“When David Bowie and John Lennon came in, the whole place stopped. I stopped recording – and then it was just us”: Carlos Alomar recalls playing guitar on Fame with two rock icons – and why he turned down dinner with a Beatle

Carlos Alomar says he turned down dinner and drinks with David Bowie and John Lennon in order to dedicate himself to working on the guitar parts for their collaborative track, Fame.

Speaking to Guitar World, Alomar says he was in the studio already with Bowie’s Young Americans producer Harry Maslin when Bowie walked in with John Lennon.

“When they came in, the whole place kind of stopped,” recalls Alomar. “I stopped recording – and then it was just us. David let John hear the track I was working on – but I must say, although he listened, he and David were still totally engaged and the laughter never stopped.”

Alomar’s impression of Lennon as a person and a guitar player was positive – and he notes that, regardless of the concept of the track, there were no egos at play, musically.

“I really liked him. He was approachable, not a hard character at all,” says Alomar. “He laid down a simple guitar part. He was accommodating and didn’t try to disturb the groove at all.”

Despite the good vibes, though, Alomar says the session left him having to make a tough decision.

“David asked me if I wanted to go out to dinner with them!” explains the guitarist. “[So] I had a big ‘dilemma’ moment.

“I was hearing certain [musical] things in my head, so I didn’t wanna go and start talking to John and David and possibly lose myself in the drinks or their conversation. I decided to exclude myself, return to my guitar parts and finish my ideas.”

While GW can’t promise we would have been so professional, it seems Alomar’s social sacrifice was ultimately the right move, at least in terms of rock history – and probably his future opportunities.

“When they came back, David heard what I did and was so impressed that I had done so much in such a short time,” says Alomar.

“He loved it. He said, ‘Let me just put down this one little guitar part.’ It was a perfect Bowie part… this distorted, one-line guitar that cut through all that funky clarity. With that one part, that was it – the record was done.”

Alomar’s sharp-eared experience cuts a characteristic contrast with that of one of his fellow guitarists on the session.

Indeed, earlier this year, Earl Slick told Guitar World that he was so high during the recording of Young Americans that he had no recollection of meeting John Lennon. A fact Lennon reportedly found hilarious, when Slick introduced himself to the Beatle five years later…

To read Alomar’s full interview, pick up the November 2024 issue of Guitar World over at Magazines Direct.