| "Evil Ways" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Santana | ||||
| from the album Santana | ||||
| B-side | "Waiting" | |||
| Released | December 30, 1969 | |||
| Format | 7" 45 RPM | |||
| Genre | Jazz fusion, Latin rock | |||
| Length |
3:54 (album version) 3:01 (single version) |
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| Label | Columbia | |||
| Writer(s) | Clarence (Sonny) Henry | |||
| Producer | Brent Dangerfield, Santana | |||
| Santana singles chronology | ||||
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"Evil Ways" is a song by Santana from their 1969 album Santana. It was written by Clarence "Sonny" Henry and recorded by jazz percussionist Willie Bobo in 1968 on his album of the same name. The song is in simple verse form[1]. Next year it was recorded by Santana.
Released as a single in late 1969, it became the band's first top forty and top ten hit in the U.S., peaking at number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. Gregg Rolie performs the lead vocals and plays a Hammond organ solo in the middle section. The double-time coda includes a guitar solo performed by Carlos Santana.
"Evil Ways" is about a girl who is spiteful. "You've got to change your evil ways, baby/Before I stop lovin' you." She tries to make her boyfriend jealous by associating with her friends. "You hangin' 'round, baby/With Jean and Joan and-a who-knows-who."
Some radio stations play edit versions of the song, cutting a few bars from the introduction, parts of the organ instrumental portion in the middle, and the coda, shortening the guitar improvisation by fading the song out earlier, part of this reason is to make it more for AM radio use, than for progressive rock use.
Latin rapper Mellow Man Ace sampled this track and used it as the main melody for his single "Mentirosa" (1989).
Alex Gimeno samples the riff from Evil Ways in his track "Funky Bikini" from his musical project titled Ursula 1000.
Los Lonely Boys perform this song on their 2009 tribute EP entitled 1969.
The song was also covered by Cal Tjader (Willie Bobo was a former member of Tjader's band) with vocals by Carmen McRae on his 1982 album "Heat Wave", released on CD in 1990.
On first pressings of both Santana's debut album and the single release, the songwriting credit was originally given to Jimmie Zack. Zack was a minor rockabilly artist out of the Midwest who recorded a song with the same title (as Jimmie Zack and The Blues Rockers) for a small regional label in 1960 ([1]); however, it was not the same song as recorded by Santana.