Daniel Johnston

Daniel Dale Johnston (January 22, 1961 – c. September 11, 2019) was an American singer-songwriter and visual artist regarded as a significant figure in outsider, lo-fi, and alternative music scenes. Most of his work consisted of cassettes recorded alone in his home, and his music was frequently cited for its "pure" and "childlike" qualities.Johnston spent extended periods in psychiatric institutions and was diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. He gathered a local following in the 1980s by passing out tapes of his music while working at a McDonald's in Austin, Texas. His cult status was propelled when Nirvana's Kurt Cobain was seen wearing a T-shirt that featured artwork from Johnston's 1983 album Hi, How Are You.Beyond music, Johnston was accomplished as a visual artist, with his illustrations exhibited at various galleries around the world. In 2005, his struggles with mental illness was the subject of the documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston. He died in 2019 of what is suspected to have been a heart attack.