Wayne Kramer (1948-2024)

Tradisom deeply regrets the death of American musician Wayne Kramer (1948-2024), founder of the MC5 and coordinator of the Jail Guitar Doors programme in Los Angeles.
Wayne Kramer and the Jail Guitar Doors are central to the album “Louisville” published by Tradisom in 2022.
On the album, the recording of an interview with Wayne Kramer about the political situation in the United States was set to music by guitarist Oscar Pinho.

NEW YORK (AP) – Wayne Kramer, the co-founder of the protopunk Detroit band the MC5 that thrashed out such hardcore anthems as “Kick Out the Jams” and influenced everyone from the Clash to Rage Against the Machine, has died at age 75.

Kramer died Friday at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles, according to Jason Heath, a close friend and executive director of Kramer’s nonprofit Jail Guitar Doors USA. Heath said the cause of death was pancreatic cancer.

From the late 1960s to early 1970s, no band was closer to the revolutionary spirit of the time than the MC5, which featured Kramer and Fred “Sonic” Smith on guitars, Rob Tyner on vocals, Michael Davis on bass and Dennis “Machine Gun” Thompson on drums. Managed for a time by White Panther co-founder John Sinclair, they were known for their raw, uncompromising music, which they envisioned as the soundtrack for the uprising to come.

“Brother Wayne Kramer was the best man I’ve ever known,” Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello wrote on Instagram Friday. “He possessed a one of a kind mixture of deep wisdom & profound compassion, beautiful empathy and tenacious conviction. His band the MC5 basically invented punk rock music.” (…)

Survivors include his wife, Margaret Saadi, and son, Francis.

Associated Press