Daniel Johnston

Daniel Dale Johnston 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.

He gathered a local following in the 1980s by passing out tapes of his music while working at a McDonald's in Dobie Center 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 cassette album Hi, How Are You.

His struggles with mental illness were the subject of the 2005 documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston. He died in 2019 of what is suspected to have been a heart attack.