Ten More Songs You May Not Know Are Covers: Black Magic Woman (#9)

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It's funny how a comment or the reply to a comment will spark an entire discussion or a series of discussions. In this case, I began a countdown of ten hit songs that most people might not know we're actually covers after someone mentioned this particular song. I left it off the original countdown, but it deserves a mention. #9: Black Magic Woman Someone had mentioned loving the Santana song and I casually mentioned that it was a cover of a Fleetwood Mac song, assuming that was common knowledge. That was the day I discovered that I keep my nose buried in music books way too much. No, that's not common knowledge. A lot of people probably don't even know that Fleetwood Mac existed before that 1975 album titled Fleetwood Mac (given that a lot of debut albums are named after the singer or the band). In truth, they were a blues-rock band in the late 60s who went through more personnel changes than the average person changes socks in a month (eight of nine members were inducted when Fleetwood Mac was put in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with guitarist/singer Bob Welch [who preceded Lindsey Buckingham in the band and began the drift away from blues and toward the more "commercial" sound that we think of when we think of Fleetwood Mac] being callously omitted) before they morphed into the superstar band that gave us Rumours. Needless to say, their version of "Black Magic Woman" wasn't the B-side of "Rhiannon." No, this was pure blues-era Fleetwood Mac. It's one of their earliest releases, not appearing on an album until the 1969 compilation English Rose. Santana's version was released in 1970, and that's the version that everybody knows. Black Magic Woman Written by Peter Green Originally recorded by Fleetwood Mac Released as a single, 1968 Famously covered by Santana, 1970 Here's the Fleetwood Mac original version: