I got to see the MC5 twice in Detroit. I still have the first edition, the unedited version, of their first album. This is a sad loss for those who experienced that time period in Detroit.
Lot of great music coming out of Michigan then.
I was there at exactly the time they were rising in local popularity and notoriety. Probably saw them 25 times or more since they were usually on the bill opening for Cream, the Grateful Dead, Canned Heat and so many more at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit. My 128 page senior essay at the honors college at Wayne State University was partially about the mutual influence of the rock music and Beat Generation of the 1960s. I got an A.
The MC5 were genuine and contributors to the evolution of popular music. They respected and learned from black jazz artists as well as the Who and Jimi Hendrix, and used jazz improvisation as well as psychedelic sounds. Their record company brass destroyed them in my opinion, not the drug use. Tried to tone them down and re-shape them. But the point had been they were originals and mavericks like Dirty Harry or Bob Dylan. Outlaws misunderstood.
Side note: in Norman Mailer’s Miami and the Siege of Chicago
he mentions that of the rock groups signing up to protest against the Humphrey nomination at the Democratic National Convention during the riots, only the MC5 honored their promise and played there before police rounded everybody up.
Original bill had all the headliners but they all chickened out.
Each loss of another old timer makes me feel even older.