Legendary New York Dolls rocker David Johansen has died at age 75.
His stepdaughter Leah Hennessey confirmed the unhappy information, saying the punk icon had handed away Friday at his house on Staten Island.
The New York native revealed simply final month that he was affected by stage 4 most cancers, a mind tumor and a damaged again.
Over the previous few years, Johansen had been unable to carry out as a consequence of his illnesses.
Johansen started singing with the Vagabond Missionaries, an area band on Staten Island, within the Sixties. A decade later he joined the New York Dolls and their self-titled debut album was launched in 1973.
The controversial file cowl featured the 5 male band members clad in wigs, make-up and excessive heels.
Their music — described as “dirty, sleazy and loud” — together with their cross-dressing offended many and their debut album was deemed a business flop, failing to crack the Prime 100 album gross sales charts.
Their follow-up file, 1974’s “Too Much Too Soon” carried out much more poorly, solely reaching 167 on the gross sales charts.
By 1976, the band went their separate methods and Johansen grew to become a solo performer.
The rocker went on to open for The Who throughout their 1982 tour earlier than he rebranded as lounge singer Buster Poindexter. As Poindexter, Johansen carried out with the “Saturday Night Live” band.
Their hit music “Hot Hot Hot” made waves within the late 80s.
Johansen additionally dipped his toe into the performing world.
He first portrayed the Ghost of Christmas Previous within the 1988 comedy “Scrooged” alongside Invoice Murray and Carol Kane.
The rocker additionally starred in 1989’s action-comedy “Let it Ride” and 1993’s “Mr. Nanny” with Hulk Hogan and Sherman Hemsley.
Johansen moreover appeared within the HBO drama “Oz” alongside Christopher Meloni, Dean Winters, Harold Perrineau and J. Okay. Simmons.
In the meantime, within the a long time for the reason that Seventies, the New York Dolls had constructed up a cult following, and critics had come to rethink their albums.
On reflection, the iconoclastic band grew to become emblematic of the grit and dirt of the Massive Apple within the Seventies, their punk songs synonymous with the chaos and societal breakdown of the last decade.
In 2004, the band reunited, releasing three albums and embarking on a tour.
That very same 12 months, Johansen mirrored on his profession throughout an interview on “Fresh Air,” telling host Terry Gross: “When we started the Dolls… we were really such a gang, and it was like us against the world, and we were really trying to evolve music into something new, and it was, you know, very kind of almost militant to us.”
“Then over the years, you know, in the history books, like the ‘Rolling Stone Complete Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll’ or something, you look in the appendix and see where your name is and see what they say about you…. and (it) would always say, ‘They were trashy. They were flashy,’” Johansen continued.
Reflecting on the destructive headlines, he recalled, “‘They were drug addicts. They were drag queens.’ And that whole kind of trashy blah, blah, blah thing over the years kind of settled in my mind as, oh, yeah, that’s what it was, you know? And then by going back to it and deconstructing it, and then putting it back together again, I realized that, you know, it really is art.”
