Wayne Kramer, a founding member of the legendary Detroit proto-punk band MC5 and one of rock’s greatest guitarists, has died at the age of 75.
The singer, songwriter and political activist’s death was announced on Friday via his official social media accounts. Kramer died of pancreatic cancer at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, Jason Heath, executive director of the nonprofit Jail Guitar Doors, told Billboard.
In ROLLING STONE’s list of the 250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time, which includes Kramer along with Fred “Sonic” Smith, we wrote: “The MC5 guitar tandem, forged in Detroit in the 1960s, consisted of Kramer and Smith, who like the pistons of a powerful engine worked together. Combining Chuck Berry and early Motown influences with a burgeoning interest in free jazz, the two were able to blast their band’s legendary high-energy jams deep into the room while keeping one foot in the groove.”
MC5 (short for Motor City Five) was founded in Detroit in the mid-1960s and initially gained notoriety as the house band for left-wing rallies in the city at the time. After performing before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968, Kramer and company returned to Detroit to the Grande Ballroom in October of that year to record their groundbreaking album, Kick Out the Jams.
The live LP – with its rallying cry “Kick out the jams, motherfuckers” – ended up on ROLLING STONE’s list of the 500 best albums of all time. “Kick Out the Jams” fidgets and screams in the belief that rock & roll is a necessary act of civil disobedience. The proof: It was banned from a department store in Michigan,” wrote Rolling Stone about the album. “The MC5 demonstrated their left-wing leanings the summer before recording the album when they were the only band to play for the Yippies protesting the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago.
Although the MC5 were short-lived – the band only released two studio albums, “Back in the USA” (1970) and “High Time” (1971), before disbanding – the group had a lasting influence on later punk rock, both through their blatantly political lyrics and through the explosive riffs of the Kramer/Smith tandem.
After MC5 ended, Kramer remained in Detroit, and while he remained musically active, he also got into trouble with the law. In 1975, he was arrested for selling drugs to an undercover cop, which resulted in a four-year prison sentence. Although he was released in 1979, the experience left an indelible mark on Kramer, who later founded the nonprofit organization Jail Guitar Doors and became its executive director. Named after the Clash song Kramer was inspired to write by his ordeal – “Let me tell you ’bout Wayne and his deals of cocaine/A little more every day/Holding for a friend till the band do well/Then the DEA locked.” him away” – the charity provides musical instruments to those incarcerated in order to rehabilitate them through the transformative power of music.
“In the end it did [das Gefängnis] “Maybe saved my life because I was in a very dangerous world in Detroit, at the height of my alcohol and drug use,” Kramer told Rolling Stone in 2014. “But I don’t think prison helped me. A prison sentence doesn’t help anyone, the way we approach punishment in America.”
During the ’80s, Kramer moved from city to city, collaborating with artists wherever he landed, including Was (Not Was) and Johnny Thunders. By the ’90s, however, the legions of punk bands that were indebted to Kramer and MC5 began to show their appreciation, and Kramer eventually signed with famed punk label Epitaph Records to begin his solo career in earnest.
Kramer’s first LP on the label, The Hard Stuff, was released in 1995 and featured guests such as the Melvins, drummer Josh Freese, Black Flag/Circle Jerks singer Keith Morris, Bad Religion’s Brett Gurewitz and many others. Kramer remained politically active in the decades that followed, performing with Rage Against the Machine at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver (a guerrilla show reminiscent of the MC5’s performance 40 years earlier) and playing shows in support of the presidential campaign by Bernie Sanders.
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“My life back then wasn’t boring, and my life now isn’t boring either,” Kramer told Rolling Stone in 1998. “I am driven by the sheer fear of being an old person with no money and no health insurance and becoming homeless and sick. That’s what gets me out of bed and motivates me to write new songs and get started. This isn’t just fun and games – this is serious.”
Last year, Kramer announced the upcoming release of Heavy Lifting, the first MC5 album since 1971’s High Time to feature original drummer Dennis “Machine Gun” Thompson alongside Tom Morello, Don Was, Vernon Reid and Slash. “At the risk of sounding cocky, fate has made me the curator of the MC5 legacy,” Kramer told Uncut last year. “And to stay true to the legacy, I have to stay connected to the core founding principles that MC5 represent: that we have a working-class approach to the arts and that we continue to try to advance music to the world we live in , to reflect.”