SameOldShawn: Did you work closely with Sinclair during that period, or was he kind of in and out?

Bill Adler: I worked pretty closely with him, although you didn't have to be up under him to feel his influence in Ann Arbor at that time. He's a really big personality, and I would advise your listeners and your readers to do some research on John Sinclair, because I don't know that he gets the props that he needs. He was a very, very big figure at that time and in that place

I guess he achieved some international notoriety late in 1971. He'd been in prison -- he was just a big hippie leader. For lack of a better way of saying it, he was the Abbie Hoffman of Ann Arbor and Detroit

He got imprisoned in '68, '69 maybe, for possession -- not sale, but possession of two joints of marijuana. The state of Michigan conspired to put his ass in jail for ten years. There was a "Free John Sinclair" campaign that went on the whole time that culminated in December 1971, when there was a "Free John Sinclair" rally at which Stevie Wonder and John Lennon and Yoko Ono performed, and it sprung him from jail

Then in 1972, Lennon composes his album Some Time in New York City, and one of the songs was called "John Sinclair." So that's a very political period for Lennon. It's unfair to reduce John's...I haven't described his work, really, but I suppose he achieved his highest international visibility with the recording and release of that song

He'd been a poet, and then he became a political activist. He was a tremendous music lover, and just a big personality. He kind of magnetized people. Bottom line -- during that period, he was a revolutionary, and he believed he was working to create an American revolution along with various colleagues

When I met him, '73-'74, I don't know that he necessarily saw himself on the barricades at that point. I don't know if his revolutionary ardor had cooled necessarily, but he wasn't looking to plant any bombs or take on the U.S. military at that point. He was concentrating more on culture. One of the things he did during that period that was tremendously influential to me, and enriched the entire community, is that he was the brain behind, he was the genius behind the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festivals, which he essentially produced between '72 and '75. And these were magnificent events. And that was all John