by Wayne Kramer, whose explosive guitar playing with the influential Detroit band MC5 in the late ’60s and early ’70s helped lay the foundation for punk rock, died Friday. He was 75 years old.
His death was announced in a post on his official Instagram account, which said the cause was pancreatic cancer. She did not say where she died.
The MC5 (short for Motor City Five) was formed in Lincoln Park, Michigan, in 1965.
Kramer and Fred (Sonic) Smith teamed up to provide the twin guitar attack that was the heart of the band’s sound and the centerpiece of their notoriously loud and frenetic live performances.
By classifying Mr. Kramer and Mr. Smith together, at number 225 Last year, in its list of the 250 greatest guitarists of all time, Rolling Stone said the two “worked together like the pistons of a powerful engine” to “throw their band’s legendary, energetic improvisations deep into space and at the same time keep one foot on the ground. slot.”
The band, which also included vocalist Rob Tyner, bassist Michael Davis and drummer Dennis Thompson, broke up in the early 1970s after just two studio albums.
Their debut album, “Kick Out the Jams,” a live set recorded at Detroit’s Grande Ballroom in 1968, is considered one of the most influential albums of its time. He inspired generations of musicians, including the Clash, Sex Pistols, Ramones and Queens of the Stone Age.
Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine said on Instagram Friday that Kramer and the MC5 “basically invented punk rock music.”
Kramer was arrested on drug charges in 1975 and sentenced to four years in prison.
In 2009, after returning to performing and recording as a solo artist, he founded Prison guitar doors USAa non-profit organization that donates musical instruments to prisoners and offers songwriting workshops in prisons, in partnership with his wife, Margaret, and British singer-songwriter Billy Bragg.
The name comes from “Prison guitar doors,” a song by The Clash that begins with a line about Kramer’s struggles with substance abuse and the law: “Let me tell you about Wayne and his cocaine deals.”
“The guitar can be the key that opens the cell,” said Kramer. he told High Times in 2015. “It could be the key that opens the prison door, and it could be the key that opens the rest of your life to give you an alternative way of dealing with things.”
A full obituary will follow.
