Johnny Thunders

Johnny Thunders was an Italian American rock-n-roll singer, guitarist and songwriter. He was a true genius, all his life went through the logo “live fast, go young”.

Taken from wikipedia.org: Genzale was born July, 15 1952, and raised in Jackson Heights, Queens, NY, in a second generation Italian family. As a boy he played baseball but could not join the Little League as it required the presence of the youth’s father. Under the name “Johnny Volume”, Genzale began performing music at Quintano High School with “Johnny and the Jaywalkers”. In 1968 he started going to the Fillmore East on weekends and later a West Village bar on Bleecker Street, Nobodys. He got a job as a salesclerk at Da Nazz leather shop on Bleecker. It was on Bleecker Street that he met future Dolls Arthur Kane and Billy Murcia. He joined their band, “Actress”, which eventually became the New York Dolls when David Johannsen and Sylvain Sylvain joined in 1971. At this time John Genzale renamed himself Johnny Thunders, after a comic book of the same name. They recorded two critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful albums, The New York Dolls and Too Much Too Soon. The band was managed, for a short time, by Malcolm McLaren.  In 1975 the original line-up for the Dolls broke up. Their early recordings are still in print today and continue to influence young bands with their trash/glam/punk attitude. He formed The Heartbreakers with Dolls drummer Jerry Nolan, and Television bassist Richard Hell. Ex-Demons guitarist Walter Lure was soon added. After Hell unsuccessfully tried to usurp Johnny’s place as lead singer, he left to form Richard Hell and the Vidoids. Hell was replaced by Billy Rath. With Thunders leading the band, the Heartbreakers toured America and Britain, releasing one official album, L.A.M.F., in 1977. The group relocated to the UK, where their popularity was significantly greater than it was in the U.S., particularly among punk bands.

In late 1979 Thunders began performing in a band called Gang War. Other members included John Morgan, Ron Cooke, Philippe Marcade and former MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer. They recorded several demos.

Thunders recorded a number of solo albums beginning with So Alone in 1978. During the early 1980s, Thunders re-formed The Heartbreakers for various tours; the group recorded their final album in 1984. In 1985, he released Que Sera Sera, a collection of new songs that showed he could still perform convincingly. Three years later he recorded Copy Cats, an album of rock with vocalist Patti Palladin. Thunders kept performing and recording until 1991. His final recording was a cover of “Born to Lose”.