Who is Daniel Johnston?
Before watching Jeff Feuerzeig’s award winning documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston, I had no idea who he was. Now I can’t seem to get Daniel Johnston out of my mind. Daniel Johnston was born on January 22, 1961 and was described by his parents as always being different. He was intensely creative as a child and teenager, creating songs, art and movies. His need to create seemed to be the very blood that ran through his veins although his parents, especially his mother, despised it. Daniel created home movies depicting his mother and even recorded her screaming at him. He drew fascinating comic book style artwork and composed lyrics and music to hundreds of songs before even graduating high school. When Daniel went to college, however, things changed. His obsessive creative behavior became erratic and angry. He quickly became self-destructive and was soon diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The most touching and moving thing about Daniel Johnston is that being diagnosed with bipolar d
Daniel Dale Johnston is an aging (born 1961) songwriter / artist who gained considerable notoriety in the last twenty years as an outsider, indie music genius, beginning with his fledgling self-promotion on the streets of Austin, Texas in the early eighties. Whether people were listening or not, however, Daniel continued to produce hundreds of songs and art pieces, compulsively expressing a frank, painful, and heart-rending account of love, life, and loss that strikes a chord in the heart of thousands who hear him. He has been in and out of mental institutions, facing scrapes with the law and his life, and now lives with his aging parents in Waller, Texas. He has a remarkable following of fans, most notably the late Kurt Cobain who often wore Daniel’s “Hi How Are You” T-Shirt in public before his death, Matt Groenig of “The Simpson’s” fame, David Bowie, and frankly a surprising list of key figures in the music and art world. Daniel has produced over twenty album, as many singles, and h
