Music / Civil rights & activism
Wayne Kramer
1948–2024 · guitarist, songwriter, producer
MC5 guitarist from the Downriver suburb of Lincoln Park whose band, the house band of the Grande Ballroom, recorded Kick Out the Jams live there in 1968.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan- Died
Los Angeles, California
aged 75- Birth name
- Wayne Stanley Kambes
- Also known as
- Brother Wayne
- Detroit years
- 1948–1970s, 1991
- Field
- Music, Civil rights & activism
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Wayne Kramer was born Wayne Kambes in Detroit and grew up Downriver, where in 1963 he and his teenage friend Fred “Sonic” Smith founded the band that became the MC5 in Lincoln Park. With singer Rob Tyner, bassist Michael Davis and drummer Dennis Thompson, they built a reputation for ferocious live shows, and in 1967 they became the house band at the Grande Ballroom on Grand River Avenue, managed by the radical writer John Sinclair. Their debut album Kick Out the Jams was recorded live at the Grande on October 30 and 31, 1968. The band broke up amid poverty, drugs and government harassment, and Kramer later called himself a small-time Detroit criminal; a 1975 drug conviction sent him to federal prison. He rebuilt his life in music, reunited with his bandmates in Detroit in 1991 for a Rob Tyner memorial concert, founded the prison music charity Jail Guitar Doors, and played on Alice Cooper's Detroit Stories (2021).
Highlights
- Co-founded the MC5 (1963)
- Kick Out the Jams recorded live at the Grande Ballroom (1968)
- Co-founded Jail Guitar Doors USA with Billy Bragg (2009)
- MC5 inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2024)
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 2
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Performed here · 1967–1969
Grande Ballroom
Closed · 1928–1972
The MC5 were the house band of Russ Gibb's rock hall and recorded Kick Out the Jams here in October 1968. The building stands vacant; it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2018.
Lived here · 1950s–1960s
Lincoln Park
Status being checked
Downriver suburb where he grew up and where the MC5 was formed in 1963.