Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
This song has four things going for it for me: interesting lyrics, fascinating vocals, brilliant guitar playing, a beat and sound that moves me, and it came during an exciting era for me, personally.
Well, that’s more than four items, I think. Here’s Santana with Rob Thomas with the nineteen ninety-eight release, “Smooth.”
Here we go. Reference to what is a classic in your personal realm of taste is different from others. Age, era, and where and when you grew up all count into it, right? Other factor play into it. The net, what’s classic in my personal universe is foreign to you, and the reverse applies.
But this is a classic for me. It often streams into my head in conjunction with my muse. Muse might be properly plural here. I have multiple voices in my head. They all might belong to one muse, who likes doing other voices, or an army of muses. I don’t know. I sometimes wonder, when you die, what happens to the voices in your head, like your muses? I believe they go find someone else to reside in.
Here is my classic, a song for my muse. Several have covered it, but the classic for me is Santana, in nineteen seventy. I remember listening it on my little AM/FM clock radio, “with stereo.” Then I had it on vinyl, open reel, cassette tape, and CD.
Here is “Black Magic Woman.”
Pulling one out of the memory cloud, I came up with a classic. ‘Black Magic Woman’ was written by Peter Green and performed by Fleetwood Mac.
I did not much care for that song and rarely heard it.
Two years later, Carlos Santana put it on ‘Abraxas’. I think that’s the one most people know. Most people think Santana wrote ‘Black Magic Woman’, and are unaware of Fleetwood Mac’s version. I’m speaking of the people I know in America. Other peoples in other countries, or or other ages and persuasions, may know differently.
The differences, IMO, is that Green came up with the lyrics but he and his band couldn’t provide it with the musical structure needed. Carlos, on the other hand, with his powerful licks set against that soft, mysterious organ, a steady bass that sings the lyrics at times, a Latin beat, and Gregg Rolie’s vocals, seems like a much more fully realized vision.
Michael Seidel, writer 