[msb-alumni] Wayne Kramer, MC5 Founder Dead at 75 articles
- From: Steve <pipeguy920@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <msb-alumni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2024 18:06:57 -0500
BlankDetroit's music scene mourns MC5's Kramer Guitarist died in Los Angeles on
Friday at
the age of 75 By Brian McCollum Detroit Free Press
Wayne Kramer, a quiet giant of Detroit music who helped define the city's loud
rock sound,
died Friday after a brief battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 75. Kramer
passed away at
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles early Friday afternoon. The
guitarist brought an
articulate sensibility to his explosive musical energy an approach that fueled
the MC5, the
group he co-founded in Lincoln Park in his teens. The band's heavy,
revolutionary-minded
music laid down a gauntlet for Detroit rock in the late 1960s and went on to
wield a
stealthy but massive influence for decades. Kramer is preceded in death by his
MC5 bandmates
Rob Tyner, Fred Smith and Michael Davis. Of the original core band, drummer
Dennis Thompson
is the last man standing. Kramer's wild ride of a life hard rocker, jazz
musician, film
composer, ex-convict, family man was chronicled in his expressive 2018
autobiography, "The
Hard Stuff. His childhood unfolded during "a good time to be alive in America
in Detroit in
the '50s and early '60s," as he described to the Detroit Free Press decades
later. Kramer
was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in January, said Jason Heath, program
director with the
guitarist's nonprofit organization Jail Guitar Doors, which offers musical
programs and
instruments to prison inmates. Kramer's recent health issue came four years
after he
overcame a cancer in his jaw. "It happened fast. He didn't suffer," Heath said
of the latest
health battle. "He was surrounded by friends and family. A versatile guitarist
whose early
rock 'n' roll obsession eventually grew into excursions in jazz and other
styles, Kramer
embodied a distinctly Detroit aura a blend of street cred and shrewd
industriousness, of raw
muscle and musical chops. Tributes poured in from musicians Friday evening,
including Rage
Against the Machine's Tom Morello, who posted on Instagram: "Brother Wayne
Kramer was the
best man I've ever known. "He possessed a one of a kind mixture of deep wisdom
& profound
compassion, beautiful empathy and tenacious conviction," Morello wrote, going
on to say:
"Wayne had a soft heart but was also Detroit tough as nails. Jack White's Third
Man Records
posted Friday evening: "Rest in power to a brother who dedicated his life to
being part of
the solution. With the MC5, Kramer was part of an artistic mission that was
often chaotic
but always purpose-driven: From their origins playing soul, blues and Motown
covers devoted
students of Detroit music Kramer and company blossomed into a formidable
original machine of
their own, equal parts macho moxie and social consciousness. At the band's Cass
Corridor
home base with manager John Sinclair, the MC5 formed the White Panther Party,
rife with
militant imagery and progressive themes. Looking back decades later with the
Detroit Free
Press, Kramer described it as a surrealistic goof. "We were absurdists," Kramer
said in
2003. "We were not pragmatic about anything we did. We weren't students sitting
around
discussing political theory. We found it all to be hysterically funny, and we
were goofing
on everything. Kramer and his bandmates ruled Detroit's Grande Ballroom,
landing an Elektra
Records deal and a resulting three-album legacy that included "Kick Out the
Jams," recorded
at the Grande in 1968. That debut record's combustible title track was voted
No. 5 by fans
and musical professionals in the Free Press' 2016 project "Detroit's 100
Greatest Songs. The
MC5's political forays including an infamous antiwar performance outside the
1968 Democratic
National Convention in Chicago were secondary to the band's musical drive,
Kramer insisted
in retrospect. "All we did was fine-tune and fine-tune and fine-tune our
performance so that
we left the audience just destroyed," Kramer told the Free Press. "We didn't
want to
entertain them. We wanted to destroy them, so that when they left they had
nothing left. The
diminutive guitarist could be a larger-than-life force onstage, as recalled by
Detroit
musician and producer Tino Gross, who sneaked into the Grande as a young teen
to catch
Kramer and the MC5. "I was riveted. Wayne was in the air for half the show,
doing that
hang-time thing," Gross said. "When they were on like that, it was a live show
that couldn't
be topped whether the Who or whoever, I don't care. It was the toughest act to
beat. In its
time, "Kick Out the Jams" got a shaky reception from the rock establishment,
banned by radio
stations and retailers for profanity while being skewered by some reviewers. "I
took it so
hard when Lester Bangs said I couldn't play my guitar," Kramer recalled of the
famed rock
critic. "I was determined that the next record we made, I was going to prove
him wrong.
