Among those paying tribute to MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer are prison reform advocates
The tributes that poured in following Wayne Kramer’s death last week came from musicians praising the MC5 guitarist’s contributions to rock music, as well as from prison reform advocates who extolled his legacy of bringing music to incarcerated people.
Kramer, who died Feb. 2 at age 75 of pancreatic cancer, influenced generations of artists with his screaming guitar chords on hardcore anthems like 1969’s “Kick Out the Jams.”
Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello said MC5, with an uncompromising sound that fused music to political action, « basically invented punk rock.”
Not long after the band broke up in 1972, Kramer was arrested on drug charges and spent two years in prison. Determined to straighten out his life while maintaining his activism, Kramer co-founded Jail Guitar Doors USA, based on a British charity that provided inmates with musical instruments. Kramer’s nonprofit is named after a Clash song that refers to his struggles: “Let me tell you ’bout Wayne and his deals of cocaine.”
Kramer recruited famous friends like Morello, Slash and Perry Farrell to perform concerts at prisons in California and his home state of Michigan, where he would leave behind guitars.
Gradually he began spending one-on-one time with inmates, helping them craft their own songs and “watching the creative lights go on in their heads, » said Jason Heath, a close friend and executive director of Jail Guitar Doors USA.
“Working with inmates was cathartic for him because music had saved his life when he was inside,” Heath said this week.
« Creativity is the solution for the challenges we face,” Kramer told Mojo magazine in December.
His group ultimately distributed thousands of instruments and created a songwriting mentorship program that expanded to lockups nationwide.
