David Bowie was always creatively restless. The English musician decided to step away from the glam rock he’d recorded for a few albums concluding with 1974’s Diamond Dogs, which included a few songs with tinges of soul, R&B, and funk. On tour promoting the album, he played a handful of soul covers.
Bowie had long been a fan of soul music and was listening to more of it. For what would be his ninth studio album, he wanted to show that influence. Young Americans – with the #1 hit “Fame” with special guest John Lennon – was the result, but getting there required several steps.
Bowie wanted to use Mother Father Sister Brother (MFSB), the conglomerate of 30-plus session musicians based at Philadelphia’s Sigma Sound Studios. MFSB had recently topped the Billboard singles chart with “TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia),” the theme of the television show “Soul Train.”
Guitarist Carlos Alomar, who had toured with James Brown and the Main Ingredient, recorded with Bowie on Young Americans then went on to play on 10 more albums with him, told Vintage Guitar how they met and ultimately began working on the album at Sigma Sound. Young Americans – recently remastered for a vinyl reissue for its 50th anniversary – was recorded mostly live in the studio in about two weeks. A few musicians were retained from the Diamond Dogs touring band.
“What we had was two completely different groups,” Alomar said. “I got together with David before that because he was producing Lulu. So, I was able to hang out with him and invite him to the Apollo Theater to see me perform with the Main Ingredient. David already came in with (background vocalists) Ava Cherry and Geoff MacCormack, or Warren Peace, as he was known then. So, they had their little contingency there.
“David wanted the Philly sound, but he told me, ‘If you want to change the sound, change the band.’ It made all the sense in the world. You want soul music, you get a whole band. But [MFSB] basically said, ‘Screw you, mister. We don’t know who the hell you are.’ That’s when he finally said, ‘Carlos, I can’t get them. I want to go to Philly.’ I said, ‘Oh, I got some people.’ That’s when we got into the studio, and that’s when it actually all started.”
The core musicians on Young Americans were Bowie on lead vocals, guitar, and keyboards, Alomar on guitar, and Cherry on background vocals. Others at various times included pianist Mike Garson, saxophonist David Sanborn, guitarist Earl Slick, bassists Willie Weeks and Amir Kassam, drummers Andy Newmark and Dennis Davis, along with background vocalists Robin Clark (Alomar’s wife) and Luther Vandross; Alomar and Vandross had previously worked together.
Though Bowie’s blue-eyed soul paid tribute to Black American music, he self-deprecatingly coined the term “plastic soul” to describe the sound of Young Americans, implying he didn’t believe he could authentically play it as a white Englishman.
“Let’s put two things together – intellect and the ability to promote yourself,” Alomar said. “I mean, those are David Bowie qualities, aren’t they? Once you started thinking about the code words he was using, you realized he used them specifically because he knows they are a brand. Even now, 50 years later, we’re talking about ‘plastic soul.’
“It is true that in morphing something into your own, you cannot label it as such because you can kill the messenger, and publicity-wise, that would kill it. So, to humbly create a word that indicates your intent… I think it makes all the sense in the world: ‘I am not really black, so I can’t really say I’m going to do soul music. But if I call it “plastic soul,” although they might laugh in their hand, they won’t reject it.’ I think it was very clever.”
The R&B-drenched title track features the background vocalists.
“We started off ‘Young Americans’ with a few takes, but Mike Garson changed the feel and went into that Latin kind of feel. Once that happened, the fluidity of the song really took on a life of its own,” Alomar said. “There were no background vocals at that time. While we were sitting in the console room, David overheard Luther and Robin playing around with background parts, and one of them was that booming, ‘All right!’ Man, the minute he heard that, he was like, ‘Excuse me, love. Will you do that again? Would you mind doing that on the mic? That’s wonderful.’ That was it.”
The outer-space funk rocker “Fame” and cover of the Beatles’ “Across the Universe” were recorded at Electric Lady Studios, in New York City. “Fame” was co-written by Bowie, Alomar, and Lennon (who added backing vocals and acoustic guitar) and became Bowie’s first U.S. #1 single.
“The origins of ‘Fame,’ for me, was when I was with the Main Ingredient, which had a song called ‘You Can Call Me Rover,’” Alomar recalled. “It had this beat that was done by either the horn section or the string section. It wasn’t a predominant part, but it made the song for me.
“I had a mentor, George Stubbs, and he introduced me to the Reuben Phillips Orchestra, at the Apollo Theater. I had another influence – a wonderful guitarist named Buzzy Feiten, who I met when Robin was working with his band, and he was very funky. All of these influences led me to create this part. When I started revisiting that little Main Ingredient lick I’d created, I found myself doing (the Flares’) ‘Foot Stomping,’ which is a blues song. It doesn’t really go anywhere. So I decided, ‘Let me funk it up a little bit with that line.’”
Among Alomar’s favorite tracks are outtakes including “Who Can I Be Now?” and “It’s Gonna Be Me.” They were eventually released, and he calls them the “height of [Bowie’s] soulful expression.”
Alomar’s gear was simple on Young Americans – a Gibson ES-335, Fender Twin Reverb, and a wah pedal.
“The sound of the middle switch position of the Gibson is what you wanted to cut through the room,” he said.
Alomar will honor Bowie and Davis (both of whom died in 2016 at 69 and 64, respectively) by playing a European tour this summer with bassist George Murray; they and Davis made up Bowie’s rhythm section from 1975 to ’80. Dubbed the D.A.M. Trilogy Back to Berlin tour, it will include songs from Bowie’s “Berlin albums” trilogy – Low, “Heroes,” and Lodger.
This article originally appeared in VG’s May 2025 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
