Dee Dee Ramone

Dee Dee Ramone was an American punk musician who was a founding member, bassist and occasional lead singer of the Ramones. Born Douglas Glenn Colvin in Fort Lee, Virginia, in 1951, he grew up partly in West Berlin and moved as a teenager to Forest Hills, Queens, where he met future bandmates. He helped form the Ramones in 1974 and became the group's most prolific lyricist and composer, writing or co-writing songs such as 53rd & 3rd, Chinese Rock, Rockaway Beach, Poison Heart and Bonzo Goes to Bitburg. He left the band in 1989 and recorded the hip-hop album Standing in the Spotlight as Dee Dee King before returning to punk with solo records and projects including Dee Dee Ramone I.C.L.C. He kept writing for the Ramones until their 1996 retirement, was interviewed for the documentary Hated: GG Allin and the Murder Junkies (1993), and attended the band's 2002 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. He died in 2002.