Salsa legend Tito Puente wrote this song and recorded it in the early '50s. While Puente was very popular in the Latin community, Santana's cover became a hit and helped introduce Puente to a wider audience. On Santana's version of the song, everything, including the guitar wails and keyboards, follows the original music.
The voice in the beginning says "sabor," which is Spanish for "flavor."
The lyrics are entirely in Spanish and are four repetitions of this stanza:
Oye como va
Mi ritmo
Bueno pa gozar
Mulata
A "mulata" is a woman ("mulato" being a male) of Caucasian European and Black African descent. The correct translation of the word "oye" is listen. The translation of the lyrics is thus: "Listen to my rhythm, good for fun, mulata!!"
Gregg Rolie, who sang on many of Santana's early hits, took the lead vocals on this song. Rolie was a founding member and keyboard player for Santana; he joined Journey in 1973.
"Oye Como Va" was released on the second Santana album, Abraxas, and issued as a single after "Black Magic Woman" (also a cover: that one was originally by Fleetwood Mac). The group made a huge splash at Woodstock in 1969 before they had released their first album, which came out two weeks later. Abraxas followed in 1970 and was their most successful, selling 5 million copies in America and hitting #1 in that country. Their next album, Santana III, also went to #1, but it would be another 29 years before they went back to the top spot, this time with their comeback album Supernatural.
On their next album, Santana did another Tito Puente cover: "Para Los Rumberos."
In the early '00s, the original version by Tito Puente was used in a commercial television advertisement campaign for Nissan.
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