06/07/2026
Happy 77th Birthday to Woodstock performer Michael Shrieve! 🎂🎉🎁🎊🧨💥
Michael Shrieve (born July 6, 1949) is an American drummer, percussionist, and composer. He is best known as the drummer of the rock band Santana, playing on the band's first seven albums from 1969 to 1974. At age 20, Shrieve was the second youngest musician to perform at Woodstock. Henry Gross of Sha Na Na was only 18.
His drum solo during "Soul Sacrifice" in the Woodstock film has been described as "electrifying", although he considers his solo during the same piece in 1970 at Tanglewood the superior performance.
Shrieve was born and grew up in San Francisco. Shrieve's first full-time band was called Glass Menagerie, followed by experience in the house band of an R&B club, backing touring musicians including B.B. King and Etta James. At 16, Shrieve played in a jam session at the Fillmore Auditorium, where he attracted the attention of Santana's manager, Stan Marcum. When he was 19, Shrieve jammed with Santana at a recording studio and was invited to join that day.
On August 16, 1969, Santana played the Woodstock Festival, shortly after Shrieve's twentieth birthday, but before the release of their eponymous first album (1969). He remained with Santana for Abraxas (1970), Santana III (1971), Caravanserai (1972), Welcome (1973), Borboletta (1974) and the live Lotus (1974). He co-wrote four of the tracks on Caravanserai, as well as co-produced the album.
Shrieve left the original Santana band to pursue solo projects. He moved to London to record the 1976 album Automatic Man with guitarist Pat Thrall, bass guitarist Doni Harvey and keyboardist Todd Cochran (billed as Bayete). While in London Shrieve was part of the fusion supergroup Go with Stomu Yamashta, Steve Winwood, Al Di Meola and Klaus Schulze, releasing two studio albums, Go (1976) and Go Too (1977), and the live album Go Live from Paris (1976).
He played in the band Hagar Schon Aaronson Shrieve (with Sammy Hagar, Neal Schon, and Kenny Aaronson). Later, he played drums on (former Supertramp member) Roger Hodgson's first solo album, In the Eye of the Storm.
From 1979 to 1984, Shrieve collaborated as a percussionist in Richard Wahnfried, a side project of Klaus Schulze (another drummer turned electronic composer) while recording with Schulze his own first "solo" album of electronic music, Transfer Station Blue, in 1984.
Shrieve was also credited for playing percussion on the 1980 album Emotional Rescue by The Rolling Stones and in 1984, he played on Mick Jagger's She's the Boss album. When Jagger, Nile Rodgers and Shrieve were mixing the album at The Power Station in New York City, Jaco Pastorius invited Shrieve for a recording session downstairs. This recording remains unreleased.
In 1997, Shrieve joined former Santana musicians Neal Schon, Gregg Rolie, José "Chepito" Areas, Alphonso Johnson, and Michael Carabello to record Abraxas Pool.
Shrieve has also collaborated with David Beal, Andy Summers, Steve Roach, Jonas Hellborg, Buckethead, Douglas September, Freddie Hubbard and others. He has served as a session player on albums by Todd Rundgren and Jill Sobule.
In 2004, Shrieve appeared on the track "The Modern Divide" on the Revolution Void album Increase the Dosage. The album was released under a Creative Commons license.
As of April 2010, Shrieve lives in Seattle, Washington, where he plays in a fusion jazz group, Spellbinder, with Danny Godinez, Joe Doria, Raymond Larsen, and Farko Dosumov.
Shrieve has composed music for several films, including Paul Mazursky's Tempest and Apollo 13.
Shrieve currently plays a DW Collector's Series drum set and recently joined the Istanbul Agop cymbals family. He has played a variety of other drum sets in the past, including sets by Camco, Premier and Ludwig, the latter visible in the Woodstock footage. He also played both Zildjian and later Paiste cymbals in his early days before becoming a longtime Sabian user.
