Wayne Kramer

On May 2, 2009, Wayne Kramer returned to prison. Again. This time, Tom Morello and many fellow musicians including Jerry Cantrell, Boots Riley, Perry Farrell, Don Was, Handsome Dick Manitoba and Gilby Clarke went with him. The prison was the infamous Sing Sing maximum-security facility in Ossining, New York. They talked with the prisoners and played music for them. It's not clear how many of them ever heard of the MC5 or Jane’s Addiction or Audioslave, but it didn’t matter. They all connected with the music. All of the artists had played a concert the night before at Times Square Theatre for Road Recovery, a non-profit organization that works with at-risk kids. The show was a big success as it was sold out with the help of Wayne's comrade of 45 years, Iggy Pop. They all played for Wayne Kramer, who was honored for his work with the nonprofit organization that night.

Kramer came to prominence as a teenager in 1967 as a co-founder of the Detroit rock group MC5. The MC5 were not only a group known for their incendiary live performances and radical left-wing political stance, they were ultimately wiretapped by Hoover’s FBI, a distinction which still fills Kramer with healthy pride to this day. The MC5 broke up because of personality conflicts and drug abuse that, for Kramer, led to several years in prison. While incarcerated, another inmate musician became his music teacher. That man was Red Rodney, legendary trumpeter for the Charlie Parker Quintet and fellow in the recovery fight. While in prison, Rodney was Kramer’s mentor and together the two started a band.

In 1978, after a four-year sentence, Kramer returned to the free world as a musician who could read music (thanks to Rodney) and as a punk rock godfather. Kramer has been an especially active songwriter, performer and now prolific film and television composer for nearly the last decade.

Highlights from his scoring work can be heard in the Will Ferrell comedy Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. He has composed the score for many documentaries, among them HBO’s Hacking Democracy as well as The Narcotics Farm about America’s decades-long failed drug war. Kramer also composes music for television, including themes for Fox Sports Network, E!’s Emmy-nominated series Split Ends as well as HBO's East Bound and Down and Why not? With Shania Twain on the Oprah Winfrey Network.

Links

Wayne Kramer's homepage

Wayne @ Wikipedia