Persuasion
	Production credits unknown
	Released on June 1989
	no chart information
	Find it at GEMM
MM 003 cover

P roduct of the poorest persuasion, featuring live recordings recorded in some dark corner of the world. (The liner notes fail to shed any light on their origin.) Of course, a good imp can sniff out product like a truffle-trained pig, so I went into this with my eyes open and my ears braced. What came out of the speakers wasn’t awful: tepid instrumental jams preserved in a tinny state, a pair of vocal tracks at the end that align with the work of Cream. You’ll need to strain to feel the original fire of a “Jingo” or “El Corazon Manda,” but I’ve done as much for the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Frank Zappa. A licensing of low means presumably led to the propagation of these pieces in countless packages; aliases include Early Magic!, Jin-Go-La-Ba, blah blah blah. Chances are, some day, you’ll run across this in a supermarket or highway rest stop and the name “Santana” will spring out like a Mexican jumping bean. Check with the imp on your shoulder first and ask it: How desperate are we for Santana? Will I still respect myself manana? If you’re a collector, some of these tracks are of minor historical importance because they don’t appear anywhere else: “El Corazon Manda” and “La Puesta Del Sol” (both written by Eddie Weiss) and a vocal track, “As The Years Go By.” The guitar solo on Corazon or the organ solo on Puesta will hold your attention for a while, but neither builds the organic vibe that made a “No One To Depend On” so mesmerizing. If you don’t own Santana’s original works up to Caravanserai, you’ve got no business with Persuasion. But for fans of the band’s early work, there are worse ways to spend eight bucks and forty minutes. Note that different releases of this have different artwork, but the music remains the same.

TRACK LISTING

1. JINGO    (Babatunde Olatunji)    9:51
2. EL CORAZON MANDA    (Eddie Weiss)    11:47
3. LA PUESTA DEL SOL    (Eddie Weiss)    10:24
4. PERSUASION    (Gregg Rolie)    5:14
5. AS THE YEARS GO BY    (Santana)    3:47

CREDITS

Bill Williams -- liner notes

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