By the mid to late 90’s It had been over a decade since guitarist Carlos Santana had a
hit song with his self named band, but his band would reemerge in 1999 with the song
Smooth. It wasn’t just a hit song, but one of the most popular songs in music history.
But the path to even get Smooth out became a major obstacle. Infighting between songwriters,
record labels and even Carlos Santana hating the song when he first heard it nearly stopped
it from coming out. Today, let’s talk about the uphill battle to release the song Smooth.
While hard rock and so called grunge bands dominated the earlier part of the 90’s,
by the later part of the decade it was all about bubblegum pop like Britney Spears and Backstreet
Boys while faceless rock bands like Matchbox 20, Third Eye Blind and collective soul became
popular. By this point in time guitarist Carlos Santana had not had a hit for quite some years,
despite still being signed to a major label in Polygram. Prior to releasing his comeback album
in 1999 with Supernatural, the group’s past four albums hadn’t even went gold.
In 1997 Santana was scheduled to play a show in New York City and Radio City
Music Hall and the guitarist at that time Arista Records head Clive Davis to come to
the show. The two had a long history as Davis had signed Santana to their
first recording contract 3 decades prior when Davis worked for Columbia records.
The guitarist would be reminded by his kids who were teenagers by the late 90’s that they
rarely heard their father’s music on the radio anymore, except for the track blacks magic
woman and oye coma va. The guitarist knew he was about to be dropped by Polygram and
enlisted Clive Davis to help him to stage a career comeback Davis would tell Rolling Stone watching
the guitarist on stage in New York that night in 1997 : It was only when I was in Radio City,
watching him play, seeing him still the dazzling virtuoso, seeing the younger
members of the band with whom he was playing, that it triggered thoughts about the growth of
the Hispanic population in America. And I saw a very diverse audience there: ethnic makeup,
racial makeup, age makeup. I started thinking, “Wow, I wonder if Carlos could come back?” We
agreed to meet in Beverly Hills. Santana had found a new home in Arista Records and
it was at the meeting in Beverly Hills that both parties each agreed to bring seven songs into the
studio. Davis would tell Esquire “Give me half the album and trust that I will find material
that is integral to your artistry.“The other half of the album will be whatever you want it
to be.”. B.B. King would serve as the inspiration for Santana’s comeback album.. The blues guitarist
had put out an album in 1997 called Dueces Wild, which was panned by critics, but it had
a brilliant blueprint for Santana’s next album. Deuce’s Wild featured a number of guest artists
including Tracy Chapman and D’Angelo and Bonnie Raitt. The album also sold more than the average
BB King album and so Arista Records had something similar planned for Santan’s comeback record. The
label soon started scouring magazine interviews with both older rockstars and newer acts to see
who mentioned Santana as one of their influences. About a year and a half later by early 1999 the
album had seen quite a bit of progress enlisting the help of Dave Matthews, Eric Clapton, Lauryn
Hill and CeeLo Green to name a few. But it became apparent to the label that they were still missing
that one song that needed to be their huge radio hit out of the gate. Pete Ganbarg, then an A&R
executive at Arista Records. Would tell Esquire “I had this kind of dread in the back of my mind that
even though we had a great album, we didn't have a first single that would open the doors for us,”
It would be another A&R exec at Arista and friend of Ganbarg who introduced the team working on the
new Santana album to an up and coming songwriter named Itaal Shur who had previously written a
few hit songs had a new song he was working on called ‘Room 17.’ Shur pitched the song to the
team at Arista and Santana as a potential huge hit trying to capture the same vibe as Santana’s
past hits including Black Magic Woman and Oye Coma Va (ba). On the demo for Room 17 Shur would
admit to rolling stone he programmed the beat, used his keyboard and played guitar on the demo.
