By Mike Householder, Associated Press | John Sinclair, a poet, music producer and counterculture figure whose lengthy prison sentence after a series of small-time pot busts inspired a John Lennon song and a star-studded 1971 concert to free him, has died. He was 82.
Sinclair died Tuesday morning at Detroit Receiving Hospital of congestive heart failure following an illness, his publicist Matt Lee said.
Sinclair drew a 9 1/2-to-10-year prison sentence in 1969 from Detroit Recorder’s Court Judge Robert Colombo for giving two joints to undercover officers. He served 29 months but was released a few days after Lennon, Stevie Wonder, Bob Seger and others performed in front of 15,000 attendees at the University of Michigan’s Crisler Arena.
“They gave him 10 for two/What else can Judge Colombo do/We gotta set him free,” Lennon sang in “John Sinclair,” a song the ex-Beatle wrote that immortalized its subject.
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Earlier in the night, Sinclair’s wife, Leni, had called her imprisoned husband, and the conversation between the couple and their 4-year-old daughter, Sunny, was amplified for the crowd, who chanted “Free John!”
“I’m trying to get home. I want to be with you,” a sobbing Sinclair told the crowd that night, a Friday.
And he was by Monday.
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Read the full story here:
https://apnews.com/article/john-sinclair-dies-82a88b0420656561e708ea36c4050a21
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OTHER NOTABLE MUSICIANS’ DEATHS
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If you want to know more about any of the musicians we lost, please check them out at http://www.wikipedia.com
April 2024
3: Jaafar Onn, 72, Malaysian actor, singer and television presenter.
2: Jerry Abbott, 81, American country music songwriter and record producer, father of Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul of Pantera.
1: Phil Delire, 67–68, Belgian music producer.
March 2024
31: Michael McMartin, 79, Canadian-Australian music entrepreneur and manager (Hoodoo Gurus, Radio Birdman), cancer.
30: Casey Benjamin, 45, American musician (Robert Glasper Experiment), producer, and songwriter; Lee Mroszak, 55, American DJ (WINS-FM), complications from Guillain–Barré syndrome; Vanhlupuii, 77, Indian Mizo vocalist, stroke and kidney disease.
29: Gerry Conway, 76, English drummer and percussionist (Jethro Tull, Fairport Convention, Cat Stevens), complications from motor neurone disease.
28: Stephanie Lai Ming-sze, 58, Hong Kong singer and actress (The Inspector Wears Skirts), cancer; Mark Spiro, 67, American songwriter (“Are You Still in Love with Me”, “I’ll See You in My Dreams”, “Mighty Wings”) and record producer, lung cancer; Marian Zazeela, 83, American visual and musical artist.
27: Nigel Brooks, 97, English composer, arranger and conductor; La Castou, 75, Swiss actress, singer, and dancer.
26: Clare Elliott, New Zealand singer (Suburban Reptiles); Chandra Kumara Kandanarachchi, 76, Sri Lankan singer; Sladana Miloševic, 68, Serbian singer, songwriter and record producer, Sjögren syndrome; George Nicolescu, 74, Romanian musician.
25: Humphrey Campbell, 66, Surinamese-Dutch singer, cancer; Chris Cross, 71, English musician (Ultravox, Tiger Lily) and songwriter (“Vienna”); Maurice El Médiouni, 95, Algerian pianist, singer, and composer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_in_2024
Photo: John Sinclair meme
John Sinclair, a Marijuana Activist Who Was Immortalized in a John Lennon Song, Dies at 82 // Other Notable Musicians’ Deaths
