santana's final collaboration with Bill Graham, a figure who had remained close the band since the very beginning. Santana's '80s output would slow to a crawl and Graham would be killed in a helicopter accident before another opportunity to work together presented itself.
Santana would not have another hit record until 1999's wonderful and guest-packed comeback album, Supernatural.
This album can be found for next to nothing in most used record stores, although it is getting a bit scarce. This pressing is harder to come by, but can still be had for a reasonable price should you find it. If you do, pick it up.
This record was released with different coloured LP art backgrounds, including red and pink. Actually, it might just be red and pink, although I did hear there were others. But I can't recall ever seeing any. I've had several copies of this LP over the years, all red. I originally bought the record for the song Winning, which I'd heard on the radio. It's the best song on the album, although there’s a lot of great riffs here. But Winning was a hit, and it wasn’t the usual stuff I was hearing in 1981. It had substance. It wasn’t a puff pastry, like so many radio hits of the day, and none of the musicians who played on it wore pompadours because they thought it was the cool thing to do.
Winning is a Russ Ballard song, sung beautifully by Alex Ligertwood, and it has a happy vibe to it. It sneaks up on you at the end of side one - a pleasant surprise after all the fiery musicianship spinning around and around leading up to it. It’s not as intricate or complicated as some of the other songs on this record, but the band really seems to be having fun with it.
I have an so-called audiophile pressing of this record and it sounds wonderful.
By the time Santana released Zebop! The band had spent several years noodling about in fusion-land, and not with a lot of commercial success. As a result, they were more-or-less invisible, especially if you consider being in the charts a way of remaining, well, visible.
They were nowhere to be seen. They hadn't had a hit single in 10 years, not since 1971's Everybody's Everything. Winning finally gave them another one.
Zebop! was much more commercial-sounding than anything they'd released in a long time, and as such became the band's first Top 10 album since 1976's Amigo.
Winning was the third single pulled from the project. Neither of the first two - Changes and Searchin' - had done much. But something clicked with their updated take of the Russ Ballard chestnut and radio audiences lapped it up.
The album also marked Santana's final collaboration with Bill Graham, a figure who had remained close the band since the very beginning. Santana's '80s output would slow to a crawl and Graham would be killed in a helicopter accident before another opportunity to work together presented itself.
Santana would not have another hit record until 1999's wonderful and guest-packed comeback album, Supernatural.
This album can be found for next to nothing in most used record stores, although it is getting a bit scarce. This pressing is harder to come by, but can still be had for a reasonable price should you find it. If you do, pick it up.
BONUS TRACK
Santana has gone through many phases. There was the sound of Abraxas, Then came the experimental 1970s and Caravanserai, Love, Devotion and Surrender, Welcome, and Borboletta. In the 1980s there was a pop-rock phase and the hits Open Invitation and Well All Right, songs that didn’t have much of a Latin flavour at all, which is what most people associated with Santana.
After vocalist Greg Walker left the band in the late ’70s, Scottish vocalist Alex Ligertwood entered the picture - a relationship that would last for 16 years and a dozen albums. Initially appearing on the Marathon album, Ligertwood really hit his stride with the song Winning, on Zebop! It would hit number 17 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 2 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart.
At it's heart it's a pop song, and it really allowed Ligertwood's vocals to soar. He and Carlos Santana had a long musical partnership, co-writing, performing and recording dozens of songs together. But they never hit it out of the park again like they did with Winning. Ligertwood had five different stints with Santana between 1979 and 1994, including the US Festival in 1982. He has also performed with the Jeff Beck Group and Brian Auger's Oblivion Express, as well as Go Ahead - a side project started by members of Grateful Dead - John Cipollina and friends, the Average White Band and David Sancious.
Ligertwood has also performed with the Magic of Santana, a German tribute group whose guests have also included other former Santana members, which for them I am sure must feel really weird.
Santana has gone through many phases. There was the sound of Abraxas, Then came the experimental 1970s and Caravanserai, Love, Devotion and Surrender, Welcome, and Borboletta. In the 1980s there was a pop-rock phase and the hits Open Invitation and Well All Right, songs that didn’t have much of a Latin flavour at all, which is what most people associated with Santana.
After vocalist Greg Walker left the band in the late ’70s, Scottish vocalist Alex Ligertwood entered the picture - a relationship that would last for 16 years and a dozen albums. Initially appearing on the Marathon album, Ligertwood really hit his stride with the song Winning, on Zebop! It would hit number 17 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 2 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart.
At it's heart it's a pop song, and it really allowed Ligertwood's vocals to soar. He and Carlos Santana had a long musical partnership, co-writing, performing and recording dozens of songs together. But they never hit it out of the park again like they did with Winning. Ligertwood had five different stints with Santana between 1979 and 1994, including the US Festival in 1982. He has also performed with the Jeff Beck Group and Brian Auger's Oblivion Express, as well as Go Ahead - a side project started by members of Grateful Dead - John Cipollina and friends, the Average White Band and David Sancious.
Ligertwood has also performed with the Magic of Santana, a German tribute group whose guests have also included other former Santana members, which for them I am sure must feel really weird.
