Dig Deeper

"Blues for Salvador" is a 1987 album by Carlos Santana, dedicated to his wife, Deborah Santana. The record was released by Carlos Santana as a solo project, not with the Santana band. It won the 1989 Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, his first Grammy ever.

"Freedom" is the fourteenth studio album by Santana. By this recording, Santana had nine members, some of which had returned after being with the band in previous versions. "Freedom" moved away from the more poppy sound of the previous album, Beyond Appearances and back to the band's original Latin rock. It failed, however, to revive Santana's commercial fortunes, reaching only ninety-five on the album chart.

Rhino's expansive six-CD box set of 1970s soul called Can You Dig It?, this wonderfully sequenced collection stands as an impressive survey of the genre in its own right, running the gamut from Al Green and Marvin Gaye to the Chi-Lites, Sly Stone, the Staple Singers, and Earth, Wind & Fire and beyond with nary a slack track in sight. It may technically be a sampler, but in being so it doesn't have the luxury of pausing for breath or historical reflection, which means this compilation, sampler or not, delivers bang for the buck from end to end.