Whippet thin, his face creased with laughter lines, David Johansen folds into himself across a sofa and angles the ashtray close. Johansen is now entering his fourth decade as one of New York's most celebrated and influential entertainers and once helped reshape rock'n'roll. Yet it is almost two decades since he last strode a European stage. This month he plays his first ever Irish dates. Why the long absence, David? "Well, my dog just hates being left at home."

Johansen's laconic drawl is pure New York. Appropriately, he is a local hero and, across a chilly Manhattan afternoon, is greeted everywhere we wander. Waiters, bookshop assistants, even the homeless recognise Johansen. "Hey Dave," they call, "how's things?" "Great," he replies.

And, for the singer-songwriter-actor-entertainer, it appears true. His recent album, David Johansen and the Harry Smiths, has returned him to the spotlight. Somewhere he has never been far from since he exploded into public consciousness as lead singer of The New York Dolls.

The Dolls were a motley crew of street urchins who pretty much invented punk rock and lived far too outrageously. Their first visit to London in 1972 ended abruptly when drummer Billy Murcia fatally mixed champagne and mandrax. Substance abuse, a tendency to dress in makeup and heels and play buzz-saw rock 'n roll found them blacklisted by the music industry. Johansen chuckles at the memory.

"We'd been shown this local Memphis newspaper where we were branded as filthy and depraved, and the cops were quoted as saying they were gonna arrest us if we took the stage. So we take the stage and the kids all get up out of their seats to dance and the cops get really heavy, start clubbing them, and this is getting nasty so I stop the band and say to a cop `that could be the mayor's kid you're hitting' and suddenly I'm dragged off stage, handcuffed and thrown into the back of a police car. So there we are driving down Elvis Presley Boulevard and I say to the cop who arrested me, `I bet you wouldn't treat Elvis like this' and he says `we'd love to get him'!"

If the authorities hated The Dolls, their fans included many who would change the shape of British and American music. Patti Smith and Deborah Harry were acolytes while Morrissey ran their fan club - and would later base a good deal of his camply-aggrieved style on Johansen - and Malcolm McLaren was so enthralled he became the band's manager. When The Dolls split in 1975 McLaren returned to London and formed The Sex Pistols around four teenage Dolls fans. "I liked his mix of politics and style," recalls Johansen of McLaren. "He made some clothes for us for a show. Dressed us up in red vinyl, made this big communist flag and I thought the idea of a communist party, y'know, a party, was really funny. I didn't realise that communism still had this stigma to it - people hated us even more! - so that one went over their heads. As comedians say: Malcolm's too smart for the room."

Johansen enjoyed a respectable solo career across the late 1970s, but by the early 1980s he realised it was time to get out of the rock industry. "We were opening on The Who/The Clash tour, playing stadiums, and it was the first time I'd been exposed to them - you take the stage and your knees buckle. I mean, there's this wire mesh fence in front of you and kids are pressed right up against it, just squashed, you can see the whites of their eyes. . . that was the end of that. . . no more Nuremberg rallies."

Inventing a lounge lizard character called Buster Poindexter, Johansen sang jump blues, samba, salsa. Once again he was the toast of New York. "See, I'd been spending 300 days a year on the road, travelling 300 miles a night to do the show, play, pack up, travel 300 miles, all the time sucking on a bottle of gin. With Buster, when I did the math, I realised I was coming out better off playing in my own neighbourhood than criss-crossing the country killing myself in a goddamn van."

A record deal quickly followed and Buster Poindexter paved the way for 1990s swing revival. More importantly, Buster launched Johansen's acting career. "Bill Murray started coming down to The Bottom Line and watching some of these early Poindexter things, and in Poindexter I did a lot of talking and so he came over one night and said, `You wanna be in my movie?'."

The movie was Scrooged, and Johansen attracted such good notices he has since worked with everyone from Jonathan Demme to Robert Frank. His most recent role found him in cult television prison series Oz. "I die horribly, as everyone in that show does," he says, shrugging off his thespian abilities. "Acting means you don't have to constantly tour and split the money between 20 people."

His new album David Johansen And The Harry Smiths is, he states, the result of a happy accident. Asked to play a benefit concert, he decided to sing old blues and folk songs. Naming the band after beatnik ethno-musicologist Harry Smith, Johansen suddenly found himself with a glowing review in the New York Times, and Bob Dylan wanting to sign him. "Dylan loved us but the people at Sony said to him "Are you out of your mind?" so it looked like nothing was going to happen. Then I got this call from Chesky (a New York jazz label) who said, "Can you record an album for us next week?'."

Backed by an acoustic band, Johansen remains a consummate storyteller, finding a grain of grim humour in ancient songs and singing beautifully. It is a remarkable album, and in concert at The Bottom Line he mesmerises the audience. This Doll may be older and wiser but he has lost none of his wit or showmanship. And, David, what finally brings you to Ireland? "My Mom's Irish, and she and my sister visited Ireland last year and they've been on at me ever since to get over there. I don't know what to expect but you can bet I'm looking forward to it."

David Johansen And The Harry Smiths play Whelans, Dublin (January 30th) and Roisin Dubh, Galway, (31st).