Kramer said he and his bandmates made sure that sophomore album, 1970's "Back
in the USA,"
was a tighter, leaner effort. For many young listeners including future stars
such as the
Clash, Nick Lowe and Motorhead, who testified to the impact it was momentous.
Alongside
Michigan contemporaries such as the Stooges, Kramer and the MC5 built a rock
template that
went on to underpin punk, metal, grunge, garage rock revivalism and more. The
band was also
a pivotal influence on Detroit compatriot George Clinton, who fused the band's
spirit into
his Funkadelic work in the '70s. "Wayne set the bar for Detroit rock 'n' roll
to this day,"
said Gross. "The MC5 didn't have the big hits and the commercial success of
(Bob) Seger or
others. But everybody knew these were the guys that lit the match and put it to
the fuse
that launched the rocket. As a guitar player, Wayne was a beast. Following the
MC5's bitter
split in '72, Kramer muddled around in local music projects and took to dealing
drugs,
landing a federal conviction after an ill-fated sale to agents at a downtown
Detroit hotel.
Upon release from prison, he left the area at the turn of the '80s, eventually
settling in
Los Angeles. But his Detroit allegiance remained deep, and he collaborated with
local music
projects through his final years, including recording sessions and live jams
with area
musicians during his regular visits home. His film work included the score for
the
award-winning 2018 Detroit Red Wings documentary "The Russian Five," part of a
composing
resume that included contributions to "Talladega Nights," "Almost Famous" and
Fox Sports.
During the '90s, Kramer's largely well-received solo output included a run with
Epitaph
Records, most notably his 1995 album "The Hard Stuff. That's also when he began
to take
stock of his musical past, including his initial enthusiastic participation in
the
now-fabled 2004 documentary "MC5: A True Testimonial. But Kramer subsequently
helped bury
the movie when he took filmmakers to court over music-licensing disputes. The
documentary
was pulled from screenings and hasn't been publicly available since. It was an
act that
divided many in the Detroit music community and the MC5 fan base. Kramer's
assorted MC5
revival projects through the years, undertaken amid skepticism from late band
members'
estates, also provoked backlash in some quarters while widely earning positive
reviews. The
most high-profile of those outings a 2018 anniversary tour led by Kramer under
the banner
MC50 featured an all-star lineup with members of Soundgarden and Fugazi. The
run included
three homecoming shows, where Kramer was giddy and energetic onstage as he
played to some of
his biggest Detroit crowds in years. During the group's Saint Andrew's Hall
concert that
fall, he nearly broke down in tears during a lengthy audience ovation. "I'm
still in the
MC5. I'm a lifer," Kramer had said ahead of the 2018 shows. "I wanted to do
another tour.
I'm still fairly spry and in pretty good shape. Born in Lincoln Hospital in
1948, the son of
an electrician father and beautician mother, Kramer grew up in southwest
Detroit, often
spending his free time at the Boys Club of America near Livernois and Michigan.
"I'd go in
and get toast and listen to the jukebox it had a big 10-inch speaker," he told
the Free
Press. "So when the heavy notes on (Duane Eddy's) 'Rebel Rouser' came on there,
it moved me.
Kramer got his first guitar when he was 10. "I was very young when I became
obsessed with
music. I just heard the sound of liberation in Chuck Berry's guitar playing, in
rock 'n'
roll beats and the exuberance in Little Richard's singing," he recounted. "I
just said,
'Yeah, whatever it is I want more of this.' His family later settled Downriver,
and Kramer's
destiny was shaped by a night at the Detroit Dragway, where the teen caught a
set by
Michigan rock 'n' roller Del Shannon backed by the Ramrods. "It didn't get any
better than
that. There it all was the power, the danger, the excitement, the sexiness,"
Kramer told the
Free Press. "It was all right there, on the return road on the other side of a
chain link
fence. There was my whole future mapped out for me. He described his mother as
a "vivacious
woman" who was streetwise about the world of clubs and rock 'n' roll. In a Free
Press
interview, Kramer recounted a conversation with his mom as he eyed a life in
music. "She
said: 'I want you to do whatever you want to do with your life. But I want to
talk to you
about being a musician because this is a very, very hard life. You're up all
night and you
have to sleep all day. And I said, 'Mm-hmm. And she said: 'You know, there's
alcohol and
drugs. It's always there. I said, 'Yeah, OK, I hear ya. And she said, 'Then
there's loose
women. "So I wasn't too sure before she gave me the talking-to, but afterwards
I said,
'Don't throw me in that briar patch. And she wasn't lying, either. Raw Motor
City attitude
became Kramer's stock-in-trade, and it was an ethos he rhapsodized about later
in life. In
2003, reflecting on his MC5 legacy, the guitarist sensed a kindred spirit in
another artist
who'd recently come to embody Detroit. "Eminem is really the heir apparent,"
Kramer told the
Free Press. "He's the only artist out there today that matters. He's a
ferocious lyricist.
