John Sinclair, marijuana activist in Lennon song, dies at 82

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — 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. “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. Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, performed at the Dec. 10-11, 1971, “John Sinclair Freedom Rally,” held at the basketball arena in Ann Arbor. “For me, it’s like coming into a whole different world from the one I left in 1969,” Sinclair wrote in “Guitar Army,” a collection of his writings that was published in the early 1970s. In “Guitar World,” Sinclair described “the crazed guerilla warfare we were waging with the MC5.” Sinclair’s death came only two months after MC5 co-founder Wayne Kramer’s passing.