David Johansen, singer, frontman and last surviving member of the seminal glam rock/punk band the New York Dolls has died at the age of 75. He passed away at his New York City home on Friday 28th February. Johansen had recently revealed his battle with stage 4 cancer after suffering a brain tumour when the disease had progressed in 2020.
His family have issued the following statement:
“David Johansen passed away peacefully at home, holding the hands of his wife Mara Hennessey and daughter Leah, in the sunlight surrounded by music and flowers. After a decade of profoundly compromised health he died of natural causes at the age of 75. David and his family were deeply moved by the outpouring of love and support they’ve experienced recently as the result of having gone public with their challenges. He was thankful that he had a chance to be in touch with so many friends and family before he passed. He knew he was ecstatically loved. There will be several events celebrating David’s life and artistry, details to follow.”
The first time that many of us here in the UK became aware of David Johansen and the New York Dolls was late one November night in 1973 when we tuned into BBC 2 for our weekly fix of the music television show, The Old Grey Whistle Test. Regular programme presenter Bob Harris could barely contain his disdain as he sneeringly introduced the next act as “mock rock.” It was the New York Dolls. They just tore right into ‘Jet Boy.’ And it was quite shockingly, thrillingly, magnificent.
On that show they also played ‘Looking for a Kiss’, both songs having been taken from the band’s self-titled debut album, released earlier that year and featuring the classic line-up of David Johansen (vocals), Sylvain Sylvian (guitar), Johnny Thunders (lead guitar), Arthur ‘Killer’ Kane (bass), Jerry Nolan (drums).
David Johansen was an incredible frontman, preening, prancing, pioneering, and belting out those classic Dolls’ tunes in all his stack-heeled, teased hair, female clad, made-up glory. He and the Dolls were hugely influential in carving out a pathway from glam rock to punk and then the new wave of heavy metal that emerged in the following decade.
The title of the New York Dolls second album, 1974’s Too Much Too Soon was to be unwittingly prescient. They folded the following year. David Johansen was to later say that “heroin destroyed everything for the Dolls,” with both Thunders and Nolan dying young.
Long-time New York Dolls admirer Morrissey convinced David Johansen and the other surviving members – Sylvian Sylvain and Arthur ‘Killer’ Kane – to reform for the Meltdown Festival in London in 2004.
I caught the New York Dolls at the O2 Festival in Hyde Park, London four years later, by which time only David Johansen and Sylvain Sylvain remained of the line-up that I had first seen on the Old Grey Whistle Test 35 years beforehand. They still kicked up a raucous, raunchy storm and Johansen retained all of his flamboyant charisma. Unlike so many others, he was a bona fide rock star. And, yes, they did play ‘Jet Boy’ and ‘Looking for a Kiss.’ The New York Dolls would release three more albums and continue touring until 2011.
After the demise of the Dolls, David Johansen returned to his solo career performing under the moniker Buster Poindexter, often appearing on the popular American late-night live sketch comedy variety show, Saturday Night Live.
Furthermore, David Johansen recorded music with the Harry Smiths, where he paid tribute to many great blues legends and the renowned folk musicologist of that name. He also had an acting career appearing in both television and films, most notably with Bill Murray in Scrooged (1988) as the Ghost of Christmas Past.
Photos of David Johansen and the New York Dolls at the O2 Festival in Hyde Park, London in 2008: Simon Godley
