Santana – Life is a Lady / Holiday [Audio HQ]

“Life is a lady / Holiday” two songs in one, this wonderful instrumental song is the song n.7 of the Album “Inner Secrets” (1979) by Santana.
This song is in absolute my favorite of Santana in fact it was thanks to this song that I have loved this great band and his guitarist.
I love much the first part of this instrumental track (Life Is A Lady) because for me, Carlos reaches a passion and intensity that only he can express with his guitar.
Anyway very nice also the other song that follows and that gives a note of cheerfulness and optimism final that never hurts.
Good listening.

Inner Secrets is the ninth studio album from Santana. It marks the start of the phase of Santana’s career where he moved away from the fusion of Latin, jazz, rock and blues that marked his previous records and began to move towards an Album Oriented Rock direction.
Inner Secrets lies outside the inner sanctum of Santana’s best work. It’s pedestrian funk rock, not the brilliant fusion of Latin jazz and psychedelic rock on which they built their reputation. At least that’s what I usually read about Inner Secrets, but I’ve got a little secret of my own: I like this album. Yes, it is more commercial than Abraxas et al, but there’s still magic afoot in the music. Santana isn’t selling out with Inner Secrets, simply adapting. As for opening up their arms to streamlined funk, everyone was doing it: Frank Zappa, Herbie Hancock, Grateful Dead, etc. Call it heresy if you want, but I believe even The Doors would have embraced some aspects of disco/funk had they survived into the late ’70s. So the issue for me isn’t whether Inner Secrets is a progressive album but whether it’s a good album. And it is. “Move On,” “Dealer/Spanish Rose,” “Open Invitation” and covers of “Stormy” and “Well All Right” are as good as anything to come from the aging rock quarter in 1978 (okay, well maybe not Who Are You, but you get the point). The single “One Chain (Don’t Make No Prison)” is today an artifact of the disco days, one of several songs here written by the producers (Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter). The same thing happened on Herbie’s Monster without ill effect, so don’t worry that the material is lame. Yet there’s no doubt that some saw in the covers and producer-penned tracks an ebbing of Santana’s creative powers. While the band had always played covers (“Oye Como Va,” “Black Magic Woman”), it wasn’t until Santana had a hit with The Zombies’ “She’s Not There” that the band began covering Anglo/American pop songs rather than Latin and blues-based material. They turn Buddy Holly & The Crickets’ “Well All Right” into a revival meeting, transplant Traffic’s “Dealer” into a Latin setting and even managed to crack the US Top 40 with a version of “Stormy.” Lost in most critiques of Inner Secrets is the album’s variety. At one moment, the band is blasting out like BOC (“Open Invitation”), the next they’re gliding through graceful instrumental jazz (“Life Is A Lady/Holiday”), only to let the funk creep back into the mix (“The Facts of Love”). While it’s more commercial than Amigos, Inner Secrets is still a good album, consistent with the quality you can expect from the Greg Walker era.

Track listing

1. “Dealer/Spanish Rose” (Capaldi/Santana) – 5:51
2. “Move On” (Santana, Rhyne) – 4:26
3. “One Chain (Don’t Make No Prison)” (Dennis Lambert, Brian Potter) – 7:13
4. “Stormy” (Buddy Buie, James Cobb) – 4:46
5. “Well All Right” (Norman Petty, Buddy Holly, Jerry Allison, Joe B. Mauldin) – 4:11
6. “Open Invitation” (Santana, Lambert, Potter, Walker, Margen) – 4:47
7. “Life Is a Lady/Holiday” (Lambert, Santana) – 3:48
8. “The Facts of Love” (Dennis Lambert, Brian Potter) – 5:32
9. “Wham!” (Santana, Lear, Peraza, Rekow, Escovedo) – 3:28

Personnel

Carlos Santana: Guitar, backing vocals
Greg Walker: Vocals
Chris Solberg: Guitar, backing vocals
Chris Rhyne: Keyboards
David Margen: Bass
Graham Lear: Drums
Armando Peraza: Percussion
Raul Rekow: Percussion
Pete Escovedo: Percussion
Norman Seeff: Design, Art Director & Photography