JOHN SINCLAIR
MC5 manager and countercultural warrior (1941-2024)
JOHN Sinclair rst encountered the MC5 at the Michigan State Fair in 1966. Already a radical poet, jazz columnist for Downbeat and founder of the Detroit Artists Workshop, Sinclair promptly declared himself a fan and became their manager shortly aer. Over time, the band began to embody his socio-political activism, playing local le-wing rallies, performing outside 1968’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago and delivering incendiary shows at Detroit’s Grande Ballroom. “They wanted to make things better, simple as that,” Sinclair explained to Uncut. “I liked what they were doing and I wanted to help them.”
The MC5 also became aliated with the White Panther Party, co-founded by Sinclair as a vehicle for cultural revolution, whose mission was “to get high, fuck, have a good time, write poetry, make some music, dance.” In July 1969, as his relationship with the MC5 began to deteriorate, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for possessing two marijuana joints. The outcry that followed eventually led to 1971’s John Sinclair Freedom Rally in Ann Arbor, where famous supporters including Stevie Wonder and Allen Ginsberg – as well as John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who wrote a song in his honour – helped secure his release from jail three days later.
Sinclair’s extensive knowledge of American jazz and blues shaped the settings of the spoken-word poetry albums he began recording in the mid-’90s, with MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer among his various collaborators. He also hosted radio shows in Detroit, New Orleans and his adopted home of Amsterdam.