Description

Welcome is the fifth studio album by Santana, released in 1973. It followed the jazz-fusion formula that the preceding Caravanserai had inaugurated, but with an expanded and different lineup this time. Gregg Rolie had left the band along with Neal Schon to form Journey, and they were replaced by Tom Coster, Richard Kermode and Leon Thomas, along with guest John McLaughlin, who had collaborated with Carlos Santana on Love Devotion Surrender. Welcome also featured John Coltrane‘s widow, Alice, as a pianist on the album’s opening track, “Going Home”, and Flora Purim (the wife of Airto Moreira) on vocals. This album was far more experimental than the first four albums, and Welcome did not produce any hit singles.

In 2003, the album was re-released with a bonus track, “Mantra”, described by AllMusic reviewer Thom Jurek as “a killer improv tune with a ferocious bass solo by Rauch and insane drumming by Shrieve.”^[1]