Not many people can say that John Lennon wrote a song about them, but John Sinclair is among that select bunch. Viewed by the powers-that-be as a dangerous revolutionary for his involvement with the White Panther Party, Sinclair was handed a ludicrously harsh sentence – "they gave him ten for two"...
Not many people can say that John Lennon wrote a song about them, but John Sinclair is among that select bunch. Viewed by the powers-that-be as a dangerous revolutionary for his involvement with the White Panther Party, Sinclair was handed a ludicrously harsh sentence – “they gave him ten for two” – for marijuana possession after a police sting. In 1971, Lennon, along with Yoko Ono, Stevie Wonder, Phil Ochs and Archie Shepp played a freedom rally in Michigan and three days later Sinclair was freed.
Sinclair is probably best known in the music world for managing riotous proto-punks The MC5 and imbuing them with a radical zeal. But Sinclair is a beatnik at heart, a poet and an ardent jazz fan, who’s combined those two loves on more than 20 albums of his own down the years.
His latest release is a revelatory trawl through the archives of the Detroit Artists Workshop, an organisation Sinclair co-founded with jazz trumpeter Charles Moore in 1964. Released last month on Strut/Art Yard, the album features exhilarating live performances from Donald Byrd, Lyman Woodard and Bennie Maupin, with a warm intro from Sinclair himself.
So what do you want to ask a lifelong believer in the revolutionary power of music? Send your questions to audiencewith@www.uncut.co.uk and John will answer the best ones in the next issue of Uncut.
