4 Songs To Celebrate Proto-Punk Icon and New York Dolls Singer, David Johansen

New York Dolls singer David Johansen helped pioneer glam rock and punk in the early 1970s. His band was at the forefront of an emerging scene in New York City that paved the way for Blondie, Ramones, Television, and Talking Heads.

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However, Johansen’s band was also crucial to British punk rock and the formation of the Sex Pistols. Both groups were managed by Malcolm McLaren, who ran London’s SEX boutique with punk and new wave fashion icon Vivienne Westwood.

New York Dolls changed rock and roll, but Johansen didn’t see his greatest commercial success until the late 1980s with his alter ego, Buster Poindexter.

Johansen died on February 28 at his home in Staten Island. He was 75, but his legacy continues, as heard in the songs below.

“Personality Crisis” by New York Dolls

“Personality Crisis” opens the debut album by New York Dolls. The glittery anthem landed in 1973, and though it wasn’t commercially successful, it launched many iconic bands. The record inspired fellow New Yorkers KISS and eventually reached the other side of the country, shaping Mötley Crüe and Guns N’ Roses in Los Angeles. Johansen established a larger-than-life personality with the track’s opening yelps, as well as the band’s then-shocking drag image on the album’s artwork.

“Trash” by New York Dolls

The first single by New York Dolls describes a love story between street kids. Written by David Johansen and guitarist Sylvain Sylvain, “Trash” uses New York City’s mounting garbage as a metaphor for the kids people called lowlifes. Todd Rundgren produced the track, and the gang-like background vocals mimic the voices of New York’s underground youth movement.   

“Jet Boy” by New York Dolls

When Morrissey watched the Dolls tear through “Jet Boy” on BBC2’s The Old Grey Whistle Test, he called it his “first real emotional experience.” The performance so moved The Smiths singer that he became president of the band’s UK fan club. Before taping, Johansen teased host Bob Harris and said he had “bunny teeth.” Harris then dubbed the band “mock rock.”

“Hot Hot Hot” by Buster Poindexter

In the late 1980s, David Johansen reinvented himself and began recording swing and jump blues under the pseudonym Buster Poindexter. He had an MTV hit with a calypso cover, “Hot Hot Hot”, which appears on his self-titled debut. The music video opens with Johansen, dressed as Poindexter, revisiting his history in the New York Dolls. Then he says he’s now into “this really refined and dignified kind of a situation.”

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