After playing the demo for the folks at Arista they were lukewarm to it. Ganberg told Rolling
Stone what he told Shur after hearing the demo look, good news, bad news. The good news is I
really, really, really like the music. It’s kind of a modern take on classic Santana,
but I think your lyric is completely wrong.” “Room 17” was the room in the hotel where the groupie
was going to meet the artist after the show. I said, “If you know anything about Carlos Santana,
he will never be associated with a song like this.” Shur would dispute the story claiming
the lyrics were about a couple who reconnected intimately after a long time apart despite both
of them being in relationships. Shur would claim he had only a weekend to come up with lyrics.
Shur was insistent that the song was good as it was, but Ganberg asked for the demo with
the vocal track removed and wanted to get a top tier songwriter to write the lyrics and melody.
Soon he managed to get the song to Rob Thomas from Matchbox 20. Thomas himself was a big Santana fan
and played some of the same festivals that Santana was on the bill for but never got
a chance to meet the guitarist, so at the very least he’d get to meet one of his musical idols.
Thomas wife Marisol who is of Puerto Rican and Spanish Descent would serve as the inspiration
for the song. Soon enough Room 17’s title would be changed to Smooth. Thomas penned
the lyr9cs as a love letter to his wife. Thomas would tell Rolling Stone I think
the “smooth” part came first. I was thinking more about Carlos. I was thinking, “You’re
so smooth,” about Carlos Santana. And then, “You hear my rhythm on your radio.” But then,
I also realized somewhere in the middle of it that I had this wealth of information because I had
this smokin’ hot Latin girlfriend already. Even though she was from Queens and not Spanish Harlem,
everything else was on point, and it ended up being about her. She’s heard songs I’ve
written that are about fights we had, and so that was a better version of us, and she liked it.
The lyrics Thomas came up with still needed work as Arista Records felt the song needed
a better chorus. Thomas and Shur would work with one another to finally come up with the
chorus and presented the demo to both the label execs and Carlos Santana. While the label execs
loved the song and knew they had a hit on their hands, Carlos Santana hated the song. He felt it
was too similar to his past works and wanted to do something musically he had never done.
But after Clive Davis convinced him the song would be a hit and would be exactly what he
needed in his career the guitarist agreed to do the track trusting Davis’ instinct.
Now the song just needed a vocalist. While Rob Thomas sang on the demo there were some names
thrown around about who should sing the song including Bon Jovi and George Michael. But
given that Matchbox 20 was all over the radio having Rob Thomas sing on the song
seemed like a better play at having the song be a commercial success than someone else.
But there was a problem. Matchbox 20 was signed to Atlantic Records and Santana was
signed to Arista Records. Atlantic didn’t want Rob Thomas singing on another label’s record,
but after some convincing Atlantic agreed to let Thomas appear on the track.
Keep in mind during this whole time Carlos Santana and Rob Thomas hadn’t met yet. With
all the parties on board the plan was to hit the studio with matchbox 20 producer
Matt Serletic to record the song in the Spring of 99. Serletic played salsa growing
up and attended the University of Miami, where he studied latin music. Here’s what
Rob Thomas had to say about meeting Carlos Santana for the first time in the studio
Then came another problem for the song. The new Santana album named Supernatural would
come out on June 15, 1999. Smooth was going to be the first single released but Arista
records had to get permission known as ‘Singles rights” from Rob Thomas label Atlantic Records.
Initially Atlantic didn’t want to have the song released as a single fearing that Thomas would
join Santana, but Arista convinced Atlantic to give permission claiming that if the song took
off it could help sales of Matchbox 20’s second record Mad Season which was due out the following
year. After much convincing Atlantic agreed to let the song be issued as a single. Just before
the single was issued Santana would play a warm up gig in New Jersey in May of 1999,
Evan Lamberg the VP of Music Publishing at EMI Records would recall rolling stone Santana decided
to play “Smooth,” which hadn’t come out. Nobody knew it yet. But Rob gets up there and I watch
tens of thousands of people — who have no idea what this song is — go fucking crazy. I say to
Pete, “They’re dancing like they’ve known this song for years. This song is going to be huge.”
After the show I said to Rob, “Did you feel that?” And he says, “Something’s going on.”
