David Johansen

 ( 1950 Births ) 

In 2004, Johansen reunited with Sylvain Sylvain and Arthur Kane of the New York Dolls. Owing to the success of the tour, in 2006 the New York Dolls released One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This, their first album in nearly 30 years. It was critic Robert Christgau's choice for album of the year. In 2009 the band released Cause I Sez So and in 2011 Dancing Backward in High Heels.AV review [1]

Johansen hosted a weekly show, David Johansen's Mansion of Fun, on Sirius Satellite Radio while continuing to write and perform. Featuring music "from the jungles of Africa to the Bayou of Louisiana and from Duke Ellington to Phil Spector to Billy Joe Shaver, the show was all over the musical map", the show is free-form and eclectic. , the show aired on channel 710 (stream-only), The Loft.

In October 2007, Johansen participated in "The Staten Island Composers Project", featuring work by three musicians who call the island home: Johansen; Vernon Reid, founder of the '80s rock-metal pioneers Living Colour, and Galt MacDermot, best known as the composer of the musical Hair. The Council on the Arts and Humanities for Staten Island commissioned the program and asked each artist to write 20 minutes of music conveying something of his connection to the island often referred to as New York City's forgotten borough. Johansen's opus, a cinematic and unabashedly romantic Adagio scored mostly for strings, is called "Mara Dreams the Moon Gate of Uncommon Beauty". Inspired by "The Moon Gate of Uncommon Beauty", a round portal between two rockscapes in the Chinese Scholar's Garden at the Staten Island Botanical Garden. In September 2009, he appeared on , the Travel Channel television program, in which he toured Staten Island with the program's host.

In addition to his own albums, Johansen contributed songs to the soundtracks of the films Times Square and The Aviator ("Flowers in the City" and "Ain't Cha Glad" respectively) and guests on About Them Shoes, a Compact disc by veteran blues man Hubert Sumlin. Another non-album track of his, "Johnsonius", appears on the 1984 compilation A Diamond Hidden in the Mouth of a Corpse and "The Rope (The Let Go Song)", a track originally recorded during the sessions for his eponymous first album and published on the B-side of the single, "Funky But Chic", a song that was performed by the original New York Dolls before their break up.

An artist noted for his musical unpredictability and versatility, Johansen was a consistent blues enthusiast since the earliest days of the Dolls, with covers of songs by Bo Diddley and Sonny Boy Williamson among their earliest numbers. The 2006 Dolls CD Private World : The Complete Early Studio Demos 1972/3 featured the Dolls performing songs by Otis Redding, Gary U.S. Bonds, Chuck Berry, The Shangri-Las, and Muddy Waters, in addition to versions of songs from their two Mercury albums. Also featured on the CD was a previously unreleased Dolls number, "Endless Party".

Johansen worked consistently with Sylvain Sylvain, drummer Tony Machine – formerly an agent who worked for Leber & Krebs, a member of the New York Dolls in 1975–1976 and a fixture in many David Johansen groups and throughout the Buster Poindexter period – and Brian Koonin, guitarist and banjo player with Buster Poindexter and the Harry Smiths as well as keyboard player with the New York Dolls for the first reunion engagement and the One Day It Will Please Us To Remember Even This CD and tour.

In September 2020, Johansen released a cover of "Sinking Ship" by Gypsy.

On July 7, 2020, Showtime Documentary Films announced that filmmaker Martin Scorsese would direct a new feature film on Johansen. The Showtime documentary, Personality Crisis: One Night Only, was released on April 14, 2023. 11 Big Reveals From Scorsese's David Johansen Doc 'Personality Crisis', Rolling Stone, Kory Grow, April 14, 2023. Retrieved April 15, 2023. Scorsese was joined in the making of the film by his frequent co-director David Tedeschi, and, with Johansen, Scorsese was interviewed about the film by MSNBC host Joe Scarborough. New York Dolls legend David Johansen on his life and legacy, Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough, April 14, 2023. Retrieved April 25, 2023.

Johansen was diagnosed with stage four cancer and a brain tumor in 2020, leading to him retiring from performing as a live musician. He fell and broke his back in two places in November 2024 and required surgery. His step-daughter launched a fundraiser to help with his treatment on February 10, 2025.

David Johansen died from cancer at his Staten Island home on February 28, 2025, at the age of 75.

• 1987: Buster Poindexter US: No. 40
• 1989: Buster Goes Berserk
• 1994: Buster's Happy Hour
• 1997: Buster's Spanish Rocketship

• 2000: David Johansen and the Harry Smiths
• 2002: Shaker

• 1979–1990: The Uncle Floyd Show multiple performances as The David Johansen Group or David Johansen and the Banshees of Blue (himself)
• 1989: Disney MGM Studios Opening special (Performer)
• 2015: Netflix A Very Murray Christmas (Himself)

• (1988), as "Buster Poindexter and The Banshees of Soul"
• September Songs — The Music of Kurt Weill (1994/1997) — "Alabama Song"
• (2003) — "Kickin' the Gong Around"
• Jim White Presents Music From Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus (2005) — "The Last Kind Words", with Larry Saltzman (Geeshie Wiley cover)
• AngelHeaded Hipster: The Songs of Marc Bolan & T-Rex (2020) — "Bang a Gong (Get it On)"

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• Morrissey – The New York Dolls, Babylon Books, Manchester, 1981

• New York Dolls Homepage
• David Johansen Resource
• at AllMusic
• at AllMusic