David Johansen died at 75 – American singer
Biography and cause of death of David Johansen
David Johansen American actor, singer, songwriter, and founding member of the groundbreaking proto-punk band the New York Dolls, David Roger Johansen, was born January 9, 1950, and passed away on February 28, 2025. His roles as the Ghost of Christmas Past in Scrooged (1988) and his work under the moniker Buster Poindexter are equally well-known.
David Johansen Earlier years
Helen, Johansen’s mother, was a librarian, and her father, an insurance sales professional with operatic roots, was born in the Staten Island borough of New York City. His Norwegian father and Irish mother were both born in the United States. Among his five siblings, he stood out.
David Johansen Career
On a TopPop TV show in 1973, Johansen was in the middle, and the New York Dolls were performing.
Before joining the proto-punk band the New York Dolls in the early 1970s, Johansen was the lead vocalist of the Staten Island band the Vagabond Missionaries in the late 1960s.
On New Year’s Eve 1972, the Mercer Arts Center hosted a performance by the New York Dolls, who were included on the bill with Ruby and the Rednecks. Too Much Too Soon (1974) and the self-titled New York Dolls (1973) were their albums. Johnny Thunders, the guitarist, and Johansen wrote most of the songs. Despite the Dolls’ devoted fan base and positive reviews from journalists like Lester Bangs, Robert Christgau, and Nick Kent, the album was met with mixed reviews and originally failed to chart.
Jerry Nolan and Johnny Thunders both departed the group in 1975. Until 1976, when Johansen began his solo career, the New York Dolls consisted of Sylvain Sylvain, Peter Jordan, Chris Robison, and Tony Machine. There were a number of classic originals on his first and second solo albums, David Johansen and In Style, respectively.
In August 1978, his self-titled album reached a high of number 91 in Australia. In concert, he and his band would play a plethora of Dolls songs, and Sylvain would often join him onstage. Concert recordings like Live It Up and The David Johansen Group Live attest to Johansen’s status as a world-class performer.
Both Here Comes the Night (which has the hallmark song “Heart of Gold”) and Sweet Revenge, his most recent studio album, highlighted his abilities as a songwriter and featured Big Jay McNeely on jazz sax. South African singer Blondie Chaplin collaborated on a number of tracks on the album Here Comes the Night. While the Who were performing on the East Coast of the United States in 1982, David Johansen opened for them in venues like Shea Stadium and Capital Centre, close to Washington, D.C.
David Johansen The Poindexter Gangster
David Johansen had some commercial success in the late 1980s when he performed jump blues, conventional pop, swing, and novelty tunes with the Uptown Horns under the nickname Buster Poindexter. On Saturday Night Live, he was also a member of the house band. “Hot Hot Hot” was his debut single as Poindexter; he referred to the song’s immense success as “the bane of my life” in a National Public Radio interview for Fresh Air. Originating from Montserratian Soca, “Hot Hot Hot” was originally composed and performed by Arrow.
The Banshees of Blue, the band that Johansen fronted as Poindexter, made frequent appearances.
In the early days of Poindexter, the label released both original compositions by Johansen and a wide variety of cover songs. The next year, Johansen released Buster’s Happy Hour, an album of music with a common theme: alcohol. The next stop was at the salsa and merengue-centric Spanish Rocket Ship, hosted by Buster Poindexter.
David Johansen Acting
In the ’80s and ’90s, Johansen was in a number of films, and in 2000, he had a small part on the HBO drama Oz. In the episode “On Golden Pete” of The Adventures of Pete & Pete, he appeared as a park ranger. He made an appearance on The Jim Henson Hour during the Muppet Television segment. Notable roles include “Looney” alongside Richard Dreyfuss in 1989’s Let It Ride and the character of the wisecracking Ghost of Christmas Past in Bill Murray’s Scrooged (1988).
He was in Mr. Nanny (1993) with Hulk Hogan and Sherman Hemsley, and he was in Car 54, Where Are You? (1994), a film based on the TV series, starring John C. McGinley.
In a motel room, he performs a cover of “Last Kind Words” by Geeshie Wiley for the Jim White documentary Searching for the Wrong Eyed Jesus. Along with Emilio Estevez and Mick Jagger, he was in the 1992 film Freejack in a supporting role. In “The Cat from Hell” from the 1990 anthology film Tales from the Darkside, he portrayed Halston, a hired assassin. A further appearance by him in the 1985 Miami Vice episode “The Dutch Oven” featured his song “King of Babylon” as a guest artist.
In the Bill Murray Netflix special A Very Murray Christmas, Johansen was most recently seen playing the role of a bartender. On the original Teen Titans animated series, Johansen provided the voice for the villain Ding Dong Daddy in the episode “Revved Up” from season 5. In the 1971 film Up Your Legs Forever, which included John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Johansen’s legs were featured. In the 2021 Netflix animated series Centaurworld, he provided the voice for the character Beartaur.