But Arista still had an uphittle battle to get radio especially pop stations to
play music by Santana who hadn’t had a hit in years. The label concocted a brilliant
plan. They would send out singles of the CD in a white case with the song name Smooth
with the words Mystery Artist written next to the song’s name. While a few program directors
instantly recognized Carlos Santana’s guitar playing on the track. The process to get top
40 radio to play the track was a slow and gradual one with Richard Palmese (then VP of
promotion at Arista) telling Rolling Stone how the single slowly made it’s way onto the radio
The reception was much stronger initially at the Adult Contemporary formats. They targeted
an older demo. The early airplay on the adult side came from Minneapolis and San Francisco. And
then a good number of small-market AC stations followed their lead. On the Top 40 pop side,
it was KISS in Boston; that was the first Top 40 station to jump on the record. Then Top 40
stations in secondary markets started to play it. By the end of June or beginning of July,
that’s when the table really turned toward pop. Also helping was that the earlier in
the year Ricky Martin had a huge hit with Livin’ La Vida Loca,” which proved that
pop radio would play Latin flavored tunes. Rob Thomas for his part wasn’t initially
aware the song was issued as a single. It wasnt until he was walking one day in New York City
telling Esquire “I was just walking down West Broadway and I stopped at a crosswalk, and this
car full of hot girls—a convertible—pulled up at the red light and they were blaring
‘Smooth.’ It took me a second to realize what I was listening to. So my first thought was,
when I see a bunch of hot girls in a car listening to it, there’s something happening here.”
The song which was issued as a single on June 29, 1999 was certified gold by September 13
and platinum by November 9th of the same year. The song gave Sanatana there first number one
hit and the The song spent a whopping 12 weeks at the top of the billboard hot 100 charts in
the summer of 1999 Santana’s comeback album Supernatural,, would go on to sell more than
15 million copies.. The video which Thomas appears in alongside his wife only helped
fuel sales. The following year Santana won eight grammy awards including for album of the year,
best pop performance by a duo or group with vocals and the song continues to live on to this day on
radio, in memes, in video games and at weddings. But the success of Smooth left Thomas bandmates
in Matchbox 20 with mixed emotions. While they gave their blessing for him to do the
track drummer Paul Doucette would tell Spin\‘it was weird watching the grammys
that the four of us weren’t up there too. Our careers started together and he’s having a
pinnacle of a career moment and he’s totally doing it without us too. I was really torn,
but God i was really f**** proud of my friend. Initially the success of Smooth created a rift
between Thomas and songwriter Itaal Shur who was unhappy that Smooth was being labeled by
the press as being Thomas song. Thomas would tell Spin Magazine in 2000 “he was belittling
anything that i had put into the song. He wanted to do a dance track with drum machines. Carlos
would never have gone for that. I was giving him a lot more credit than he was giving me.’
The success of the song resulted in Thomas becomin the go to guy for artists looking to work with
outsider writers with him fielding calls from Mick Jagger, Willie Nelson and Marc Anthony. Thomas
would look back at the legacy of the song telling Rolling Stone Thomas: Any fun you want to make of
that song, I’ve made fun of it too. I’ve literally been in Singapore with the guys from Matchbox,
drunk, singing it at karaoke. The amount of times somebody’s looked at me and said, “Man,
it’s a hot one, huh?” To this day. You got to have a big sense of humor about those kinds of
things. It’s like the gift that kept on giving. Smooth was the second instance of an artist who
made their debut in the 60’s having the biggest hit of their career nearly thirty
years later in 1999. Prior to Smooth becoming a Hit Cher would have the biggest hit of her
career with Believe earlier in the year. Perhaps my favourite quote of the song was
when Thomas told Rolling Stone that he soon found
fans in unexpected places revealing When Jason [Newsted] was still in Metallica,
he came out of an elevator in L.A. and came up to me and said, “Hey, Rob,
I really love that Carlos song.” When it gets to Metallica, you know something’s going on.