John Sinclair has been called "The Last of the Beatnik Warrior Poets," "The Hardest Working Poet in Show Business," an American cultural icon and a founding father of the international counter-culture. Now based in Amsterdam, Sinclair is a globe-trotting performer and bandleader, a leading blues scholar and music journalist, an award-winning radio broadcaster, record producer, educator, and pioneering crusader for marijuana legalization since 1964.

Backed by his killer performance ensemble, the Blues Scholars, the energetic Professor of Rhythm & Rhyme delivers his intense "investigative poetry" with its themes of blues and jazz history and intimate personal episodes to the music of an all-star unit.

Anchored by guitarist Bill Lynn (ex-Mojo Boogie) and drummer Michael Voelker (ex-Mustang Lightning), the Blues Scholars vary in size from a guitar-bass-drums trio to a full band featuring the amplified harmonica of Larry "Rockin' Jake" Jacobs (Maria Muldaur Band), trumpet star James Andrews (Treme Brass Band), mighty Marc Adams on the Hammond B-3 organ, and a horn section of whatever size the budget may permit.

The music of the Blues Scholars is something else altogether -- a brilliant synthesis of blues and jazz styles and idioms forged by this stellar krewe of multi-dimensional players to accompany Sinclair's hard-hitting verse from his epic works-in-progress: "Fattening Frogs For Snakes -- Delta Sound Suite" and "thelonius: a book of monk", along with the monumental "Home to John Coltrane" suite and scores of odes from the poet's 30-year- high storehouse of poetry and performance verse.

Sinclair's Blues Scholars were formed in Detroit in 1982 and named in honor of the Professor Longhair band that thrilled music lovers between 1949-1979. The New Orleans edition came together in September 1994 and has been featured at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (1995 and 1996), the Baton Rouge Blues Festival, House of Blues (New Orleans, Boston, Los Angeles), Slim's 333 Club (San Francisco), CBGB Gallery (New York), Kansas City Blues & Jazz Festival, and other venues from coast to coast. Their first CD, "Full Moon Night", was recorded "live" in New Orleans and released in 1995; their new release "Full Circle", was cut in Los Angeles in August 1996 with MC-5 guitarist Wayne Kramer and a four-man horn section led by trumpeter Charles Moore.

'Free John Now' concert drew ex-Beatle and many others.

It might have been the best concert most of us never saw. For $3.50, thousands in 1971 did see a 10-hour show that included Stevie Wonder, Bob Seger, and John and Yoko Lennon perform, in between rabble-rousing speeches by Abbie Hoffman and Black Panther Bobby Seale. The "Free John Now" concert held 30 years ago Monday in Ann Arbor's Crisler Arena was meant to raise money and rally support for John Sinclair, the imprisoned dean of Michigan radicals. "We barely covered expenses," recalls photographer Leni Sinclair, who was married to John then. But the publicity had the desired effect; three days later, Sinclair was granted bond and released from prison. He was in Jackson Prison after a second bust for possession of marijuana. At that time, being caught with even a small amount of marijuana drew a 10-year sentence. Leni and David Sinclair, John's brother, organized the show with promoter Pete Andrews and others, as part of a campaign to get Sinclair released on appeal bond. The show was meant to spotlight "local" talent, but when '60s radical Jerry Rubin told Leni Sinclair that John Lennon had just written a song called "John Sinclair" in support of the prisoner, hopes were raised for a more ambitious concert. "Jerry asked John and Yoko if they'd like to participate, and they jumped on it," Leni Sinclair says.

Visit the official John Sinclair Website
Visit John Sinclairs Radio Project Radio Free Amsterdam