' is a 1974

live album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records c ...

by the

Latin rock Latin rock is a term to describe a subgenre blending traditional sounds and elements of Latin American and Hispanic Caribbean folk with rock music. However, it is widely used in the English-language media to refer any kind of rock music featurin ...

band Santana, recorded at the Osaka Kōsei Nenkin Kaikan,

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

in July 1973, during their

Caravanserai Tour The Caravanserai Tour was a series of performances by American Latin rock band Santana in support of their album ''Caravanserai'' during 1972 and 1973. It started on September 4, 1972, at the Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival in Griffin, Indiana, an ...

. The

Welcome A welcome is a kind of greeting designed to introduce a person to a new place or situation, and to make them feel at ease. The term can similarly be used to describe the feeling of being accepted on the part of the new person. In some contexts ...

album recording sessions were completed shortly before this concert, and that album was later released in November. Lotus was originally released in 1974 as a triple

vinyl Vinyl may refer to: Chemistry * Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a particular vinyl polymer * Vinyl cation, a type of carbocation * Vinyl group, a broad class of organic molecules in chemistry * Vinyl polymer, a group of polymers derived from vinyl ...

LP in Japan only. This version of the album was later released internationally. In 2017 a limited edition version was released as "Lotus: Complete Edition". This release is a 3 disc set hybrid

Super Audio CD Super Audio CD (SACD) is an optical disc format for audio storage introduced in 1999. It was developed jointly by Sony and Philips Electronics and intended to be the successor to the Compact Disc (CD) format. The SACD format allows multiple a ...

with seven previously unreleased bonus tracks. This was also a Japan only release.

Original release

The 1973 live recordings were mixed in 4-channel

quadraphonic sound Quadraphonic (or quadrophonic and sometimes quadrasonic) sound – equivalent to what is now called 4.0 surround sound – uses four audio channels in which speakers are positioned at the four corners of a listening space. The system allows for t ...

and released in the CBS

Stereo Quadraphonic SQ Quadraphonic ("Stereo Quadraphonic") was a matrix 4-channel quadraphonic sound system for vinyl LP records. It was introduced by CBS Records (known in the United States and Canada as Columbia Records) in 1971. Many recordings using this techn ...

(SQ)

matrix Matrix most commonly refers to: * ''The Matrix'' (franchise), an American media franchise ** '' The Matrix'', a 1999 science-fiction action film ** "The Matrix", a fictional setting, a virtual reality environment, within ''The Matrix'' (franchi ...

system. The SQ encoding makes it possible to format all 4 channels into a 2 channel

stereo Stereophonic sound, or more commonly stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configuration ...

version, which is compatible with conventional stereo playback equipment. Some releases of this mix have been marked as "Quadraphonic" or "SQ" and some are not. However, all known releases of Lotus prior to 2017 use the same SQ encoded 2 channel recordings. The 4 channels can still be heard on modern equipment provided that the listener has a proper SQ decoder and 4 channel playback system. The complete 3-LP set was released in Europe in 1975. The first U.S. release was in 1991 as a 2- CD and 2 cassette tape set. It re-issued again on vinyl in the Netherlands and on CD in Japan in 2006 as a 3-CD set. It was also re-issued as a 3-LP set in the US in 2013. In 2016 this version was also released in the United States by Audio Fidelity on a 2 disc set on Super Audio CD.

2017 "Complete" Edition

In 2017 "Lotus: Complete Edition" was released in Japan as a 3 disc set hybrid Super Audio CD. Seven bonus tracks were added. In addition to 4.0 surround sound audio there are stereo SACD tracks as well as a stereo CD layer which can be played on conventional CD players.

Track listing

Vinyl

1991 CD reissue

Japanese 3-CD

The same track listing as the original vinyl release (two sides per CD), except "Mr. Udo" in place of "Savor".

2017 Japanese 3-SACD

Personnel

Carlos Santana Carlos Humberto Santana Barragán (; born July 20, 1947) is an American guitarist who rose to fame in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band Santana, which pioneered a fusion of Rock and roll and Latin American jazz. Its sound feature ...

–

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected string ...

Latin percussion {{for, the company, Latin Percussion Latin percussion is a family of percussion, membranophone, lamellophone and idiophone instruments used in Latin music. Instruments Afro-Cuban and Puerto Rican styles Folkloric and Santeria * Trap drums * Abakua ...

Echoplex The Echoplex is a tape delay effect, first made in 1959. Designed by Mike Battle, the Echoplex set a standard for the effect in the 1960s—it is still regarded as "the standard by which everything else is measured." It was used by some of the ...

Leon Thomas Amos Leon Thomas Jr. (October 4, 1937 – May 8, 1999), known professionally as Leon Thomas, was an American jazz and blues vocalist, born in East St. Louis, Illinois, and known for his bellowing glottal-stop style of free jazz singing in the ...

–

maracas A maraca (), sometimes called shaker or chac-chac, is a rattle which appears in many genres of Caribbean and Latin music. It is shaken by a handle and usually played as part of a pair. Maracas (from Guaraní ), also known as tamaracas, were ...

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or withou ...

Tom Coster Tom Coster (born August 21, 1941) is an American keyboardist, composer, and longtime backing musician for Carlos Santana. Early years Detroit-born and San Francisco-raised, Coster played piano and accordion as a youth, continuing his studies ...

–

Hammond organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated ...

electric piano An electric piano is a musical instrument which produces sounds when a performer presses the keys of a piano-style musical keyboard. Pressing keys causes mechanical hammers to strike metal strings, metal reeds or wire tines, leading to vibrations ...

, Yamaha organ * Richard Kermode – Hammond organ, electric piano * Doug Rauch –

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in the bass range: ** Bass (instrument), including: ** Acoustic bass gui ...

* Armando Peraza –

congas The conga, also known as tumbadora, is a tall, narrow, single-headed drum from Cuba. Congas are staved like barrels and classified into three types: quinto (lead drum, highest), tres dos or tres golpes (middle), and tumba or salidor (lowest). ...

bongos Bongos ( es, bongó) are an Afro-Cuban percussion instrument consisting of a pair of small open bottomed hand drums of different sizes. They are struck with both hands, most commonly in an eight-stroke pattern called ''martillo'' (hammer). The ...

, Latin percussion * José "Chepito" Areas –

timbales Timbales () or pailas are shallow single-headed drums with metal casing. They are shallower than single-headed tom-toms and usually tuned much higher, especially for their size.Orovio, Helio 1981. ''Diccionario de la música cubana: biográfico ...

, congas, Latin percussion * Michael Shrieve –

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair of matching drumsticks ...

, Latin percussion

Charts

References

{{Authority control Albums produced by Carlos Santana 1974 live albums Santana (band) live albums Columbia Records live albums