In many ways, rock musician Wayne Kramer was a true radical. The former guitarist for the protopunk band the MC5 — who died Feb. 2 of cancer at age 75 — was known for the revolutionary fire in his music, but also for the activism for prison reform that defined his later years.
That cause was informed by his own life-changing experience as a federal drug offender imprisoned in the mid-1970s. It led to his creation of Jail Guitar Doors USA, an initiative to promote rehabilitation in prisons through the donation of musical instruments and on-site instruction, while lobbying for change in what Kramer called an increasingly inhumane and unfair prison system.
