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Daniel Johnston, a native of West Virginia, died Wednesday at the age of 58 at his home in Waller, Texas.
Over the years, Johnston has become a quasi-hero in the world of music and the arts. The boy who grew up in New Cumberland, West Virginia, made himself known in Austin as an eccentric songwriter and performer, who also sketched images of caricature but surreal characters that would one day at the center of the art exhibitions. He worked at McDonald's or, briefly, at Houston's former amusement park, Astroworld.
Johnston's story can be confusing anywhere and anytime, but he actually left the house, at some point, without knowing it from his family, to become a carnie. And his muse (a woman who probably did not know how much Johnston had loved him until much later in his life) had married the man of death. There was also the infamous incident after Johnston played at the South by Southwest Music Festival. Returning home on a personal plane accompanied by his father, Johnston, a maniac and claiming that he was "Casper, the friendly ghost," shook the controls and made the plane dive. His father was able to execute a relatively safe forced landing, both survivors. The incident landed Johnston in a psychiatric facility against his will for a while.
All these tales are the obvious substance of the rock legend, but what really earned Johnston the cult-hero status is his music. It was simple, but we could not deny that there was something. The tribute albums and cover versions of well-known artists, ranging from Tom Waits to Beck, illustrate songs that are robust, haunting and strangely pop. When we saw Nirvana's Kurt Cobain wearing a t-shirt with the alien / frog drawing from Johnston's album "Hi, how are you?", The notoriety around this mysterious character has grown considerably.
The documentary "The Devil and Daniel Johnston" was greeted by everyone and Johnston came to know something of appreciation and success in his day.
Johnston's family was extremely religious, as was hardly the exception in New Cumberland when he was growing up, and Johnston focused on the questions of paradise, hell and the devil, always with the theme of the good of overcoming. the evil in the end. His severe bipolar disorder, misunderstood by his family or, in fact, by the large medical community that began to show up in the 1980s (when his family emigrated to Texas) limited Johnston's success and notoriety. Daniel Johnston had no way of being a songwriter whose songs would be ordered and paid for by those who, strangely, ended up discovering and interpreting them.
Recently, millions of people have heard John Johnston's voice in a harsh voice and a detuned piano with a lot of static in the background when his song "The Story of an Artist" plays on an advertisement for a laptop . There is a rich irony in this, since Johnston himself has rarely explored a title more advanced than a tape recorder with the "Record" button pressed. The song looks to be retro, but that 's the real article, recorded in a parent' s garage around 1982.
Although others still claim it, there is something in Johnston's story that is very revealing of his original state. Daniel Johnston had no other way of doing what he did and becoming what he became, on his own. His life was plagued by mental health problems, the constraints of his education and his general inability to function in the usual ways of everyday life. But it's also what has fueled his genius, perseverance and prolific production, whether it's strips stored in a basement or sketches exhibited and sold in art galleries. Daniel Johnston was an artist and the artists, like mountaineers, are always free.
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