I've got almost all of his/their music and am a big fan. My favourite is obviously Inner Secrets... To my mind it captures the late 70s and does not have even a slightly bad track on it (a rare feat for any artist), every track is sublimely played by every band member and Greg Walkers' singing is perfect...its very well produced and recorded too It was one of the first albums I ever bought (s/h condition 'A' from Beggars Banquet in Ealing Broadway, for about 2 quid, worn out on my Goldring Lenco). The cover art for me captures the fun the band must of had creating that album and it cheers me up to see it and brings much dear nostalgia.
I used to see them on almost every UK tour in smaller venues which I much prefer due to the greater intimacy and then Shaman was released to huge success and Santana were propelled into the top league and only played the huge venues such as Wembley Arena and the like, so I stopped going. I was really pleased of the success they had at the time. I was a member of the fan club then that issued beautifully produced colourful fan letters and his Milagro Foundation did great work helping under-privaliged children around the world.
Santana used to live in San Fransciso and in the late 80's I visited there and there was a huge Virgin Mega Music store there, but they had NO Santana and when I asked the asisstants why not and pointed out that he lived somewhere close by on the bay, they had no idea who I was talking about.
Different band, but a similar story also comes to mind, while on a whale watching trip in Boston, the host with the microphone started telling us about the Nantuucket Island and the historical whaling from the island and when I asked if she had ever heard of the Mountain track Nantucket Sleighride, she thought I was off the planet, she had no idea what I was talking about and probably mad.
