Photos courtesy of Carlos Alomar

The story of David Bowie and Carlos Alomar begins in New York. By 1974, the Puerto Rico-born Alomar had become a guitarist in the house band at Harlem's Apollo Theater, playing with James Brown and eventually working as a session musician at RCA. To call Bowie and Alomar musical soulmates seems too fitting. Beginning with Bowie's 1975 "plastic soul" masterpiece Young Americans, Alomar was his rhythm guitarist—he co-wrote "Fame"—and would become his musical director. Their collaborations spanned over 30 years, with Alomar playing on Station to Station and the Berlin trilogy among many other records. We spoke to Alomar this week about their friendship and his hopes of organizing a tribute to Bowie's groundbreaking electronic music.

Pitchfork: What was your favorite album to work on with David?

Carlos Alomar: I have to go back to the very beginning, and that would be Young Americans. In the lead up to Young Americans, David Bowie leaves Spiders from Mars and comes to America and I meet him during production of the Lulu tracks that he was doing at RCA, where I was the house guitarist. I meet him and we hang out, we really hit it off as people.

Then he tells me he wants to do an album. Well, I was already working with the Main Ingredient, so I couldn’t do it. A little while later he calls me back: “I’m doing Diamond Dogs”—but I still can’t do it. Then he calls me back: “I’m going to Philadelphia, I need to do this record [Young Americans], come on.” And I said, “Well, financially I can’t do it”—but he said “no problem.”

So here I am. When I tried to ask people about him, nobody knew anything, but I figured “this sounds interesting, he is really a nice guy.” For Young Americans he wants the real soul singers, he wants the real deal. I married the real deal, Robin Clark. She’s already got all her credits. And my best friend was Luther Vandross, the greatest singer I know. Diane Sumler, Anthony Hinton, Emir Kassan, I got all my friends. And he’s like “bring them along.”

When you're doing an album and your best friend is there, and your wife is there, and all your buddies are there, and boom, first day, we knock out two songs—that's so cool. Although I had a blast doing Brian Eno and the trilogy [1977's Low and Heroes, and 1979's Lodger], which really affected my life, I think the best was Young Americans. I really appreciate the fact that there was always a little something funky about David Bowie, and that little something funky is Carlos Alomar. So that's the album that made David understand “Carlos is cool, Carlos can deliver it,” and we had so much fun. Young Americans will forever live as the springboard to everything else.