On the day that the New York Dolls appeared on the BBC music show The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1973, they were openly derided by the host, Bob Harris. “Mock rock,” he opined to camera.
For all his snarling attitude, the band’s singer, David Johansen, who has died aged 75, might well have agreed. The last thing he expected was for his band to be taken seriously. The Dolls took their lead not from the “adult-oriented” rock and earnest singer-songwriters dominating the US album charts, but from the glam rock scene making headway in the UK singles charts. British acts from the Sex Pistols to Morrissey would later repay the compliment, citing the band as a key influence.
Johansen was recruited into the New York Dolls in 1971 after Johnny Thunders stepped back as vocalist to focus on lead guitar. The lineup comprising Johansen, Thunders, Sylvain Sylvain (guitar), Arthur Kane (bass), and Billy Murcia (drums) began to pick up small-time gigs around New York City.
However, their androgynous-hoodlum look was more in vogue in Britain – where David Bowie and Marc Bolan had paved the way – than it was in the US, and in 1972 they were invited to support Rod Stewart and the Faces for a benefit concert at the Empire Pool, Wembley (later renamed the Wembley Arena). A young Steve Jones, future guitarist with the Sex Pistols, was in the audience, and would later say the Dolls’ shambolic set was a huge inspiration.
But the tour turned into a nightmare when Murcia drowned in a bath at a party while under the influence of alcohol and methaqualone. The band cancelled the rest of their British gigs and returned to the US.
Back in New York, Jerry Nolan replaced Murcia on drums and in 1973 the band were signed to Mercury Records. The eponymous debut album was produced by the singer and musician Todd Rundgren and featured Lonely Planet Boy, an atypically low-key and poignant number written by Johansen, and Vietnamese Baby, in which Johansen played against his hedonistic image by attempting a sincere political statement.
The album cover, however, could not have looked more decadent. Johansen later said that he wanted to look like the French actress Simone Signoret. Music critics loved the record, but sales did not match the hype. A second album, Too Much Too Soon (1974), again proved a succès d’estime, which was not what the record company wanted, and the band was dropped, only to be taken under the wing of another Brit, Malcolm McLaren.
The first meeting between Johansen and McLaren and his then partner, Vivienne Westwood, took place at a fashion fair in New York in autumn 1973, when the pair were on a visit to scout clothing for their London shop. Now McLaren was back in New York looking for opportunities in rock management.
He put down the money to rent a rehearsal space on 23rd Street in Manhattan, while Westwood set about remodelling the band’s image complete with zip-festooned red leather and striking vinyl outfits. McLaren draped the band’s stage in the communist flag and put out a press release stating: “What are the politics of boredom? Better red than dead!”
Johansen later claimed the inspiration came from a song he co-wrote with Sylvain, Red Patent Leather. “That wasn’t Malcolm’s idea, that was our idea,” he said.
Whoever was responsible, the stunt backfired. Audiences were not so much outraged as merely turned off. Even die-hard fans walked out of the band’s New York shows. The Dolls struggled on playing tiny venues for small fees in various permutations until fizzling out, while McLaren returned to London, putting his talent for provocation to use with the Sex Pistols.
While the early adopters of the burgeoning punk scene in New York and London sang the praises of the Dolls, Johansen sought more mainstream acceptance. His first, eponymous solo album was voted 10th best album of 1978 – sandwiched between the Cars and Warren Zevon – by the Village Voice. A follow-up, In Style (1979), featured synthesizers and horns, further distancing the singer from his punk audience.
His self-produced album The David Johansen Group Live was recorded in 1978 as a promotional exercise and given a wider release in CD format in 1993.
Johansen achieved his only significant solo chart success in 1988, when a cover version of Hot Hot Hot, performed in his lounge singer persona, Buster Poindexter, reached No 11 on the Billboard chart. It made little impact in the UK, where the original Arrow version remains the most recognised, but in true contrarian style, Johansen said the success of the track was the bane of his life.
In 2000, he turned to a blues-influenced sound with The Harry Smiths, named in tribute to the compiler of the Anthology of American Folk Music.
In 2004, Morrissey, who had, as a teenager, organised the British arm of the New York Dolls fan club, invited the three surviving band members – Johansen, Sylvain and Kane – to London to perform at the Meltdown festival at the Southbank Centre. The show was well received but Kane died from leukemia weeks later. Johansen and Sylvain, augmented by a rotating lineup of guest musicians, went on to play live dates internationally over the next seven years.
The Dolls released three further albums – One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This (2006), Cause I Sez So (2009), and Dancing Backwards in High Heels (2011) – to much critical acclaim, and played their final gig at the Clyde Auditorium in Glasgow, supporting Alice Cooper, in 2011.
Born in Staten Island, New York, David was the son of Helen (nee Cullen), a librarian, and Gunvold Johansen, an insurance salesman, and attended Port Richmond high school. His singing career began in two local bands, the Vagabond Missionaries and the Electric Japs, before being recruited by the Dolls.
Alongside his musical career, Johansen had a number of acting roles, including an appearance as the Ghost of Christmas Past opposite Bill Murray in Scrooged (1988) and alongside Hulk Hogan in Mr Nanny (1993). Personality Crisis: One Night Only (2023), a documentary featuring his performance as Buster Poindexter at the Cafe Carlyle in Manhattan, was directed by Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi.
Johansen’s first two marriages, to the actor Cyrinda Foxe in 1977, then to the photographer and writer Kate Simon in 1983, ended in divorce. In 2013 he married Mara Hennessey.
He had been living with cancer and been confined to bed since breaking his back last November. He is survived by Mara and her daughter, Leah.
• David Roger Johansen, singer, musician and actor, born 9 January 1950; died 28 February 2025
