Blast From The Past Volume 275

Santana Live in Ghana 1971
“Jungle Strut/Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen”
Soul to Soul @ Black Star Square

On March 6, 1971, over a dozen acts, half American and half Ghanaian, took the stage in Black Star Square on the Gulf of Guinea for the event dubbed Soul to Soul. This special event presented by the Ghana Arts Council ran into the early morning hours, lasting well over 14 hours. There was an even display of the best Ghanaian talent of the period along with many of the top rhythm and blues, soul, gospel, jazz, and rock musicians from the states. We covered a group by the name of Psychedelic Aliens that was on this bill and carried out a lot of influence after this period from Santana.

American acts for this special concert in 1971 included Ike and Tina Turner, Wilson Pickett as the headliner, Roberta Flack, The Staples Singer, a very early 6 am closing set by the Voices of East Harlem and Les McCann and Eddie Harris. For this March 1971 performance, Santana had a marvelous band that was shattering the wall between latin, african influences and progressive rock. What makes this performance this performance special is the inclusion of Willie Bobo. Santana’s set resembled the new sonic blending that was occurring in the afrobeat sound that was starting to manifest in Africa during this same fruitful period of 1971.

Director Denis Sanders was on site to document all of the acts and a full length feature was created around the pieces of film that were archived. Wiki has this small reference to the original 1971 release, ”The concert was filmed and released in August 1971. It featured extensive excerpts from the concert performances, along with documentary footage of the musicians interacting with local Ghanaians in the days before the show. The film played in limited release around the world for the next two years but was not a financial success and did not cover the costs of putting on the show. The film was eventually restored thanks to a program by The Grammy Foundation that seeks to preserve important films about music, and it debuted again in February 2004 at an event at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

It was released on DVD on August 24, 2004. The new release does not include any performances by Roberta Flack, who requested their removal. But it does include a soundtrack album on CD, which features tracks from all the Western performers excluding Santana and Flack, plus the Kumasi Drummers, the Damas Choir, and Kwa Mensah. It also includes a new song entitled “Soul To Soul (2004)” by Earl Thomas.”  Included in this new cleaner transfer to YouTube is Jungle Strut, the famous cover that Santana became very well known for Black Magic Woman and a shorter section of gypsy Queen. I love the amount of footage being unearthed and properly transferred for all of us to enjoy online. This is a special piece of history captured in superb quality, not to be missed. – Erik Otis