David Johansen, New York Dolls frontman with alter ego Buster Poindexter, dies at 75
David Johansen, a punk legend and the last surviving member of the pioneering band the New York Dolls, has died.
Johansen, who was 75, had been living with cancer for nearly a decade and a brain tumor for five years, according to a Sweet Relief Musicians Fund fundraiser.
"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," the family posted on the fundraiser site. "After a decade of profoundly compromised health he died of natural causes at the age of 75."
Johansen's death was confirmed by his stepdaughter, Leah Hennessey, The New York Times and Rolling Stone reported.
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David Johansen: A rock 'n' roll chameleon
The New York Dolls, formed in 1971 and fronted by Johansen, were the forerunners of punk – thus, considered proto-punk pioneers – and glam rock as well, showing the way for bands such as Queen and Kiss.
The band's 1973 self-titled debut – made by Johansen, guitarists Johnny Thunders and Sylvain Sylvain, bass player Arthur 'Killer' Kane, and drummer Jerry Nolan – is one of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
"Produced by Todd Rundgren, songs like 'Personality Crisis' and 'Bad Girl' drip with sleaze and style," reads its entry at No. 301. "Indeed, its hard to imagine the Ramones or the Replacements or a thousand other trash-junky bands without them."
"What the Dolls did to be influential on punk was show that anybody could do it," Johansen is quoted as saying in the entry.
Johansen, who had sung in other bands before joining the New York Dolls, embarked on a solo career in the late '70s after the Dolls' breakup. That led to his 1984 debut of musical persona Buster Poindexter, a lounge singer with a backing band that included horns. The first album yielded the hit single "Hot Hot Hot," a cover of a Caribbean dance song.
His chameleon-like talent allowed him to move from punk to become "an ultrasmooth lounge singer," according to The Rolling Stone History of Rock & Roll.
Johansen also explored country and folk-blues with his band David Johansen and the Harry Smiths (named after the chronicler of the Anthology of American Folk Music), releasing two albums the self-titled 2000 debut and "Shaker" in 2002.
In the '80s, Johansen's acting career led to appearances on "Miami Vice" and "Oz." He also played the Ghost of Christmas Past in "Scrooged," which starred Bill Murray.
The surviving members of the New York Dolls reunited in 2004, touring and making three studio albums, the last, "Dancing Backwards in High Heels" in 2011. It was followed by "Live from the Bowery 2011."
Martin Scorsese chronicled Johansen's life in the 2023 documentary 'Personality Crisis: One Night Only,' co-directed by David Tedeschi.
Johansen said in a statement to Rolling Stone earlier this month that he had broken his back in two different places when he fell down the stairs.
That led the family to work with the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, "due to the increasingly severe financial burden our family is facing," Johansen's daughter, Leah Hennessey, wrote on Feb. 14.
Two weeks later, the family posted about Johansen's death.
"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," the post on the Sweet Relief site said. "He knew he was ecstatically loved."
Music fans and musicians took to social media to pay tribute to Johansen.
Contributing: Taijuan Moorman.
Follow Mike Snider on Threads, Bluesky and X: mikegsnider & @mikegsnider.bsky.social & @mikesnider.
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