Photo Credit: Alyssa Fried
David Johansen, the lead singer and last surviving original member of the New York Dolls, has sadly passed away at 75 years old. He passed away holding hands with his wife, Mara Hennessey and his daughter, Leah, surrounded by flowers, music, and those he loved. The cause of death has been deemed as natural causes after Johansen battled illness for nearly a decade.
Vulture reports that the news of his passing comes after he asked for assistance with medical bills from the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund due to his diagnosis and treatment for Stage 4 cancer, a brain tumor and his broken back. After Johansen’s passing, the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund went on to update his donation page with the following message: “David Johansen passed away peacefully at home, holding the hands of his wife Mara Hennessey and daughter Leah, in the sunlight surrounded by music and flowers.”
To learn more about Johansen’s life, you can check out the documentary done by Martin Scorsese, Personality Crisis: One Night Only. Scorsese himself wrote a tribute to the late musician, “With David Johansen, it started with the music, of course. Actually, with a New York Dolls song, “Personality Crisis.” I heard that song, I can’t remember when or where, and it stayed with me. I listened to it obsessively. The sound was rough, the playing was raw, the voice was wildly theatrical and immediate. And the energy was New York, 100% pure and uncut, right off the streets. After the Dolls broke up, I kept watching and listening to David. He never stopped growing as a songwriter and a singer, always exploring, always staking out new paths. There was the Buster Poindexter alter ego. And the radio show “Mansion of Fun,” which amazed me and which I listened to obsessively. That was when I understood just how wide and deep David’s knowledge of music history was—all of music history, from Debussy to the Cadillacs to Loretta Lynn to the Incredible String Band to Gregorian chants to David’s beloved Maria Callas, all of it mysteriously connected. And then there were the cabaret performances at the Carlyle, which David Tedeschi and I were lucky enough to capture with our film Personality Crisis: One Night Only. As the years went by and David became increasingly fragile, he would always be there for screenings and gatherings, with his beloved Mara and Leah by his side. He would sit quietly, preserve his energy, but he was always fully there, right up to the end. What a remarkable artist. What an amazing man. I was so lucky to have known him. I just wish there had been more time.”
