The room was packed for Chicago Ideas Week’s Music: Tuning In, presented by WBEZ. The event featured musical heavyweights across a broad spectrum of genres, including Lupe Fiasco, Kathleen Edwards, Rick Neilsen of Cheap Trick, and Anderson and Roe piano duo.

Wayne Kramer, former guitarist of Detroit rock group MC5, closed the evening with a passionate talk that embodied CIW’s spirit of activism through creative expression.

His non-profit, Jail Guitar Doors (JGD), provides guitars for use in prisoner rehabilitation. The organization originally started in the UK by British rock legend Billy Bragg, who encouraged Kramer to start a US branch of the foundation.

Kramer launched his program at Sing Sing in 2009 and he has since intervened at over 25 adult and juvenile facilities in the US.

Kramer has dedicated his life to serving those in prison through the foundation. His own experience in a federal prison for over two years gives his work a deep passion that came through during his talk. Kramer told the audience, “We are in a crisis of mass incarceration in America today,” citing the large number of non-violent drug offenders who occupy US prisons.

Kramer underscored the JGD’s mission of music as a tool for rehabilitation, reminding the crowd, “Music is the only thing we know that reaches people in their hearts.”

Bridgett Colling is a student at Kalamazoo College and a proud native of greater Detroit. She’s a passionate social media specialist who has worked in digital communications for a diverse range of companies, including a small business start-up in Ecuador and at NPR Detroit. She currently manages promotions and radio programming at Fire Historical and Cultural Arts Collaborative in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She blogs at http://mypropheticsoul.tumblr.com. Contact her @BridgettColling and at bridgett.colling@gmail.com.