6/21/2023 0 Comments Black bottom saintsNow that she is one, this writer weaves evocative Paradise Valley scenes through her fictionalized tribute to "our shining hours, our shining places, our shining people" in that time and place when "there was a Black Camelot, otherwise known as Detroit." I am a writer, and I credit Ziggy with being the person who inspired me to want to be a writer, by letting me know that writers existed." "I didn't know all of what he was talking about, but I loved hearing him talk about it when my father read that column aloud to me. "One of the most vivid impressions is he was the first writer I ever knew. As I discovered when I was researching the book, my birth was announced in one of his columns in the Chronicle," she says during a long, fascinating phone chat about the book. From ages 3-8, she took dance lessons at an academy where Johnson aimed "to educate boys and educate girls to be dangerous citizens."Ī half-century later, the 61-year-old author recalls him vividly, she tells Julie Hinds of the Free Press: Randall, a writer-in-residence at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, also relied on personal memories. Franklin officiated at his funeral in New Bethel Baptist Church. It's inspired by Michigan Chronicle entertainment columnist Joe “Ziggy” Johnson, emcee at the Flame Show Bar in Paradise Valley and then at 20 Grand Lounge until his 1968 death at age 54. Alice Randall: "I don't remember not knowing Ziggy." (Photo from author)
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