Stack-heeled provocateur and obsessive blues scholar. Rock’n’roll puritan and punk revolutionary. A Manhattan institution in a city cleaning itself up around him David Johansen lived many lives in his hometown, all while producing music that shocked, thrilled and delighted in equal measure. In memory of the New York Dolls frontman, who passed away on 28 February, MOJO’s Kris Needs charts his shapeshifting genius in ten essential tracks…
10.
New York Dolls - Frankenstein
(On: Lipstick Killers, 1981)
As 1972’s first demos show, Johansen inhabited the full exaggerated street punk character from the Dolls’ earliest days. Armed with future classics, too: on this undoctored early take of a proto-gothic epic, his vocals are as dramatically arranged and nuanced as on the debut album version.
9.
New York Dolls - Personality Crisis
(On: New York Dolls, 1973)
The debut album and live set opener, Johansen’s lycanthropic holler heralding his grand entry. Vivid glam scene barbs are meticulously arranged into a lyrical portrait of a downtown teeming with the hustlers, the wannabes and the terminally self-obsessed… Welcome to New York.
8.
New York Dolls - Don't Start Me Talkin'
(On: Too Much Too Soon, 1974)
Johansen’s encyclopaedic record collection came in handy when the Dolls’ second album needed more tracks. Four obscure covers included this tear-up through Sonny Boy Williamson’s 1955 single that doubled as a scorching harmonica showcase (later redone with The Harry Smiths).
7.
David Johansen - Frenchette
(On: David Johansen, 1978)
Johansen launched his solo career defiantly without slap and punk attitude, showcasing his powerful singing voice on a hard rock set sprinkled with ballads. He’d turn the latter into an art form, never better than on the album’s majestic, deceptively complex closer Frenchette.
6.
David Johansen - King Of Babylon
(On: Sweet Revenge, 1984)
Dolls diehards were mortified, but Johansen easily plugged into hip-hop, NY’s latest street movement, on his fourth solo album. Battle rapping with gusto over synth bass and electro beats, Johansen performed it in the perfect context in an episode of Miami Vice – at a drug party, on a yacht, in a Mad Hatter hat.
5.
Buster Poindexter - Heart Of Gold
(On: Buster Poindexter, 1987)
A whore’s lament done country-style on 1981’s Here Comes The Night, Johansen in his louche Poindexter persona slowed down Heart Of Gold into an imploring soul ballad. Fully orchestrated for Italian TV, it became one of his best-loved songs.
4.
Buster Poindexter - Nueva Broadway, (They Don't Smoke)
(On: Buster’s Spanish Rocketship, 1997)
As he turned Poindexter into a love boat salsa icon, Johansen still managed to let rip with his protests against NY gentrification: “They don’t smoke, they don’t drink/ They’ve turned this town into a mall and I don’t know what to think.”
3.
David Johansen & The Harry Smiths - Delia
(On: David Johansen And The Harry Smiths, 2000)
Returning to the unadorned music that originally inspired him, the Harry Smiths project mixed exquisite chamber jazz blues covers with his own songs. Bob Dylan loved Johansen’s hugely moving version of a folk revival chestnut he’d included on World Gone Wrong, inspired by teenage African-American Delia Green’s Christmas Day 1900 murder.
2.
New York Dolls - Take A Good Look At My Good Looks
(On: One Day It Will Please Us To Remember Even This, 2006)
His joy in the Dolls’ return drives this highlight from the first reunion album. Classic Brill Building melancholy, with 30 years’ rueful experience: “Close your eyes, take a picture in your mind, I’ll be gone.”
1.
David Johansen - Bang A Gong (Get It On) (Reprise)
(On: Angelheaded Hipster: The Songs of Marc Bolan & T. Rex, 2020)
Johansen audaciously rewires the glam trailblazer’s call-to-arms boogie with Poindexter swing on one of his final released recordings. “It’s such a magical thing, music,” Johansen told MOJO in 2021.
“He could step outside himself and see outrageousness and fun in everything...”
Get the latest issue of MOJO to read MOJO’s tribute to David Johansen in full. Plus! Pulp’s first interview in 23 years, Pink Floyd dug up, Nick Drake unheard, Smokey Robinson reinvents soul, Alison Krauss, Peter Murphy, Small Faces, Billy Nomates, Chip Taylor, Viagra Boys, Hüsker Dü, all back to Billy Idol’s place and more! More info HERE!
Main photo: Getty/Shuttershock