David Roger Johansen
(born January 9 1950) is an American rock, protopunk, blues and pop singer, as well as a songwriter and actor. He was a member of the seminal protopunk band The New York Dolls and also achieved commercial success under the pseudonym Buster Poindexter
.
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BUSTER POINDEXTER TICKETS
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Early life
Johansen was born in the New York City borough of
Staten Island,
New York, to a librarian mother and an insurance sales representative father.
[1] Johansen's family was
Catholic; his mother was
Irish American and his father
Norwegian American.
[2] 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. Johansen became an iconic musician in the early period of punk rock, creating a new style that anticipated and helped inspire the punk 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 attributed to their being ahead of their time.
Drugs played a role in the departure of Thunders and drummer
Jerry Nolan from the band in 1975. Bass player
Arthur Kane also departed at around this time. Johansen and
Sylvain Sylvain hired new musicians and continued under the name New York Dolls for a short time, disbanding the group on their return from a tour of Japan in August 1975. 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 a signature number, "Heart of Gold") and
Sweet Revenge
again showcased his strengths as a writer of new material and featured a guest appearance by jazz saxophone player Big Jay McNeely. A number of the songs on "Here Comes the Night" were co-written with South African musician Blondie Chaplin, who also played guitar and provided background vocals for the album (and who has performed with a number of prominent groups, including the Beach Boys, the Band, and, for the past 10 years, the Rolling Stones).
In the late 1980s, Johansen achieved a commercial breakthrough under the pseudonym
Buster Poindexter
, accompanied by The
Uptown Horns, 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 "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. The initial Poindexter releases combined an eclectic selection of cover versions with compositions of Johansen's own. Johansen/Poindexter went on to issue
Buster Poindexter's Happy Hour
, a CD of songs largely connected with alcohol. Probably his most obviously jazz-influenced release to date, it also leaned towards '50s rock and roll. Following on from that came
Buster Poindexter's Spanish Rocket Ship
, a Latin album.
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 "Last Kind Words" (by
Geeshie Wiley) while in 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 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
One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This
, their first album in nearly thirty years. It was critic Robert Christgau's choice for album of the year.
[3] Johansen hosts a weekly show on
Sirius Satellite Radio while continuing to write and perform.
In October 2007, Johansen participated in “The Staten Island Composers Project,” featuring work by three musicians who call the island home: Mr. 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. Mr. 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 Gardens.
In addition to his own albums, Johansen contributed songs to the soundtracks of the films
Times Square
and
The Aviator
("Flowers of the City" and "Ain't Cha Glad" respectively) and guests on
About Them Shoes
, a CD 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 recorded during the sessions for his eponymous first album but not included on that, surfaced on the 'b' side of the single, "Funky But Chic".
An artist noted for his musical unpredictability, Johansen has been a consistent blues enthusiast since the earliest days of the Dolls, with covers of songs by
Bo Diddley and
Sonny Boy Williamson having been 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 US 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".
During a career that has seen many changes, Johansen nevertheless has worked consistently with certain musicians, including
Sylvain Sylvain, drummer
Tony Machine (a member of one of the later Dolls line-ups 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 reunion gig and CD.
Discography
- 1978 David Johansen
- 1978 The David Johansen Group Live
- 1979 In Style
- 1981 Here Comes the Night
- 1982 Live It Up
- 1984 Sweet Revenge
- 1987 Buster Poindexter
- 1989 Buster Goes Berserk
- 1994 Buster's Happy Hour
- 1997 Buster's Spanish Rocketship
- 2000 David Johansen and the Harry Smiths
- 2002 Shaker
Compilation albums
- Stay Awake: Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films
(1988), as "Buster Poindexter and The Banshees of Soul"
- Stormy Weather: The Music of Harold Arlen
(2003) - "Kickin' the Gong Around"