'It changed me': Veteran guitarist Carlos Alomar on working with David Bowie

Alomar talks about taking Bowie to Harlem for the first time, and a subsequent partnership that would bear fruit with such albums as Young Americans and Low

Tue, 24 May, 2022 - 21:00

Richard Purden

No other guitarist enjoyed a longer stint with David Bowie than Carlos Alomar. The Puerto Rican musician first met the singer shortly before the release of Diamond Dogs in 1974, and played with him through the rest of the 1970s, and various periods afterwards into the early Noughties.

Since Bowie's death in 2016, Alomar has kept a low profile and has so far not been involved in tribute shows for the man he co-wrote with, led the band for and enjoyed a creative relationship with sporadically for 30 years. That's about to change when he attends the first David Bowie World Fan Convention in Liverpool in June, where Alomar will discuss his storied career.

The New York-raised guitarist explains why he is making the journey to the event. “It’s all about the fans, man we made so many friends everywhere we went so why would I not want to see if those people are still around? Everyone has a chance to centrally locate themselves, it's an international event and they are all taking their vacation for this convention in Liverpool. I’ve not done many things since David’s passing, myself and my wife Robin [Clark, who sang backing vocals on Young Americans] feel obligated to give something back to the fans, and enjoy ourselves.”

Alomar is in the singular position of sharing a songwriting credit with Bowie and John Lennon as co-writer of Fame. Even before his encounters with those legends, the Latino musician had an interesting career. At 17 and fresh from the Bronx he’d become the youngest guitarist to play the legendary Apollo Theatre and had already shared a stage with Chuck Berry, Wilson Picket and James Brown. Alomar recalls helping Bowie plug into black culture when the flame-haired Englishman was brought to the Apollo in Harlem in the 1970s.

“Let’s understand he was the talk of the town, coming to the United States and was the most sought-after person,” says Alomar. “We took him into the theatre where the Main Ingredient was playing on the same bill as Richard Pryor. Backstage, David got kicked out.” A suspicious Pryor had wondered who the “white mother-f**ker” was.

In 1975, Alomar was hands-on for Bowie’s recording sessions in Philadelphia for an album that would become Young Americans. The BBC’s documentary Cracked Actor captures the creative alchemy of Bowie at work during the period, including a scene when Ava Cherry and Robin Clark are joined by Luther Vandross to sing the dynamic 16-bar vocal during Right.

Alomar reflects on the beguiling moment. “David is saying: ‘Let's use a new methodology and see if it works' and everybody had to keep up. It’s interesting and quirky, that’s what makes it so amazing for creatives to be in an environment where you are seeing something you’ve never seen before and it's working. The miracle of that is awesome in the studio, we need all the inspiration we can get and sometimes we need to make that inspiration happen. David was one of those people who could do that.”

While the Spiders From Mars remain David Bowie’s most famous backing band, the ‘DAM’ trio of Dennis Davis on drums, Alomar on rhythm guitar and George Murray on bass would form the bedrock of Bowie’s sound during the second half of the 1970s. Their work on the Station to Station title track would help set the tone for Bowie’s most exploratory work.

“This is the first time the DAM trio are introduced and playing together properly,” says Alomar. “So if you’re talking about experimentation, you are talking about three guys that can go anywhere. Whether it be, jazz, rock, funk or whatever we’ve got everything. David never had that before, not from the Spiders From Mars, not from anybody!” While that cut opened a new door for listeners, Alomar says the other tracks on the album could have been on Young Americans.

“It’s the only song on the record like that, but notice how one song created this new experimental narrative,” Alomar says of Station to Station. “David had a few quirky things that he did that seem obvious. John, I’m Only Dancing (Again) was recorded during Young Americans. David said: ‘I love this version but can you do another ?’ I said: ‘Yeah’ and that version ended up being Stay. His ability to look at a song and rearrange it was what made all the things in the studio continue to be amazing. One song turns into another song, turns into another.”

David Bowie on stage at Slane in 1987 with Constance Marie and Carlos Alomar. Picture: Eddie O'Hare

What also enhanced the work was Bowie’s image, and he had recently completed filming on The Man Who Fell To Earth. The film’s strange charismatic alien would feed into Bowie’s Thin White Duke, the cold European persona with red and blonde hair swept back had a more conservative image sporting a white shirt with a black waistcoat and trousers.

Lyrically, Station to Station remains one of his most enigmatic and arcane tracks. “A 16-year-old doesn’t know the things David Bowie is talking about on this or a track like Loving The Alien but when the kid is 30 he might want to know what those things mean and that’s when he’ll come back to David Bowie again,” says Alomar.

As Alomar suggests Bowie wants the listener to be “curious. He doesn’t need to dummy things down all the time. You might have to go to an encyclopedia.”

As the son of a Pentecostal minister and a practising Buddhist, Alomar and Bowie would often engage in spiritual conversations. “With David, Robin and myself we had that kind of relationship for so long and we nurtured that ability to talk about all those things.”

The DAM trio would soon be uprooted from America to record Bowie’s Berlin trilogy in France, Germany and Switzerland. Recording for Low was primarily near Paris at the Château d’Hérouville.

“The place we record in and the environment is 1,000% important. The DAM trio is an American band recording songs in Europe and importing them back to the USA. That’s a little crazy because we could have been recording at RCA in New York, but that is not going to get you the same thing. It’s like being in a castle where all you do is eat, sleep and think about the music - what a wonderful ploy to use on musicians. At the chateau, man we raided that wine cellar. We were next to the Berlin Wall and all you could do was depend on your mates for camaraderie. It was brilliant on David’s part.”

Side-B of Low would present ‘a new musical language’ while communicating a range of stark emotions, and soothing melancholy. Despite some critical reservations at the time, it is now widely regarded as a masterpiece.

“It changed me,” admits Alomar of working on the record. He was particularly impressed by Brian Eno’s creative method known as Oblique Strategies, where cards would be upturned to reveal various prompts such as: ‘Use an old idea’, or ‘Are there sections? Consider transitions’.

“I was never the same after that. It gave us a different way of thinking outside the box and without the dogma of structure. It’s like on Station to Station we are trying to find texture, the notes have to be selected in such a way that the texture is not disturbed to develop something new.”

Alomar adds that Bowie was undeterred at the thought of releasing music that advanced his avant-garde and experimental ambitions. “He had a solution to that, all the singles were on the A-Side, and his attitude was ‘nobody listens to the B-side’.”