Although Santana played an SG at Woodstock, the first TWO albums were recorded with a Les Paul* - though the info is all over the map! This site:
http://www.savortheband.com/Santana/Tone-Guitar-Amp-Gear-01.html
- authoritatively claims that Santana played a Les Paul SPECIAL with P90's on record and SG Specials live, perhaps for the fret access; Gibson themselves claim that Santana played the SG's on the first two albums, then switched to Les Pauls... Gibson of necessity has to get a bit fudgey here because after Santana definitely played a specific Les Paul (more on this later) on the "Love Devotion and Surrender" scorchfest with Mahavishnu John McLaughlin (MY dude) and then endorsed and toured with the Gibson L6S (killer design by Bill Lawrence, so-so execution by Gibson/Norlin) he was also slippin' around with Yamahas, which he officially endorsed around the time he started slippin' around with the earliest caveman Paul Reed Smeanderthals. But by the third album, anyway, was where Neal Schon pretty much claims he played all the good stuff all by himself, taught Santana everything he knew, etc. - including to play Les Pauls.... there was a lot of bad blood then, a lotta people slinging hash - all except Carlos, cause he doesn't have to say anything, he's Santana and you're not. :toothy12: And neither is Neal Schon, who may be as fantastic a guitarist as he thinks he is, but every time he needs money he has to do the whole "Journey tours Japan" thing, shades of Lukather/To-To! :laughing3: :laughing7: :toothy12:
And although Santana's flirty behavior could bring anguish to the hearts of guitar maker's artist reps, Neal Schon is certainly in the running along with KISS's whatshisname and, yes, Eddie Van Halen, for bagging the most free guitars by changing brands and endorsements at a dizzying rate, but I suspect Schon deserves the Grand Prize for his ability to suckers these dames along for the reunion/
second score/zip-whoa-where'd-he-GO? This is the rack of SIX Tom Andersons Schon scored the second time around:
Hell, I didn't even know he'd been there the first time! Weird guitar anyway for a set-neck humbucking guy anyway, I guess he was in-between Japan To-To tours and needed the bucks... or was it Journey? :icon_scratch: I do remember the actual "Neal Schon" models he made himself, they looked a lot like Washburn Les Pauls with a weird point coming out where... you didn't need one... unless that was the Paul Stanley KISS guitar? And Schon nailed Gibson at the
very least twice, and Paul Reed Smith is along for the second time, currently, so far....
In 1968, Gibson, upon noticing that Eric Clapton played a 1959 Les Paul on the John Mayall and the Bluesbreaker album (now nicknamed the
Beano album); Clapton's replacement in the Bluesbreakers, Peter Green, played a 1959 Les Paul, then took it with him when he left to form Fleetwood Mac; no worry, Green's replacement in the Bluesbreakers, Mick Taylor, had his very
own 1959 Les Paul, which he had bought from KEITH RICHARDS, whom he (Taylor) later joined in the ROLLING STONES... Richards was the first highly visible, famous guy with one (three, really). Though the "Beano album", Green's tenure in both Mayall's band and Fleetwood Mac weren't famous among the masses, they were highly influential among musicians; like Mike Bloomfield, Joe Perry, Joe Walsh, (ahem) Jimmy Page; JEFF BECK was playing his OWN 1959 Les Paul in 1968 after leaving the Yardbirds, where he had succeeded Eric C..... In 1968, Gibson said "ENOUGH ALREADY!" and RE-introduced the Gibson Les Paul. They had some of the leftover, long neck tenon necks and bodies, still had basically the same pickups, which had been moping along in 335's and SG's all along, and SUPPOSEDLY some of these 1968 re-issues were killer gits, the wood had aged another nine years but the headstocks hadn't fallen off yet, there were still a few people left at Gibson who knew how to glue the bits together, etc. And following the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, the "Summer of Love", nar nar nar, both record companies and equipment companies were just throwing money and equipment at anything resembling "The San Francisco Sound."
According to Mr. Santana himself - at the time - it was one of these 1968 re-issue guitars, basically New Old Stock, that he did the majority of his recording with right up through 1974 or so. Though there were piles of stuff everywhere, and for some reason memories were hazy.... somewhere in there, Neal Schon taught Santana everything he knew, Santana cut off his hair and put on white clothes and ordered his band to stop taking LSD (many of them thought it was the result of Santana's perhaps taking a wee bit too much himself). And it all blew up, everybody "quit" or got "fired" except a few core guys, but Santana went cosmic and refused to sling mud - in retrospect either a brilliant decision, or that LSD overload was a
real lucky piece of timing. Now, obviously, I do date back to the time when you could turn on the radio and within the first three notes, you knew who the guitar player was. There are those who kind of wish Santana had gone ahead and picked up a fourth note, and a fifth one in the ensuing decades, but you gotta admit - he's done a far better job of being Santana than anyone else could have. Next Question?
