When I look for the birth of Rock 'n' Roll, I don't find just one artist, but more like a long braid of influences tied together, overlapping, with one strand tied into another. Of course there is Little Richard, Fats Domino, and Chuck Berry. And I am not forgetting Elvis or Jerry Lee Lewis, but to me the roots of rock are found in Black music. One of my very favorites is Chuck Berry, whom I actually met once at a late-night party in Berkeley, California in 1964. We were both in the back hall of a house, he going one way, I another.

While he was in town for the 40th anniversary of the John Sinclair Freedom Rally, Wayne Kramer, lead guitarist and co-founder of the seminal Detroit/Ann Arbor band, MC5, sat down to talk with us. Wayne discusses the early years of the band and the influence of jazz, Sinclair, and Detroit culture on their music.