Singer of the New York Dolls Glam-punk legend David Johansen is dead
"If you're an artist, the main thing you want to do is inspire people," Johansen once said. The musician has undeniably succeeded in this.
01.03.2025, 18:31
02.03.2025, 06:35
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- David Johansen is dead.
- The singer of the glam-punk band New York Dolls died on Friday at his home in New York at the age of 75.
- Earlier this year, it was announced that the singer was suffering from stage four cancer and a brain tumor.
David Johansen, the singer of the glam-punk band New York Dolls, has died. The man with the raspy voice, who also performed under the pseudonym Buster Poindexter, died on Friday at his home in New York, as the music magazine "Rolling Stone" reported, citing a family spokesman. Earlier this year, it was announced that the singer was suffering from stage four cancer and a brain tumor. He was 75 years old.
His death marks the last member of the New York Dolls, who were pioneers of punk and whose appearance - tousled hair, women's dresses and lots of make-up - inspired the glam movement, which gained a foothold in heavy metal a decade later with bands such as Faster Pussycat and Mötley Crüe. "When you're an artist, you want to inspire people more than anything, and when you're successful at that, it's pretty satisfying," Johansen told the Knoxville News-Sentinel newspaper in 2011.
"The mutant children of the hydrogen age"
Rolling Stone once described the New York Dolls, who were founded in 1971 and disbanded in 1977, as "the mutant children of the hydrogen age". Vogue called them the "darlings of the downtown style, swaggering crooks in boas and high heels".
However, the band never enjoyed great commercial success. And it was torn apart by internal quarrels and addiction problems. In 2004, former Smiths frontman and Dolls admirer Morrissey persuaded Johansen and other band members still alive at the time to reconcile for the Metdown Festival in England - resulting in three more studio albums.
Johansen was also the subject of a documentary by Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi in 2023. The film "Personality Crisis: One Night Only" mixed footage of his two-day intermezzo at Café Carlyle in January 2020 with flashbacks to his illustrious career and intimate interviews. Johansen is survived by his wife Mara Hennessey and stepdaughter Leah Hennessey.