September 22, 2023 —– Chart #212
Hello Music Friends,
Hey folks, welcome to another edition of Chart of the Week. Today we are going to rock. This song can be played and enjoyed ‘unplugged’ on an acoustic guitar, but you will immediately recognize the tune as a guitar rocker.
“Black Magic Woman” is a song written by British musician Peter Green, which first appeared as a single for his band Fleetwood Mac in 1968. Subsequently, the song appeared on the 1969 Fleetwood Mac compilation albums English Rose (US) and The Pious Bird of Good Omen (UK), as well as the later Greatest Hits and Vintage Years compilations.
In 1970, the song was released as the first single from Santana‘s album Abraxas. The song, as sung by Gregg Rolie, reached number four on the US and Canadian charts, and its chart success made Santana’s recording the better-known version of the song. Today’s post and chart are centered on the Carlos Santana release, but let’s not take anything away from Fleetwood Mac.
The song was also covered by former Fleetwood Mac member Bob Welch on his 2006 album His Fleetwood Mac Years and Beyond, Vol. 2. Although Welch was not a member of the group at the time of the original recording, he had performed a number of Peter Green’s songs during his time with the band.
Peter Green’s lyrics in “Black Magic Woman” are inspired by his former girlfriend, Sandra Elsdon, whom Green had nicknamed “Magic Mamma”. Green has acknowledged that “Black Magic Woman” was musically influenced by “All Your Love”, an Otis Rush song that had been recorded two years earlier by Green’s former band, John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers (albeit with Eric Clapton, Green’s predecessor, on lead guitar). Green said in Peter Green: The Biography: “One of things [Mayall] said was that if you really like something, you should take the first lines and make up another song from them. So that’s what I did with ‘Black Magic Woman’.
“Black Magic Woman” is a minor blues with a Latin rhythm first explored in Green’s “I Loved Another Woman” in Fleetwood Mac’s 1968 self-titled debut album.
Santana’s version, recorded in 1970, is a medley with Gábor Szabó’s 1966 instrumental “Gypsy Queen”, a mix of jazz, Hungarian folk and Latin rhythms. The song became one of Santana’s staples and one of their biggest hits, with the single spending 13 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and peaking at number four in January 1971, their highest-peaking Hot 100 hit until 1999’s “Smooth”. Santana’s 1970 album, Abraxas, reached no. 1 on the charts and hit quadruple platinum in 1986, partially thanks to “Black Magic Woman”.
“Gypsy Queen” was omitted from the single version contained on 1974’s Santana’s Greatest Hits album, even though radio stations usually play “Black Magic Woman” and “Gypsy Queen” as one song.
Rock away with this one folks. It’s a great classic.
Keep Rockin’,
Stan Bradshaw