He is what all artists strive to be which is, he's brutally honest. He spills
his guts. He
opens his heart and his mind up, and he lays it out all there. He splays his
guts for you.
And he makes mistakes, and he says s--t wrong, and he f---s it up. But his
honesty and
commitment come through. Kramer said that when he watched Eminem's
semi-autobiographical
film "8 Mile" in 2002, his reaction was instant: "This is my son! Like the
eventually
cleaned-up rapper, Kramer had his own epiphany, overhauling his life after
years of
addiction struggles and his '70s prison stint. By the 2000s, he was married to
music
industry veteran Margaret Saadi and he became deeply invested in charitable
work, including
the founding of Jail Guitar Doors, which supplies musical instruments and
mentoring to
inmates across the U.S., among them Detroit's Ryan Correctional Facility. "His
legacy is
saving lives and giving second chances to incarcerated youth," said Heath, who
has been with
the organization since its 2009 start. Jail Guitar Doors, as Kramer preached,
was born of
the same impulse that drove the MC5 and his solo work: the transformative power
of music.
"By creating something out of nothing by composing a song, you've added some
beauty to the
world," Kramer said in 2018. "You start to see yourself as more than the worst
day of your
life. For all the exploits and misadventures, the 75 years of high points and
rock bottoms,
life as a musician boiled down to one thing for Wayne Kramer. It was a
blue-collar lesson
fortified in the trenches at Downriver bars, Detroit teen clubs and demanding
spots like the
Grande Ballroom. "When people came to see you play, there was only one rule:
Were you any
good? he said. "And did you work hard on what you're showing me tonight? Kramer
is survived
by his wife, Margaret Saadi Kramer; his son, Francis Kramer, and his sister,
Kat Kambes. In
lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to Wayne Kramer's
nonprofit group
Jail Guitar Doors USA.
__________
Ted Nugent and Wayne Kramer: An unlikely friendship, forged in Detroit soul At
first glance,
they might strike you as a rock n roll odd couple. In the end, they may be a
lesson in human
relations. Theres Ted Nugent brash right-winger, Donald Trump advocate and
lifelong
teetotaler. And theres the MC5s Wayne Kramer deep-seated progressive, Bernie
Sanders booster
and onetime addict. But unbeknownst to much of the public, the two Detroit-bred
guitarists
were in fact close friends for decades. It was a bond that ran deep, rooted in
their early
days on the Detroit music scene and strengthened as both men reached middle
age. Following
Kramers death Friday at 75 , Nugent paid tribute to a man and musician he said
he dearly
loved and deeply admired. I was honored to be his friend and I was honored to
play music
with him, Nugent said Saturday. And I was a lucky man to be there when the MC5
let it rip.
Their long friendship was grounded in shared musical passions, Nugent said a
respectful love
affair that was always driven by music, the Motor City and soulful groove
desires. And
despite their seemingly polar-opposite lifestyles and outlooks, it was a
relationship marked
by affection and civility, Nugent said. That's why Wayne and I had genuine
discussions
gentlemanly push-and-shove political discussions. They never turned into
arguments. They
never turned into debates, said Nugent. They always ended with a snicker and a
handshake. A
friendly, Motor City blood brother, guitar-adventure handshake. There were
common
connections from the start: Both Kramer and Nugent were born in Detroit in
1948. Both
studied guitar under Joe Podorsek at Capitol School of Music on Grand River.
