Death of David Johansen, last doll of the New York Dolls sound – Liberation
He was the voice of a group that opened the way, that of the glam and then of the punk rock. David Johansen, the New York Dolls singer, died on Friday, February 28, informs the New York Times. He died at the age of 75 his home in Staten Island. He revealed last month to suffer from phase 4 cancer and notably suffered from a brain tumor. « I have never been the type to ask for help, but it's an emergency »he said by launching a crowdfunding campaign intended to cope with his medical expenses.
If he tried to many musical genres, David Johansen had a major impact on the history of rock by holding the microphone of the New York Dolls from 1972 to 1977. Founded, as its name suggests, in the metropolis of the East American Coast, the group was distinguished by its saturated electric guitars and its extravagant look, taking up the codes of the travesty. Soundtracks and boys with a fishy base. The influence is immense, starting with that on English punk. Would we have had the sex pistols without the New York Dolls? Among their most famous admirers: the young Morrissey, Who created the group's British fan club before founding The Smiths.
After the Dolls, David Johansen had a solo career. In his own name at the turn of the 1970s and 1980s then under the pseudo of Buster Poindexter, with whom he will have his great success in 1987, with a kitsch cover of the song HOT HOT HOT from Alphonsus Cassell. A year later, his friendship with actor Bill Murray leads him to play in comedy Ghosts in celebrationwhere he camps a spectrum driving a taxi. This is his most important role in an otherwise prolific acting career.
David Johansen was also at the center of the documentary Personality Crisis: One Night Only, Made in 2023 by Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi and centered on a Buster Poindexter show. After the dead of Johnny Thunders in 1991, Jerry Nolan in 1992, Arthur Kane in 2004 and Sylvain Sylvain In 2021, David Johansen was the last still alive member of the Hard core of the New York Dolls, the one who appeared on the emblematic cover of the album New York Dolls from 1973.
