There are some very fine songs on this album. Unfortunately, they are mixed in with some of the weaker songs Sanatana has ever released. The album starts out with the classic Dance Sister Dance, which has a great melody, good vocal, and fantastic guitar solo. The band is very hot on this tune, and it delivers on the promise of making you want to stand up and dance. The second song, an instrumental, is also very fine, particular near the end when the band cools down a few notches and moves into a skating jazz groove that creates a kind of euphoric high in this listener. The third song, Let Me, starts out with a 5 star rating performance from the rhythm section. The guitar comes in, and the quality drops to a 4, which is still very good. The rest of the band joins and the tune finds its cliche groove, which is about a 3 quality. Then the vocals start and the song drops to a 2. The vocals sound to me like a cliche ridden attempt to imitate James Brown or Sly Stone. Or maybe to imitate their imitators. It ends up being a clunker. Gitano starts with a pretentious and poorly executed flaminco guitar solor including lots of buzzing guitar strings. But the tune itself is hot and contains some great vocals, great melody, and a great beat. It's very interesting to hear how Carlos' guitar playing improves the moment the song finds its groove. The guy is fantastic when he has a good groove, which is what Santana is all about. Tell Me Are You Tired is so bad I can no longer listened to it all the way through. Europa is fantastic, a classic Santana soaring guitar melody and solo. Tom Costers' organ is not up to Carlos's guitar solo, but all in all it is a classic cut, among his best. I don't think I've ever made it all the way through the...melody of Let It Shine... It might work live if you were in a really, really good mood, but overall it is just too silly even for this lover of Santana's euphoric, good groove songs.

... If you want to put the album on and listen to it all the way through, you might have some serious regrets about buying it. This is not one of the albums where Carlos falls apart altogether. It has some of his best music on it. It's just that the good is mixed in with some of his worst.

Although Amigos is a strong album, you can hear, in the weaker tracks, the beginnings of Santana's decline. Having followed his classic trilogy of Latin Rock albums with three quasi-jazz-fusion albums, Santana wanted to come back down to Earth and rediscover his pop roots. He was mostly successful on Amigos, but subsequent albums fell off dramatically in quality as he continued to flounder in search of the right middle-of-the-road groove.

However, on Amigos, the superb material is more than worth the purchase price of the CD. Dance Sister Dance and Gitano showcase a new facet of Santana's Latin roots, and Europa is probably Santana's finest composition, featuring his most powerful and moving guitar work.

Let It Shine is an OK rhythm & blues pop song that became the minor hit Santana was looking for. Tell me are you tired is the worst track on the album, a dopey "lecture" song that, regrettably, was a harbinger of things to come.

It's worth buying this record for "Europa" alone, since none of the live performances I've heard come close to matching the studio original for shimmering, sparkling beauty and emotional resonance. As a whole this is a solid piece of work and at the current budget price is well worth it for any Santana fan.

Amigos features two solid instrumentals, the most noteworthy being "Europa," one of Carlos' trademark guitar works. Starting with pretty high-pitched twangs, it evolves into a potent solo in the Santana tradition. The group also displays its musical talents well in "Take Me With You." For the rest (except for an interesting flamenco intro on "Gitano"), Amigos represents the beginning of the slippage from Santana's top-notch studio album work that began after Borboletta and has continued to this day (with the exception of the studio cuts on Moonflower, released shortly after Amigos). Tom Coster's keyboards are radiant enough, and Armando Peraza still does it with his bongos and conga, but the song quality and overall instrumentation do not measure up to the old standards. They reflect a shift to more-plain-sounding or less-refined Latin verselines and music or so-so funk, to later become mediocre at best. It should also be noted that "Europa" and "Take Me With You" are somewhat derivative of "Samba Pa Ti" and "Incident at Neshabur," respectively, hinting that the great Mexican guitarist's inspiration was beginning to wane. Amigos is still decent, if unimpressive, but the latter term can in no way be linked to Santana's earlier works, and he was never again able to produce anything good except on a sporadic basis.

Dance Sister Dance: a perfect mix between a latin groove and a pop/rock song. The final part, which is played in double time, work toward a climax. Strange but effective contrast between slow and dreamy guitar lines and cooking drums underneath. Santana's trademark sustained guitar note at the end of his blends almost imperceptibly into Tom Coster's string part - played on a vintage Solina of before the polyphonic synth era. Coster's Minimoog lines - apparently influenced by Jan Hammer - are sparse (much more so than on the live version on Moonflower) but very effective; the keyboard playing is first rate on the whole album. Take Me With You is a high energy jazzrock tune in 6/8 with a brief allusion to African 12/8 polyrhythmic bell patterns. Wailing guitar and Hammond solos, followed by an slower, cha cha-like epilogue which might be corny if it weren't for Carlos' subtle guitar statements. Gitano is an Afro-Cuban tune with a flamenco-like Spanish guitar intro (quite unlike the guitar playing in Cuban son). Sounds pretty Cuban/Puerto Rican though once the main groove starts, with authentic tumbao, anticipated bass timing, everything. Armando Peraza has just the right voice for this kind of tune. Tell Me Are You Tired is an uncharacteristic Santana song; again, a change of tempo in midsong, kind of an in-the-pocket funk groove (with Hohner Clavinet). Great jazzy Fender Rhodes solo by Coster. Europa hardly needs an introduction; a classic instrumental in the tradition of Samba Pa Ti, but more smoothly executed. More of Carlos' famous sustain. Finally, Let Me and Let It Shine are entertaining tunes, but not much more than that. Still, there is so much to enjoy in the other songs that they are sufficient to make the album worthwhile.

I'm sorry, but I don't think Santana ever gets the respect that he deserves. He has stood the test of time and his longevity and extensive body of work speak for themselves. He is the premier pioneer in latin rock. I agree that not all of the songs on "Amigo" are stand out tracks, but Gitano, Europa and Dance sitster Dance are easily worth the price of this album.I appreciate good latin music and those 3 songs are outstanding! Europa inspired me to play guitar as I've spent many hours learning that song-and believe me, I'm no Carlos Santana on the guitar. All-in-all I have great memories of this album and I wish people appreciated the Greatess of this latin legend