Both were
inspired by the likes of Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Little Richard and later on
by Motown
music and Detroit rock trailblazers such as Billy Lee & the Rivieras and Mitch
Ryder & the
Detroit Wheels. And while the MC5s radical politics and well-chronicled drug
indulgences
couldnt have been further from Nugents tastes, he said no one was a bigger fan
of the band
than he was. I know I'm cocky and hyper and all that, but Im probably the only
guy who
memorized and revered the power of Wayne Kramer and the MC5 like this, Nugent
said. Everyone
else was comfortably numb and missed most of it. Nugent said he was absolutely
sucker-punched upside the head the first time he saw the groups explosive live
show. He
recalled telling his Amboy Dukes band mates: We've gotta practice more. I was
on the stage
of the Grande next to Waynes amps, Nugent said. I was at this Detroit rock n
roll revival,
staring and calculating and absorbing and learning. Nugent rattled off some of
the A-list
names he has shared bills with through the years. So I've been to the
mountaintop. And I'm
sorry, man, nothing comes close to the Five at their peak, and what Wayne
brought with his
James Brown dance and dynamic fury, he said. When you can inject a genuine
James
Brown-Motown dynamic to that voluminous R&B-driven rock 'n' roll my God, the,
soulfulness of
that band and Wayne Kramer. And not only musically, but as a man. Nugent pushed
back on the
frequent description of the MC5 as garage rock or proto-punk: The band was just
playing R&B
loud and fast with a keen sense of dynamics, he contended. And in the early
'70s, he was
disheartened by the groups demise. It started to deteriorate because of the
drugs and
because listen to who's saying this they did get too political, Nugent said
with a laugh.
But then, they didn't write a song called F--- Joe Biden, which I did. Nugent
said he and
Kramer were friendly during their younger years, but their relationship grew
substantially
deeper following Kramers 1979 release from prison on drug convictions. In
recent years, he
was a contributor to Kramers Jail Guitar Doors organization, a nonprofit group
that supplies
musical instruments and mentoring to inmates. After the MC5 guitarists passing
Friday,
Nugent reached out to Kramers widow, Margaret, to share his condolences. He
cited a line
from his own 1995 song Fred Bear, written in tribute to the famed Michigan
hunter. That song
was about Fred and my mom and my dad and my brother, Nugent said. But it's
about Wayne too.
And I ended my love note to Margaret with: In the wind, hes still alive.
__________
Wayne Kramer, 75, Who Set the Stage For Punk Rock, Dies. By Alex Williams and
William Lamb.
He was half of the twin-guitar attack that drove the influential Detroit band's
live
performances and helped set the stage for punk rock. Wayne Kramer, a founder
and guitarist
of the incendiary Detroit band the MC5, whose furious musical salvos against
all things
Establishment made them a house band of sorts for the radical left in the late
1960s and
early '70s and helped set the template for punk rock, died on Friday in Los
Angeles. He was
75.. The cause of his death, in a hospital, was pancreatic cancer, his wife,
Margaret Saadi
Kramer, said. The heart of the wall-shaking sound of the MC5 (the name was
short for Motor
City Five), formed in Lincoln Park, Mich., in 1965, was the twin-guitar attack
of Mr. Kramer
and Fred (Sonic) Smith. The other members were the vocalist Rob Tyner, the
bassist Michael
Davis and the drummer Dennis Thompson. They would go on to inspire generations
of bands,
including the Clash, the Sex Pistols, the Ramones and Motorhead. Tom Morello of
Rage Against
the Machine said on Instagram on Friday that Mr. Kramer and the MC5 'basically
invented punk
rock music. Despite a sound seemingly meant to shred the ears of the 'American
Bandstand'
mainstream, the first of the band's three albums, 'Kick Out the Jams,' recorded
live at the
Grande Ballroom in Detroit in the fall of 1968 and released by Elektra Records
a few months
later, did manage to climb to No. 30 on the Billboard 200. But commercial
success was never
the point. A guerrilla outfit with guitars as much as a rock group, the MC5
might have been
an odds-on favorite if there had been an award for Angriest Band of the Vietnam
era. The MC5
had started out as a cover band. But, as Mr. Kramer later said, the members
were galvanized
by the bloody racial conflagration in Detroit in the summer of 1967, which left
neighborhoods Mr. Kramer knew from childhood in flames. 'It all exploded, as
most of America
did that summer, with people just saying, 'Listen, we've had enough of this'
and turning on
their slumlords and the shopkeepers and even burning their own neighborhoods in
just a rage
that you could feel when you drove across the city,' ' Mr. Kramer said in an
interview with
Rolling Stone in 2018. 'It was thrilling and terrifying at the same time. The
MC5 was
managed by John Sinclair, a founder of the collective known as the White
Panther Party, an
ally organization to the Black Panthers pledged to fight 'the vicious pig power
structure
and their mad dog lackeys,' as the group's mission statement declared. With its
anti-authoritarian stance, the MC5 found itself at the center of the antiwar
movement. But
they were peaceniks in name only. Their revolutionary spirit called to mind the
bomb makers
of the Weather Underground more than than flower-power bands of the era, with
Mr. Kramer
wielding his Fender Stratocaster, ironically festooned with stars and stripes,
as a weapon.
