Highly influential and iconic Austin based artist Daniel Johnston,whose fans included some of music’s top names and whose influences were in the realm of outsider and lo-fi sound, has died at the age of 58 has died of a heart attack at 58.according to The Austin Chronicle, who confirmed the news with his former manager.
Johnston who was born in Sacramento on January 22, 1961 and grew up in West Virginia, to Mable and Bill Johnston, who were fundamental Christians who belong to the Church of Christ.He and his family soon moved to New Cumberland, West Virginia, where his father, an engineer and World War II fighter pilot, landed a job with Quaker State, but it was in Austin where he developed a cult following by handing out cassette tapes on the street, and even appeared on MTV in 1985, but it wasn’t until the early ’90s, when Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain started appearing in a T-shirt bearing the cover of Johnston’s “Hi, How Are You?” album that Johnston’s fame took off. However, it was short lived, as Johnston was soon hospitalized for mental health issues. Johnston struggled with mental illnesses throughout his life, and was diagnosed at various points with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and spent time in psychiatric institutions.
Johnston a huge Beatles fan, a primary musical influence, released 17 albums over a period of 30 years that though fragile, delicate, possess a surprising durability. Through sheer dint of his irrepressible
enthusiasm and charmingly simple songcraft and despite dealing with
manic-depression, Johnston became one of the most lauded and popular
outsider musicians of the 20th century and was subsequently revered by artists like Kurt Cobain,
Tom Waits, the Flaming Lips, Sonic Youth, Jad Fair and Yo La Tengo, many of whom
who covered his lo-fi songs that encompassed significant whimsy and great
angst.
Called everything from an eccentric genius to a
childlike loner, Johnston made his bones and his reputation for
oblique, yet touching lyrics, yelping vocals and oddly contagious
melodies with a handful of homemade cassettes, such as "More Songs of
Pain," "Yip/Jump Music," and "Hi, How Are You".
In 2005, Jeff Feuerzeig made a
Sundance-award-winning documentary titled The Devil and Daniel Johnston that focused on Johnston's bipolar disorder and how it led to demonic self-possession and detailed the musician’s experience with his mental health issues.
Starting In 1988, and into the early '90s
during the recording of his first studio produced albums, Johnston's
mental health suffered, and he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. While
heading to a small music festival in Austin in 1990, he suffered a
psychotic episode while his plane was in mid-flight , he actually
removed the key from the ignition leaving the plane's pilot, his dad, to
crash-land the plane. After this episode, Johnston was involuntarily
committed to a mental hospital.
For all his
troubles, however, Johnston maintained a level of artistic excellence
and a signature, fuzzy sound, one that, by 1994 found him releasing
albums such as "Fun" on a major label, Atlantic Records, beating out
Elektra only because potential label mates Metallica were devil
worshipers in his eyes.
Johnston eventually headed back to smaller,
independent labels like Tim/Kerr and Jagjaguwar, better suited to
release his intimate, non-commercial sounds. Yet, Johnston still
maintained a rep as a lo-fi overlord, even releasing a "duets" album of
sorts in 2004, the double-disc "The Late Great Daniel Johnston:
Discovered Covered" where Beck, TV on the Radio, and Death Cab for Cutie
made the most of his scattered songwriting.
In 2017 Johnston
played his last major shows in 2017 backed by musicians who have been
inspired by him throughout the years, such as Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, Built to Spill, Modern Baseball and
The Districts. In a New York Times profile, he denied believing that it
would be his swan song. "Why would it be?" Johnston asked.
As
the Times put it then, "the idea of him quitting the road isn't
unreasonable. He has battled manic depression and schizophrenia most of
his adult life, and in recent years endured multiple physical ailments,
including diabetes, a kidney infection and hydrocephalus, a condition in
which fluid on his brain caused him to frequently lose his balance. In
the last year, his mental health also worsened. ... Mr. Johnston's
psychiatric treatment has required extended stays at inpatient
facilities, and although he now lives with some degree of independence,
he requires considerable assistance."
Although
he had moved closer to Houston, Johnston though was still a revered enough figure in
Austin, in 1993, he painted an iconic mural outside of a now-closed
record shop of his “Jeremiah The Innocent” frog (from the cover of his
1983 album Hi, How Are You) that became a landmark and the city would designate an annual "Hi, How Are You? Day" in
his honor on his birthday.https://www.hihowareyou.org/
The singer released his final album, Space Ducks: Soundtrack in 2012, and a biopic titled, Hi, How Are You Daniel Johnston, starring Johnston as himself was released in 2015. As well as being a prodigious singer-songwriter, Johnston was also an artist and comic book-writer, with his drawing of a happy frog from the cover of his 1983 album, Hi, How Are You, the subject of countless T-shirts and murals. In 2006, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York featured Johnston’s work in a major exhibition.
A true artist of much depth, who despite the personal demons that he battled, managed to release from the darkness, some of the most profoundly moving songs that I have encountered. He wasn't an “outsider” at all, just another precious human being who created brilliant music in-spite of his mental health issues, not because of them. So cheers Daniel Johnston, be at peace, hopefully your songs will continue to inspire people to rise above their limitations to create beauty, the world needs this pulse more than ever..
Daniel Johnston - Some things last a long time
Daniel Johnston - Don't let the Sun go down on your grievances
Daniel Johnston - True Love Will Find You In The End
Daniel Johnston - Like a Monkey In A Zoo
Daniel Johnston - Don't be scared
Story of an Artist - Daniel Johnston
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