David Johansen Afterwards, working as a solo artist
The 2008 February 18th performance by Johansen in Toronto
David Johansen transitioned to blues music while he was a member of the Harry Smiths. The band’s name is a nod to Harry Everett Smith, the man responsible for compiling the Anthology of American Folk Music, from which they performed cover versions of many tunes. With the Harry Smiths, Johansen has released Shaker, their second studio album.
Johansen reconnected with New York Dolls members Sylvain Sylvain and Arthur Kane in 2004. In 2006, the New York Dolls released their first album in over 30 years, One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This, thanks to the success of their tour. Album of the year, according to reviewer Robert Christgau. Dancing Backward in High Heels (2011) and Cause I Sez So (2009) were the band’s albums.
David Johansen’s Mansion of Fun was a weekly program that Johansen aired on Sirius Satellite Radio. He also continued to compose and perform. The program is varied and free-form, featuring music from various musical genres such as the jungles of Africa, the Bayou of Louisiana, Duke Ellington, Phil Spector, and Billy Joe Shaver. The program began airing on The Loft, channel 710 (stream-only), in January 2020.
As a resident of Staten Island, David Johansen was one of three artists showcased in “The Staten Island Composers Project” in October 2007. The other two were Vernon Reid, who founded the 80s rock-metal pioneers Living Colour, and Galt MacDermot, who is most famous for composing the musical Hair.
The event was commissioned by the Staten Island Council on the Arts and Humanities, who requested that each artist compose a musical composition of twenty minutes that would reflect his relationship to the often-overlooked borough of New York City. “Mara Dreams the Moon Gate of Uncommon Beauty” is Johansen’s magnum work, an ardently passionate adagio mostly for strings that is both dramatic and unashamedly sentimental.
Modeled after the circular entranceway connecting two rock formations in the Chinese Scholar’s Garden of the Staten Island Botanic Garden, “The Moon Gate of Uncommon Beauty” served as inspiration. He went on a tour of Staten Island with the presenter of the Travel Channel show Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations in September 2009.
In addition to his solo work, Johansen has been a featured artist on many albums, including those by legendary blues musician Hubert Sumlin and the soundtracks of the films Times Square and The Aviator, where he sang “Flowers in the City” and “Ain’t Cha Glad,” respectively. The 1984 compilation A Diamond Hidden in the Mouth of a Corpse features another non-album track of his, “Johnsonius.”
On the other hand, there’s “The Rope (The Let Go Song)”—a track that was originally recorded during the sessions for his eponymous first album and released as the B-side of the single, “Funky But Chic,” which was performed by the original New York Dolls before they broke up.
David Johansen, a musician known for his variety and artistic instability, has always been a blues fan. The dolls’ early singles included renditions of Bo Diddley and Sonny Boy Williamson. In addition to covers of songs by Otis Redding, Gary U.S. Bonds, Chuck Berry, The Shangri-Las, and Muddy Waters, the 2006 Dolls CD Private World:
The Complete Early Studio Demos 1972/3 included original compositions by the Dolls as well as covers of songs from their two albums on Mercury. An unreleased Dolls song titled “Endless Party” was also included on the album.
Consistently, Johansen collaborated with Sylvain Sylvain, drummer Tony Machine (formerly of Leber & Krebs, a member of the New York Dolls from 1975 to 1976, a mainstay in numerous David Johansen bands and during Buster Poindexter’s heyday), and guitarist and banjo player Brian Koonin (also of Buster Poindexter and the Harry Smiths, a keyboard player for the New York Dolls’ first reunion gig and the One Day It Will Please Us To Remember Even This CD and tour).
“Sinking Ship” by Gypsy was covered by Johansen and published in September 2020.
The news that Martin Scorsese would helm a new Johansen feature film was revealed on July 7, 2020, by Showtime Documentary Films. April 14, 2023, was the premiere date of the Showtime documentary Personality Crisis: One Night Only. The film was co-produced by Scorsese and his regular collaborator David Tedeschi, and Scorsese was interviewed by MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough with Johansen on the project.
David Johansen: Death and one’s own life
Within a year of their 1977 wedding, Johansen filed for divorce from actress Cyrinda Foxe. Johansen married photographer Kate Simon from 1983 till 2011. Mara Hennessey, an artist, was Johansen’s bride in 2013.
After receiving a diagnosis of brain tumor and stage four cancer in 2020, Johansen’s musical career came to a close. Surgery was necessary when he fell in November 2024 and fractured his back in two places. On February 10, 2025, his stepdaughter started a campaign to assist with his medical expenses.
At the age of 75, David Johansen passed away on February 28, 2025, at his home on Staten Island, as a result of cancer.