The song 'American Ruse,' from the band's second album, 'Back in the USA'
(1970), contained
gut-punch lyrics like these: '69 America in terminal stasis The air's so thick,
it's like
drowning in molasses I'm sick and tired of paying these dues And I'm finally
getting hip to
the American ruse. Fittingly, the band played a gig among thousands of
protesters huddled in
Lincoln Park in Chicago during the violence-scarred Democratic National
Convention in 1968.
Without the luxury of a stage or even electricity, the band was forced to run
current for
their amps from a hot-dog stand. 'It was very tense,' Mr. Kramer recalled in a
2008
interview with HuffPost. 'The Chicago police had been very aggressive and very
intimidating
all day, and even though it was a rock concert and we were the only band to
play, it didn't
feel like a rock concert. 'As soon as we finished playing,' he added, 'the
police started
attacking the crowd. In his 1968 book 'Miami and the Siege of Chicago,' Norman
Mailer
described the band's performance there as 'the roar of the beast in all
nihilism. 'There was
the sound of mountains crashing in this holocaust of the decibels,' he added.
Wayne Stanley
Kambes was born on April 30, 1948, in Detroit. His father, Stanley Kambes, a
World War II
veteran, was an alcoholic who eventually abandoned the family, leaving Wayne's
mother, Mable
(Dyell) Kambes, a beautician, to raise Wayne and his younger sister, Kat. To
carve out his
own identity after his parents' split, he adopted the name Kramer because, as a
hot-rod-obsessed teen, he thought it sounded like a brand of car parts, his
wife said. After
his mother remarried, Wayne suffered abuse at the hands of his stepfather. 'The
backwoods
depravity was horrific,' he wrote in his 2018 memoir, 'The Hard Stuff: Dope,
Crime, the MC5
& My Life of Impossibilities. The music of early rockers like Chuck Berry and
Little Richard
offered a degree of escape. 'It spoke to me in a secret, coded language that no
one else
seemed to pick up on,' he told Rolling Stone. By age 15, he had a guitar of his
own and was
jamming with Mr. Smith, setting the foundation for the MC5. The band eventually
scored a
record deal through Danny Fields of Elektra Records, who also signed the band's
fellow
Michigan rockers the Stooges and would go on to manage the Ramones. While the
band tasted
early success with 'Kick Out the Jams,' controversy inevitably followed.
Hudson's, the
Detroit department store, refused to stock the album, whose title track
featured an
expletive as a key lyric. In response, the band took out a full-page ad in an
anarchist
newspaper directing another harsh expletive directly at the store. After
Hudson's fired back
by removing all Elektra recordings from its aisles, the label dropped the band.
That same
year, Mr. Sinclair was arrested after offering two marijuana cigarettes to an
undercover
officer, receiving a sentence of up to 10 years. The MC5 signed with Atlantic,
which
released its final two albums, 'Back in the USA' and 'High Time' (1971). After
the band
dissolved in a haze of drug addiction and money woes, Mr. Kramer began to sell
drugs, fence
stolen goods and burglarize homes to feed his own habit. In 1975, he was
arrested on drug
charges and sentenced to four years in prison. After his release, he returned
to performing
and recording, both as a solo artist and with a variety of bands, including
Gang War, a
short-lived group that also included Johnny Thunders of the New York Dolls, and
the eclectic
Detroit outfit Was (Not Was). In addition to his wife and sister Kat, Mr.
Kramer's survivors
include his sister Sandy Bailey, his half-sister, Peggy Fleischer, his
stepsister, Joann
Farquhar and his son, Francis Kramer. In 2009, he established Jail Guitar Doors
U.S.A., a
nonprofit that donates musical instruments to inmates and offers songwriting
workshops in
prisons, in partnership with his wife and the British singer-songwriter Billy
Bragg. The
name comes from 'Jail Guitar Doors,' a song by the Clash about rockers who had
trouble with
the law, which begins with a nod to Mr. Kramer: 'Let me tell you about Wayne
and his deals
of cocaine. 'The guitar can be the key that unlocks the cell,' Mr. Kramer told
High Times in
2015. 'It can be the key that unlocks the prison gate, and it could be the key
that unlocks
the rest of your life to give you an alternative way to deal with things. As
for his own
days as an outlaw, Mr. Kramer looked back on them as rather feckless. 'As a
gangster,' he
told Rolling Stone, 'I make a great guitar player."
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