Following a 1989 20th anniversary reunion tour to promote Viva Santana!, Carlos Santana reorganized the band as a sextet consisting of himself, singer/guitarist Alex Ligertwood, singer/keyboardist Chester Thompson, bass player Benny Rietveld, drummer Walfredo Reyes and percussionist Armando Peraza. This unit, with such guest stars as Vernon Reid (of Living Colour), Wayne Shorter, and Bobby Womack, recorded Spirits Dancing In The Flesh, Santana's 15th and final studio album for Columbia Records. It was an unusually eclectic collection, featuring songs by Curtis Mayfield ("Gypsy Woman"), The Isley Brothers ("Who's That Lady"), and Olatunji ("Jin-Go-Lo-Ba"), as well as interpolations of John Coltrane's "Peace On Earth" and Jimi Hendrix's "Third Stone From The Sun" into Santana's "Mother Earth"…
Javier Vargas is a Spanish blues guitarist. Born in Madrid to Argentine parents who had emigrated to Spain from Buenos Aires, he founded the Vargas Blues Band in 1991, the year they released their first recording, All Around Blues. Since 1992, he has recorded on the Dro-Atlantic (Warner Music Group, Spain) label. He leads the project Vargas, Bogert & Appice + Shortino, with bassist Tim Bogert, Carmine Appice on drums, and singer Paul Shortino. He has collaborated with musicians like Paco de Lucía, Buddy Guy, Frank Marino, Carlos Santana, Pat Travers, Glenn Hughes, Prince, Devon Allman and countless more. He regularly tours Europe and Spain with his band and appeared at the 30th Anniversary Montreux Jazz Festival.
A fine little blues-rock jug band from the 1960s, Canned Heat had already been bitten hard by the rock & roll tragedy bug, losing key member Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson to a fatal drug overdose by the time they'd made their sole appearance at Montreux in 1973. Luckily for history's sake, the great bluesman and multi-instrumentalist Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown was on hand to step in with the band for this appearance, sparking things along nicely, and luckily, too: the set was filmed and recorded, eventually appearing on both DVD and CD, making it, particularly because of Brown's contributions, a valuable and fun archival historical release.
he legendary bluesman John Lee Hooker brought his boogie style blend of rhythm & blues to deliver two blistering performances at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1983 and 1990. Joined by The Coast to Coast Blues Band they cover an impressive set of hits from across his career including ‘Boom Boom”, “Crawling King Snake” and his very first single “Boogie Chillen’”.
This 1986 concert by Otis Rush was the first of four appeances that the legendary bluesman has made at the Montreux Festival to date. This particular night turned out to be a very special one when he was joined on stage by first Eric Clapton and then Luther Allison as they rockedtheir way through a set of Otis Rush classics and blues standards in a truly unforgettable performance.