Ted Nugent and Wayne Kramer: An unlikely friendship, forged in Detroit soul

At first glance, they might strike you as a rock ‘n’ roll odd couple. In the end, they may be a lesson in human relations.

There’s Ted Nugent — brash right-winger, Donald Trump advocate and lifelong teetotaler. And there’s the MC5’s Wayne Kramer — deep-seated progressive, Bernie Sanders booster and onetime addict.

But unbeknownst to much of the public, the two Detroit-bred guitarists were in fact close friends for decades. It was a bond that ran deep, rooted in their early days on the Detroit music scene and strengthened as both men reached middle age.

Following Kramer’s death Friday at 75, Nugent paid tribute to a man and musician he said he dearly loved and deeply admired.

“I was honored to be his friend and I was honored to play music with him,” Nugent said Saturday. “And I was a lucky man to be there when the MC5 let it rip.”

Their long friendship was grounded in shared musical passions, Nugent said — “a respectful love affair that was always driven by music, the Motor City and soulful groove desires.”

And despite their seemingly polar-opposite lifestyles and outlooks, it was a relationship marked by affection and civility, Nugent said.

“That's why Wayne and I had genuine discussions — gentlemanly push-and-shove political discussions. They never turned into arguments. They never turned into debates,” said Nugent. “They always ended with a snicker and a handshake. A friendly, Motor City blood brother, guitar-adventure handshake.”

There were common connections from the start: Both Kramer and Nugent were born in Detroit in 1948. Both studied guitar under Joe Podorsek at Capitol School of Music on Grand River. Both were inspired by the likes of Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Little Richard and — later on — by Motown music and Detroit rock trailblazers such as Billy Lee & the Rivieras and Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels.

And while the MC5’s radical politics and well-chronicled drug indulgences couldn’t have been further from Nugent’s tastes, he said no one was a bigger fan of the band than he was.

“I know I'm cocky and hyper and all that, but I’m probably the only guy who memorized and revered the power of Wayne Kramer and the MC5 like this,” Nugent said. “Everyone else was comfortably numb and missed most of it.”

Nugent said he was “absolutely sucker-punched upside the head” the first time he saw the group’s explosive live show. He recalled telling his Amboy Dukes band mates: “We've gotta practice more.”

“I was on the stage of the Grande next to Wayne’s amps,” Nugent said. “I was at this Detroit rock ‘n’ roll revival, staring and calculating and absorbing and learning.“

Nugent rattled off some of the A-list names he has shared bills with through the years.

“So I've been to the mountaintop. And I'm sorry, man, nothing comes close to the Five at their peak, and what Wayne brought with his James Brown dance and dynamic fury,” he said. “When you can inject a genuine James Brown-Motown dynamic to that voluminous R&B-driven rock ‘n' roll … my God, the, soulfulness of that band and Wayne Kramer. And not only musically, but as a man.”

Nugent pushed back on the frequent description of the MC5 as garage rock or proto-punk: The band was just playing R&B loud and fast with a keen sense of dynamics, he contended. And in the early '70s, he was disheartened by the group’s demise.

“It started to deteriorate because of the drugs and because — listen to who's saying this — they did get too political,” Nugent said with a laugh. “But then, they didn't write a song called ‘F--- Joe Biden,’ which I did.”

Nugent said he and Kramer were friendly during their younger years, but their relationship grew substantially deeper following Kramer’s 1979 release from prison on drug convictions.

In recent years, he was a contributor to Kramer’s Jail Guitar Doors organization, a nonprofit group that supplies musical instruments and mentoring to inmates.

After the MC5 guitarist’s passing Friday, Nugent reached out to Kramer’s widow, Margaret, to share his condolences. He cited a line from his own 1995 song “Fred Bear,” written in tribute to the famed Michigan hunter.

“That song was about Fred and my mom and my dad and my brother,” Nugent said. “But it's about Wayne too. And I ended my love note to Margaret with: ‘In the wind, he’s still alive.’”

Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Ted Nugent and Wayne Kramer: An unlikely bond, forged in Detroit soul