Produced by Steve Gebhardt & John Sinclair - A Musicus Production with Big Chief Productions - Executive Producer: Robert A. Johnson |
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With appearances by John Lennon & Yoko Ono, Allen Ginsberg, MC-5, Up, Ed Sanders, Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen, Ed Moss, Andre Williams, Bo Dollis and Cyril Neville. Original 16mm footage from the 1960s and ’70s by Leni Sinclair. Graphic design by Gary Grimshaw. Music supervision by John Sinclair. Edited by Tom Hayes. Directed by Steve Gebhardt. |
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 John Sinclair is a real American character. Poet, performing artist
and bandleader, music journalist, radio broadcaster,
record producer, educator and archivist, Sinclair first
emerged out of his small-town Michigan background to
forge a legendary course through the 1960s as a cultural
activist, founder of the Detroit Artists Workshop,
manager of the MC-5, and Chairman of the White Panther
Party.An early victim of the War on Drugs who faced 20 years to life in prison for giving two joints to an undercover policewoman, Sinclair mounted an historic challenge to the constitutionality of Michigan’s marijuana laws and served 29 months of a 9-1/2-to-10-year sentence before his legal victory on appeal changed the law for good.  The long campaign waged by Sinclair and his supporters in the courts, the legislature, the media and the streets culminated in a massive John Sinclair Freedom Rally headlined by John Lennon & Yoko Ono, Stevie Wonder, Bob Seger, Phil Ochs, Allen Ginsberg and Bobby Seale that resulted in Sinclair’s release from prison on December 13, 1971—just three days after the event. For the next 10 years Sinclair persevered as a community organizer and cultural activist, producing the legendary Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festivals, writing for the underground press, founding the Detroit Jazz Center, developing and directing a wide range of projects for community arts organizations. |
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Soundtrack
performances by John Sinclair & His Blues Scholars, Chuck
Berry, Howlin’ Wolf, John Coltrane, Miles Davis Sextet,
Detroit Artists Workshop Music
Ensemble, Ed Moss & the Society Jazz Orchestra, MC5, Cecil
Taylor, The Kingsmen, The Youngbloods, Sun Ra & His Solar
Arkestra, Detroit featuring Rusty Day, The Up, Allen
Ginsberg, Ed Sanders, John Lennon & the Plastic Ono Band,
Sly & the Family Stone, John Sinclair & Bill Lynn, Commander
Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen, Thelonious Monk Quartet,
Charles Neville & Diversity, the Wild Magnolias & Re-Birth
Brass Band, Ed Moss & His Hot 5. |
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 In
1982 John Sinclair took up his original vocation
as a poet, set his verse to music, formed his
first band of Blues Scholars and began to pursue
a performing arts career that has produced three
books, 10 CDs and hundreds of concert
appearances throughout the United States and
Western Europe with a kaleidoscopic cast of
accompanists including Archie Shepp, Marion
Brown, Wayne Kramer, Daniel Carter, Walter
“Wolfman” Washington, Willie King, the late
Jimmie Lee Robinson and scores more.Sinclair left Detroit in 1991 for New Orleans and cut a broad mark there as a popular performing artist, music journalist, award-winning broadcast producer and radio personality on WWOZ-FM. In 1998 Sinclair was invited by High Times magazine to serve as High Priest at the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam, beginning a burgeoning love affair with the Netherlands that climaxed with Sinclair’s decision to move to Amsterdam in 2003. |
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That Was Then... What Is Happening Now? |
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Listen to the John Sinclair Radio Show http://www.RadioFreeAmsterdam.com   John Sinclair on Detroit Life http://www.DetroitLife313.com |
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Begun
in 1991 and completed in 2007, 20 TO LIFE is the
real-life story of this legendary poet-provocateur
and American cultural warrior whose exploits have
reverberated throughout the international
underground for 40 years. The story is told by
Sinclair, his family, friends and associates through
the years and highlighted by a series of
electrifying poetry performances by Sinclair’s
contemporary blues and jazz ensembles.
