"IT WASN'T ENOUGH TO PLAY KICK OUT THE JAMS... YOU HAD TO LIVE IT"
Testing the limit of what a rock band could be, the late WAYNE KRAMER propelled the MC5 through revolt and reverse, and, after a dramatic personal redemption, tended their legacy with passion and commitment. Out of a lifetime of hard-learned lessons, had come rare wisdom. "Love, man, that makes all the difference," he told BOB MEHR.
WHEN WAYNE KRAMER SLIPPED away quietly in early February, felled by pancreatic cancer at the age of 75, he’d lived many lives.
If you’d asked him, he might tell you he began his journey as an abandoned son. It was what fuelled him to become a rebel, a rocker, a revolutionary. He might confess that he’d lost his way too – been a junkie, a jailbird, a journeyman. And that, ultimately, he’d evolved into the role of activist, author, torchbearer, and most importantly, a father himself.
Kramer was all that, as well as the co-founder, lead guitarist, and catalyst of Detroit rock legends the MC5. Though he prized the group’s legacy – and tended to it carefully – Kramer’s real triumphs weren’t gold records or hit songs, but more human achievements: his survival, his personal reinventions, and the profound effect he had on the lives of the fellow convicts and addicts he strived to help.
“Wayne always believed in new beginnings,” says Danny Fields, the music industry veteran who signed the MC5 to Elektra back in 1968. “He believed you could always start over. That if the pieces were fundamentally there, if the integrity was there, you could rearrange the blocks. And he did that so obviously in his own life.”
“From the time I met him, over almost 60 years, he continued to grow and develop as a musician and a person,” says former MC5 manager and mentor John Sinclair. “Wayne was just a beautiful cat.”
Producer/musician Don Was, a friend and collaborator for 45 years, noted that you could learn everything about Kramer just by playing with him.
“When you jammed with Wayne, he listened,” says Was. “He was supportive, he was interactive, he was conversational. He could groove like crazy, he was funky, and he could play these solos that wasn’t just a guy throwing notes in your face. He was saying something, he was telling a story. It wasn’t enough to play Kick Out The Jams… you had to live it. He felt an obligation to stay true to that as well. And he did, right up to the end.”
