Everything about David Johansen totally explained
David Johansen (born
January 9 1950, in
Staten Island,
New York) is an
American rock,
punk,
blues and
pop singer, as well as a
songwriter and
actor. He was a member of the punk
band The New York Dolls and also achieved commercial success using the
pseudonym Buster Poindexter.
Life
David Johansen, born on January 19th in 1950, lived a modest life as a young boy in the New York City borough of Staten Island. His father, John Johansen, worked hard as a fisherman, while his mother Barbara tended to young David. David was often spotted dancing naked as a lad, but problems of money would forever limit David's involvement in music. When his father was arrested in the fall of 1967 for smuggling 15 pounds of marijuana into the country, David found solace in the music of MC5 and the hope of one day following in the footsteps of his idol,
Mick Jagger. Little did young David know that he was destined for an extrodinary musical career recording hits like "Personality Crisis" with the
New York Dolls and "Hot Hot Hot" as a solo artist later on. Johansen is was an iconic musician in the early era of punk rock, setting a new style and influening artists-ultimately leading to a new revolution.
Career
Originally influenced by
Mick Jagger and by
Rob Tyner of
MC5, Johansen began his career in the early
1970s as the
singer in the
protopunk band the
New York Dolls. The Dolls only released two albums, their self-titled debut (1973), and "Too Much Too Soon" (1974). The bulk of the material was written by Johansen and
guitarist Johnny Thunders. The Dolls were critics' darlings with a modest cult following, but their failure to break commercially is often put down to their being ahead of their time.
Drugs played a role in Thunders' departure from the band in
1975. After the dissolution of the final Dolls line-up in early
1977, Johansen embarked on a
solo career. His first two
albums,
David Johansen and
In Style, featured several enduring originals. His fellow ex-Doll
Sylvain Sylvain frequently performed with him, and his band covered many Dolls tunes in concert; his live albums
Live It Up and
The David Johansen Group Live document Johansen's reputation as an exceptional concert performer. The studio releases
Here Comes the Night (which includes his signature number "Heart of Gold") and
Sweet Revenge again showcased his strengths as a composer of new material.
In the late
1980s Johansen achieved a commercial breakthrough under the pseudonym
Buster Poindexter, performing a mixture of
jazz,
lounge,
calypso, and novelty songs, and appearing as part of the
house band on the television program
Saturday Night Live. As the artist Buster Poindexter he scored his first
hit song, "
Hot Hot Hot," which in an interview on
National Public Radio's
Fresh Air he referred to as "the bane of my life," owing to its pervasive popularity. "Hot Hot Hot" was initially written and recorded by
Montserratian-
Antiguan Soca Artist
Arrow. As Poindexter, Johansen often appeared with his band The Banshees of Blue.
Johansen acted in several films during the
1980s and
1990s, and had a brief role on the
HBO drama
Oz. He also appeared in the
television series The Adventures of Pete & Pete in the episode "On Golden Pete," in which he played a park ranger. One of his more memorable roles is that of the wisecracking ghost of Christmas past in
Scrooged. He was also in the movie based on the old television series "Car 54, Where Are You?". He can likewise be seen in the
Jim White documentary film Searching for the Wrong Eyed Jesus in which he does a version of "James Alley Blues" (by
Rabbit Brown) from a motel room.
Johansen then turned to the rendition of country blues with his back-up group, The Harry Smiths. The group was named by way of tribute to
Harry Everett Smith, who compiled the
Anthology of American Folk Music; "James Alley Blues" and some of the other songs covered on their eponymously titled debut recording come from the Anthology. Johansen's second album with the Harry Smiths is called
Shaker. He also had a supporting role with Mick Jagger and Emilio Estevez in the movie
Freejack and a supporting role as Looney in the comedy
Let It Ride.
Johansen is currently touring with a re-formed version of the
New York Dolls. Owing to the success of the tour, in 2006 the Dolls released their first album in nearly thirty years. He also hosts a weekly show on
Sirius Satellite Radio.
Discography
Compilation Albums
Stay Awake: Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films, 1988 (one of Various Artists), as "Buster Poindexter and The Banshees of Soul"Further Information
Get more info on 'David Johansen'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://david_johansen.totallyexplained.com">David Johansen Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
