Mixing revolutionary sloganeering with a high-intensity sound that combined blues and primitive rock’n’roll with guitar pyrotechnics, the Detroit band MC5 created their own blueprint for punk and hard rock. Wayne Kramer, a founder member of the MC5, who has died from pancreatic cancer aged 75, was renowned as a guitarist able to veer from crushing hard rock to atonal adventures recalling the free jazz of Archie Shepp or Albert Ayler.
Emerging in a late-60s America gripped by racial tension and traumatised by the Vietnam war, the MC5 were at the cutting edge of the counterculture. Their explosive live performances mirrored the febrile atmosphere of the era, and it was fitting that their first and best-remembered album, Kick Out the Jams (1969), should have been recorded at their regular live haunt, the Grande Ballroom in Detroit.
Recorded shortly after the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where the MC5 had played, and which had been overshadowed by violent clashes between police and anti-Vietnam war demonstrators, the album was a masterpiece of concentrated rage. Rolling Stone wrote that it “writhes and screams with the belief that rock’n’roll is a necessary act of civil disobedience”.
It reached No 30 on the US album chart, despite a controversy over the vocalist Rob Tyner yelling “Kick out the jams, motherfuckers” on the title track, which caused the album to be banned in certain department stores. It also got the group dropped from their record label, Elektra.
Picked up by Atlantic, the MC5 recorded Back in the USA (1970), produced by the music critic Jon Landau, who would later become Bruce Springsteen’s manager. This presented a less unruly but ferociously tight MC5, and was a fine showcase for the skilfully wrought guitar parts from Kramer and Fred “Sonic” Smith. But, looking back, Kramer told Mojo that “I was determined this next record was going to be rock solid. And we went too far with it – as young people often do ... We put out this record with Chuck Berry and Little Richard covers on it. You couldn’t have been less fashionable.”
A second studio album, High Time (1971), was co-produced by the band and was considered a far better expression of their ambitions, highlighting both their playing and songwriting skills, but like Back in the USA it could not even reach the US Top 100. The group split up a few months later, through a mixture of drug abuse and harassment by US officialdom as a result of their political activism. Kramer said: “We knew there were forces against us, but what we didn’t know was how serious they were … they came from the White House, the Justice Department and they were concerted, organised, plotted, planned campaigns to disrupt American dissent.”
Kramer was born in Detroit. His father, Stanley Kambes, had fought in the Pacific in the second world war, and was an alcoholic suffering from post-traumatic stress. His mother, Mable (nee Dyell), was a beautician. His parents separated when he was very young. “My mother was a wonderful woman who showed me a lot of love,” Kramer said. “But not having a man in the picture left a big hole for me.” Later, he said he changed his surname so his father could not benefit from any association with him.
By the age of 10, Kramer had begun indulging in petty theft, and suffered abuse at the hands of his stepfather. It was music that provided him with an escape route, and he managed to save enough of his pocket money to buy a guitar. In 1963 he became friendly with Smith. Both were fans of Chuck Berry and the Ventures, and Kramer especially recalled seeing Del Shannon play at the Detroit Dragway: “There it all was: the power, the danger, the excitement, the sexiness,” he said.
Each formed their own band (Kramer led the Bounty Hunters, and Smith the Vibratones). As members came and went, a new band coalesced around Kramer and Smith. In 1965 the lineup stabilised, with Tyner on vocals, Michael Davis on bass and Dennis Thompson on drums. They had originally called themselves the Motor City Five before shortening it to the MC5.
The group played frequent gigs in the Detroit area, and in 1966 they acquired a regular slot at the Grande Ballroom. They got to know the writer, poet and political activist John Sinclair, who became their manager. Dubbed “the King of the Hippies”, he would be a founder of the White Panther party, a leftwing anti-racist group with which the MC5 became closely associated. However, looking back in 2003, Kramer commented that “we weren’t students sitting around discussing political theory. We found it all to be hysterically funny, and we were goofing on everything.”
After the MC5 split, Kramer became (as he put it) “a small-time Detroit criminal”, and in 1975 was jailed following a conviction for selling drugs to undercover federal agents. In jail in Lexington, Kentucky, he met the trumpeter Red Rodney, who had played with Charlie Parker. They would perform together in the prison yard on Saturdays.
Kramer was released in 1978, and formed Gang War with Johnny Thunders, which he described as “a mess”. During the 1980s, while he was in the grip of drug and alcohol problems, Kramer travelled around the US, taking odd jobs and intermittently playing music.
He described the death of Tyner in 1991 as “a huge wake-up call”, which prompted him to return to his music career. Having moved to Los Angeles, he signed with Epitaph Records, and released his first album, The Hard Stuff, in 1995. Subsequent solo albums were Dangerous Madness (1996), Citizen Wayne (1997) and Adult World (2002). The last of these was on MuscleTone Records, a label started by Kramer and his wife, Margaret.
With the musician Billy Bragg, the Kramers started the initiative Jail Guitar Doors, USA, which provides musical instruments to prison inmates and organises teaching programmes. It was named after the song Jail Guitar Doors by the Clash, which opened with the line “Let me tell you ‘bout Wayne and his deals of cocaine”, referring to Kramer and his arrest.
In 2018 Kramer announced a tour to mark the 50th anniversary of Kick Out the Jams, with a lineup featuring members of Soundgarden and Fugazi along with Don Was, and published a memoir, The Hard Stuff. In 2021 he played and co-wrote songs on Alice Cooper’s album Detroit Stories.
Kramer also enjoyed success as a soundtrack composer, contributing to Will Ferrell’s movies Talledega Nights (2006) and Step Brothers (2008), the HBO documentary Hacking Democracy (2006) and the HBO comedy Eastbound & Down (2009-12). He narrated and scored the TV documentary The Narcotic Farm (2008), about the prison where he served time.
Kramer is survived by Margaret (nee Saadi), whom he married in 2003, a son, Francis, two sisters, Kat and Sandy, a half-sister, Peggy, and a stepsister, Joann.
• Wayne Kramer (Wayne Stanley Kambes), musician, singer and songwriter, born 30 April 1948; died 2 February 2024
