GREATEST HITS

I listened to this compilation in the very old and now defunct 8-track cartridge format because one of my brothers had it in that format and he played it in a component which also played cassettes and LPs. I think that the order of the songs in that cartridge was different, but it sounded very good. I also think that the cartridge also included an additional song called "Soul Sacrifice", but I can`t remember well now

I think that this was a premature compilation, and yes, it only includes songs from their earlier albums. But in this case, at least in my country, these songs were very popular in the radio in the early seventies. In fact, there are some FM oldies radio stations in this city still playing some of them regularly, like: "Evil Ways" , "Jingo", "Samba pa ti", "Black magic woman" and "Oye como va". Some of these songs were among the first I heard from this band in the early seventies. "Hope you're feeling better" is one of the heaviest early songs played with very good guitars.

I think that by 1974, with the original band almost dissolved, Santana`s music became more elaborated and maybe the record label with this release was saying to the band: "We want more songs in this style. We want more hits. We don`t want your complicated new music" . The record label maybe was "nostalgical", so they released this compilation.

Of course, there are better compilation than this which were released years later.