Read how Daniel Johnston became a beyond-underground musical hero whose work was championed by Sonic Youth, Kurt Cobain and many more
and Yo La Tengo . Ballets in France and New York City have been choreographed to Johnston’s music. His low-fi home recordings received wider circulation through CD release on a couple of Homestead collections. Subsequently, he recorded a pair of studio albums for Shimmy-Disc — the Satan-obsessed 1990 and the light-hearted Artistic Vice — which documented the range of his emotional extremes.
“With Daniel Johnston being the musical and songwriting genius that he is,” says Leary, “it’s really fun as a producer to come in and have almost a blank slate to work with. You turn on a tape machine with Darnel and a microphone, and good things happen. And it’s pure Daniel Johnston. What you hear is what he is.”
The purity of his artistic impulses is a large part of Johnston’s appeal, since he is as likely to give away his drawings and songs as to sell them. He depends on others to look out for his best interests when he isn’t always clear where his best interests lie. During last year’s stay at the state hospital, he was all but signed to Elektra Records, then decided to split from his longtime manager, who had negotiated the deal.
“Most of the people who are big Daniel Johnston fans are other song-writers,’ says McCarty, who drew heavily from his mid-’80s tapes for her selection. “The first time I heard his cassette, it was like ‘This guy is an incredible, genius songwriter.’ You can look at some of his songs and go, ‘What a great arrangement, what a great middle eight, what a great turn of phrase!’ I never thought he was like a freak show or like ‘Listen to this guy have a nervous breakdown on this record.
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