I was saddened to hear of the passing this week of the writer, blues historian, political activist, and marijuana advocate John Sinclair, at the age of 82. I had the pleasure of interviewing Sinclair, who decades earlier managed the seminal Detroit rock ‘n’ roll combo the MC5 and founded the anti-racist White Panther Party, back in 1999 for a piece published in the Boston Phoenix. The occasion was one of annual John’s visits to Boston to speak at a rally sponsored by the Massachusetts Cannibas Reform Coalition, and perform with the local incarnation of his roving band project he dubbed The Blues Scholars. Here’s some of what Sinclair had to say during our conversation, about what he’d been up to since the time John Lennon wrote a song about him, and how it felt to be a cultural touchstone.

John Sinclair’s been called every name under the sun: poet; producer; political prisoner; deejay; anti-authoritarian rabble-rouser; pop culture icon.

You name it, he’s been it — or done it. Sinclair’s best known perhaps, as both the founder of the White Panther Party (taking its name as an ally of the Black Panthers) and the manager of Detroit proto-punks the MC5. But more recently — actually for the past three-and-a-half decades — he’s added to his legend as leader of the Blues Scholars, a rotating cast of musicians, artists, writers, and fans who provide musical accompaniment to what’s been variously described as his epic, Beat-style “narrative,” or “investigative” poetry.

The Blues Scholars, named as a tribute to Professor Longhair’s band, were originally formed in Detroit in 1982, though Sinclair’s got various lineups waiting whenever he hits town in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston.

“I have a band,” Sinclair explains by phone from New Orleans, where he’s made his residence since 1991. “But I can’t afford to take ‘em on the road with me, so I use bands where I can find them.” The Boston version of the Blues Scholars includes guitarist and *Phoenix* contributor Ted Drozdowski, bassist Mike Yaco, and drummer Eric Austin.

So what, exactly, is “investigative” poetry?

“I write the texts and set ‘em to music,” Sinclair says. “In the text, I dabble in paeans to great musicians or lots of things — but it’s mostly stories about them. Sometimes I’ll find stories about a musician, or stories where they’ve talked about themselves, and put those to music. I just did it for kicks for awhile back when I lived in Detroit, and then I started writing jazz-oriented pieces.”

The result has been two albums: 1995’s *Full Moon Night* and ‘97’s *Full Circle* (the latter recorded with close friend and MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer).

A third disc, *Fattening Frogs For Snakes* (named after a Sonny Boy Williamson tune), will accompany a book he’s publishing by the same title that collects his poems and other writings on the great jazz and blues musicians that inform his spoken-word pieces: Thelonious Monk; John Coltrane; Muddy Waters; Howlin’ Wolf; Robert Johnson. The material on the disc, he says, will comprise a “Delta sound suite” that fuses his poetry with everything from electric blues to New Orleans funeral dirges.

Sinclair’s prose serves as an extension of the music he loves. It’s equal parts anecdotal reflection, Beat poetry, unfettered fandom, and oral history. Meanwhile, the blues and jazz-flavored atmospheres sound at once timeless and modern. But not *too* modern. Sinclair’s fetish is for the old, hard stuff. As a DJ on New Orleans’ WWOZ, he spins a lot of the old blues that originally inspired him.

But the man — like his radio shows — is steeped in cultural history, and it’s unlikely that anything will ever usurp what most folks remember him for: serving two-and-a-half years of a draconian 10-year sentence in a Michigan state penitentiary for possession of two marijuana joints.

That sentence sparked Abbie Hoffman to infamously take the stage during the Who’s performance at Woodstock and rail in Sinclair’s defense before Pete Townshend bopped him on the head with his guitar to forcibly shoo him off. And none other than John Lennon, with Yoko Ono and the Plastic Ono Band, was moved to write a song about him, titled, concisely enough, “John Sinclair.” A benefit concert featuring Lennon, Stevie Wonder, a young Bob Seger, and others in 1971 helped secure Sinclair’s release and change the state’s marijuana possession laws.

“It ain’t fair, John Sinclair, in the stir for breathing air,” sang Lennon. “Won’t you care for John Sinclair? Let him be, set him free. Let him be like you and me.”

Of his past, and his legacy, Sinclair is decidedly unsentimental. “I can live with it,” he says. “It was fun while it was happening, but that was a long time ago.”

Sinclair’s bust and his early days as an advocate for marijuana reform laws, also brings him to the Boston area annually for the MASSCAN (Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition) rallies that happen every fall. His advice for everybody, then and now, is to “relax, and have a joint.”

“I was a marijuana activist and one of the founders of what they’re doing now,” he says. “It’s kind of fun to see all those kids out there acting up. Lord knows we need more of that.”

Like

Comment