“A good guitar solo should sound like an orgasm. I can hear it in Eddie Van Halen’s playing, and Jimi Hendrix. I live for the juicy notes”: Carlos Santana on playing like a soul singer and his visitations from B.B. King, Miles Davis and Stevie Ray Vaughan

Carlos Santana wears a white wide-brimmed hat and white patterened shirt as he plays his signature salmon-colored PRS signature guitar.

There are varying degrees of guitar hero, but Carlos Santana is a name you’d expect to find near the top of any list. Like Jimi Hendrix, Brian May or Slash, Santana has transcended guitar music and permeated his way into popular culture, immortalizing his name into legend on every corner of the globe.

Of course, he’s a tremendous player, but it goes way beyond that; he’s a highly prolific composer and collaborator, the type of musician who can thrive in just about any musical environment, drawing from an impressively wide pool of influences to make his guitar speak to any kind of audience or listener.