Carlos Santana navigates smooth return to radio

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Carlos Santana says that "radio is a friendly spirit to me." It would be fair to call that an understatement.

After just a year-and-a-half break, the artist who holds the record for the longest-running Nielsen BDS-based No. 1 in Adult Top 40 history -- "Smooth" featuring Rob Thomas -- is hitting the charts again, this time with "Into the Night" featuring Nickelback's Chad Kroeger.

The lead single from his new collection, "Ultimate Santana" -- due October 16 on Arista and the first compilation to span Santana's entire career -- looks likely to become another in a long line of chart-topping hits for Santana, which stretch back to 1970's "Evil Ways," his band's first Billboard Hot 100 top 10 and an Adult Contemporary No. 1.

The track "Into the Night" is up from No. 39 to No. 27 in its second week on Adult Top 40.

Still based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the soft-spoken Santana says of "Into the Night," "In the '60s, we needed songs that would transport us into a place of wonderment. This is a song like that. It's a song about angels and how they constantly translate your inner voice, preventing you from negative thoughts and fear. So it's got something spiritual to it, but it also has strength. It's not wishy-washy."

Santana says he enjoyed reteaming with Kroeger; their first collaboration, 2003's "Why Don't You & I," rode the crest of the Adult Top 40 chart for nine weeks.

Besides Kroeger, "Ultimate Santana" features Jennifer Lopez and Baby Bash on a new track and finds Tina Turner updating Michelle Branch's vocal on "The Game of Love," which in 2002 conquered adult top 40 and Adult Contemporary.

Reuters/Billboard

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