Santana
Amigos

And everything returned to as it was before...

The fusion that had invaded Santana's music from the 1973 to 1976 albums had disappeared, and the new album by the Californian band "Amigos" had greater and more accessible prospects compared to previous works like "Borboletta". The album is a mix of Latin Rock and Soul that barely recalls the "Woodstockian" style that the Chicano guitarist wanted to convey, but instead transmits an incredible desire to renew and be appreciated by the audience that remembers him only for "Abraxas" or "Santana3". The album features seven new songs with a total run time of almost 42 minutes.

The opening track is "Dance Sister Dance (Baila Mi Hermana)": a surge of adrenaline where the percussion of Armando Peraza and Leon "Ndugu" Chancler accompany the angelic voice of Greg Walker and the virtuosic guitar solos of Carlos Santana and Tom Coster on keyboards. The second track, titled "Take Me With You", is instrumental and presents a short organ solo, again by Tom Coster, and a long one by Carlos Santana that lasts throughout the piece. The song is divided into two parts: the first is fiery with blazing guitar solos, and the second is very calm and melodic.

The third song is "Let Me": a very rhythmic track that gives more space to Greg Walker's voice and the female choir formed by Ivory Stone, Julian Tillman Waters, and Maxine Willard Waters, accompanied by the fantastic bass of David Brown. The fourth track is "Gitano", a purely Latin song where Carlos Santana plays the classical guitar, and the singer is José Santana: the guitarist's father. The fifth piece is "Tell Me Are You Tired", an entirely sung track featuring a single long Funk keyboard solo.

The sixth track (the most famous one) is the magnificent "Europa (Earth's Cry Heaven's Smile)", a song that takes you back to the days of "Samba Pa Ti". This magnificent piece is one of the most famous of the seventies music scene and rock history and represents one of Santana's last songs before he fell under the control of the cursed commercialism. The last track, "Let It Shine", gives a lot of space to the female choir that repeats the chorus several times, as if the band wanted to make the fans understand that Santana is back and wants to shine as he did with "Abraxas".