Mondo Bizarre Magazine Sunday Songs

The Clash – Jail Guitar Doors

Hi. Today’s Sunday Song is by my favourite band, The Clash, about the late Wayne Kramer, one of my favourite musicians from another of my favourite bands, MC5.

The second is Borderline from MC5’s debut album Kick Out The Jams (1969).

Jail Guitar Doors is about Wayne Kramer time in prison. Years later, in 2007, as a tribute to Joe Strummer, Billy Bragg would create Jail Guitar Doors, a programme to provide prisoners with instruments for music as part of rehabilitation.. In 2009 Billy Bragg and Wayne Kramer founded American Jail Guitar Doors in the United States of America.

In 2022 friends of mine released the compilation album Louiville that includes the track Amerika, an Oscar Pinho instrumental to a speech by Wayne Kramer. The money gathered from Louville sales goes to Jail Guitar Doors Los Angeles.

If you want to know more about Jail Guitar Doors https://www.jailguitardoors.org.uk/ – Jail Guitar Doors UK | https://jail-guitar-doors.myshopify.com/ – Jail Guitar Doors US. For more about Louiville, the album: https://gremioprt.com/

Wayne Kramer wrote about his life, including Jail Guitar Doors in his memoir The Hard Stuff: Dope, Crime, the MC5, and My Life of Impossibilities.