David Johansen, singer of the New York Dolls and glam-rock legend, has died

Ci ha lasciato David Johansen, frontman e ultimo membro superstite dei New York Dolls, una delle leggende del glam-rock. Johansen si è spento venerdì all’età di 75 anni. La notizia è stata confermata da un portavoce, che ha rilasciato questa dichiarazione a Rolling Stone Usa: “David Johansen è morto venerdì pomeriggio nella sua casa di New York City, tenendo per mano sua moglie Mara Hennessey e sua figlia Leah, circondato da musica, fiori e amore. Aveva 75 anni ed è deceduto per cause naturali dopo quasi un decennio di malattia”.

Nel febbraio 2025, il cantante aveva rivelato di essere affetto da un tumore al cervello al quarto stadio e, a complicare ulteriormente la sua condizione, una frattura alla schiena lo aveva immobilizzato a letto.

La carriera

Johansen aveva iniziato il suo percorso musicale nel 1971, quando si unì ai chitarristi Johnny Thunders e Sylvain Sylvain, al bassista Arthur “Killer” Kane e al batterista Billy Murcia per formare i New York Dolls. Con il loro omonimo album di debutto del 1973, prodotto da Todd Rundgren, la band divenne una delle esperienze più influenti della scena pre-punk. L’anno successivo uscì il loro secondo disco, “Too Much Too Soon” (1974). Johansen fu la mente creativa dietro brani divenuti storici come “Personality Crisis”, “Looking For A Kiss”, “Jet Boy” e “Vietnamese Baby”.

Dopo lo scioglimento della band nel 1976, Johansen intraprese una carriera solista, sperimentando diversi progetti musicali, fino a raggiungere il successo nel 1987 con l’alter ego Buster Poindexter e la hit “Hot Hot Hot”.

Parallelamente alla musica, Johansen si dedicò anche alla recitazione, apparendo in numerosi film e serie-tv tra gli the Eighties e Duemila. Nel 2020, il suo concerto al Café Carlyle di New York, un intimo locale dell’Upper East Side, fu ripreso dai registi Martin Scorsese e David Tedeschi e divenne il fulcro del documentario “Personality Crisis: One Night Only” (2022). Il film racconta la vita e la carriera di Johansen, intrecciando la sua musica con la storia culturale di New York. Un artista eclettico, dunque, capace di reinventarsi e lasciare un segno indelebile nella storia del rock.

Il debutto

New York, 1971. Everything is set for rock'n'roll's first great con job. All the precedents are already there, waiting to be sent into orbit once and for all: the alienated apathy of the Velvet Underground and the pure exploration of the great suburban underground era, the sex-obsessed depravities of the Stooges and the dynamite jolts of MC5, the lascivious rage of the Rolling Stones, the Martian-feminine moves of David Bowie, the brazenness of Marc Bolan. The protagonists of this extraordinary act are just as ready to turn all of it into a sum greater than its parts, one that will forever be etched into the annals of popular music.

First a half-baked idea between a couple of college buddies, Billy Murcia and Sylvain Sylvain, then a tangled, cursed (and even tragic) revolving door of characters and musicians, the band — which took its name from one of New York's first "doll hospitals" — eventually coalesced around Johnny Thunders, initially a clumsy, half-hearted bassist who then became (thanks to some technical and behavioural coaching from Sylvain) a ferocious, Hendrix-esque lead guitarist. Then there was David Johansen, a singer who stuffed his vowels with amphetamines and crumpled up his consonants with over-the-top emphasis; and the machine-gun rhythm section, bassist "Killer" Kane and new drummer Jerry Nolan, who replaced the "cursed" Billy Murcia. These, ladies and gentlemen, were the first, legendary New York Dolls.

From their earliest shows and first recordings, the five of them carried themselves like hookers, in boots with vertiginous necklines, platform heels, long dresses somewhere between vamp and underworld diva, heavy lipstick and thick makeup, big teased hair — needless to say, in every colour imaginable — miles removed from any notion of good taste. What set them apart from what came before was their brazenness and the relentless, ambiguous yet utterly explicit fusion of several dimensions at once: lyrics, arrangements, stage poses, raucous enthusiasm, terrifying impetuousness. Glam, barely born and still as it was then understood (promiscuity, androgyny, myth-making, an assortment of clichés), was already in a kind of overdose-level frenzy. But even that wasn't enough: this new name had to be branded for good with a major work that would capture all of it before it was too late.

When, in 1973, the five cross-dressers went into the studio to record their self-titled debut album, they changed the history of rock. Backing them in production was Todd Rundgren in his golden period (one of the many who would take the lesson to heart in years to come), though the band retained ample freedom to perform and shape the material themselves.

What came out of those sessions is genuinely shocking. The finished record throws the most jarring side of hard rock heard up to that point into a blender. What erupts from the grooves has something unsettling about it, as if a discourse had finally been uncovered and brought to completion, as if the source of so much youthful unease had at last been laid bare.

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