Joe Lapointe waxes over at The MT about the memories dredged up by the recent passing of fire-from-his-fingers Detroit guitarist “Brother” Wayne Kramer — me, personally, I’m still broken up about it. Lemme tell ya 'bout Wayne…

Kramer’s death jolted the popular music world all the way down to those of us who hung around the Grande Ballroom on Grand River Avenue on Detroit’s West Side in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when and where “The Five” were the house band and life was grand.

The Five took the left-wing, liberal side in those debates and also opposed police brutality after Detroit’s Riot and Rebellion of 1967. Importantly for the Motor City sensibility, they pushed a blue-collar, chip-on-the-shoulder style and attitude of what are sometimes called factory rats and working class.

“The beats of my life break down pretty simply: childhood, the MC5, crime, prison, sobriety, service and family,” Kramer writes. “… I am at peace with my past … I still live in the tension between the angel and the beast … The struggle will continue until the day I depart.”