Rock legend loses cancer battle

JOHNNY RAMONE, guitarist and co-founder of the seminal punk band, The Ramones, who influenced a generation of rockers, has died at the age of 55.

Ramone, who had been fighting a five-year battle with prostate cancer, died in his sleep on Wednesday afternoon at his Los Angeles home, surrounded by friends and family, said the band’s long-time artistic director Arturo Vega.

“He had the strategy. He was the guy who not only looked after the band’s interest but he also was their defender,” Vega said.

Ramone, whose birth name is John Cummings, was one of the original members of the Ramones.

Their hit songs Sheena Is A Punk Rocker, I Wanna Be Sedated and Blitzkrieg Bop, among others, earned them an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.

Johnny Ramone co-founded The Ramones in 1974 in New York with singer Joey Ramone, bassist Dee Dee Ramone and drummer Tommy Ramone, the only surviving member of the original band.

Joey Ramone, whose real name was Jeff Hyman, died in 2001 of lymphatic cancer. Dee Dee Ramone, whose real name was Douglas Colvin, died from a drug overdose in 2002.

Clad in leather jackets and with long black mops of hair, the group started out in legendary New York clubs like CBGBs and Max’s Kansas City.

Since their debut album in 1976, the band struggled for commercial success, but they left a formidable imprint on rock music.

After seeing the Ramones in New Jersey, Bruce Springsteen wrote Hungry Heart for the band. His manager, however, swayed him to keep the song for and it became a hit single.

Johnny was politically conservative - the late Ronald Reagan was his favourite president, even though one album, Bonzo Goes to Bitburg, refers to a visit to a German military cemetery that enraged the Jewish community.

He is survived by his wife and his mother, Estelle Cummings.