CARLOS ALOMAR

The former David Bowie guitarist talks Young Americans, Station to Station and the Berlin Trilogy, plus recording (and co-writing) "Fame" with John Lennon

- Andrew Daly

BY THE DAWN of the Seventies, though he was only 19, Carlos Alomar, a Puerto Rican-born New York citizen and son of a strict Pentecostal minister, had made a lifetime’s worth of memories. Not only had he regularly dominated the stage at Harlem’s Apollo Theater, but he’d backed Chuck Berry and James Brown and even served as the house band for Sesame Street’s first few episodes before moving on to session work for RCA Studios, which was booming by 1970.

Soon, Alomar joined the Main Ingredient, an NYC-based soul and R&B group that had a hit with “Everybody Plays the Fool,” which bolstered Alomar’s cachet, as did a notable guest spot with Ben E. King on Supernatural. And while all that was wonderful, none held a candle to what was next — a gig beside David Bowie as he entered his most experimental period.

The connection between Bowie and Alomar — who’d soon become the former’s musical director — was immediate. Their backgrounds couldn’t have been more different, and their inherent sensibilities were far-spaced, too. But it worked, as evidenced by 1975’s Young Americans.

However, the next album — 1976’s Station to Station — was truly special; it was the inaugural album featuring the D.A.M. Trio. “As far as the D.A.M. Trio goes,” Alomar says, “you had me on guitar, Dennis Davis on drums and George Murray on bass. We had a tight, cohesive sound. It underpinned much of David’s music during that era. We were a crucial part of his transition through different musical phases. And this fact is also undeniable: the D.A.M. Trio’s legacy equals, if not surpasses, that of the Spiders from Mars.”

That’s a weighty claim. But then again, listening back to Station to Station and the iconic — and highly experimental — records that came next (1977’s Low and “Heroes” and 1979’s