By Carol Fisher-Linn
Buffalo born James Ambrose Johnson Jr. (February 1, 1948 – August 6, 2004), better known by his stage name Rick James, was an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. To say Jame’s lifestyle was insane is not enough. He was over the top as his death of a massive drug overdose will prove, apart from his many illnesses including diabetes, a pacemaker for his faulty heart, etc. Trouble is the guy was so brilliant that his life choices could not dumb down his music – this guy who invented punk-funk was a “superfreak” as quoted from undiscovermusic.com. James Ambrose the kid started in, you guessed it, Buffalo, playing guitar, bass and drums. He then moved on to NYC and then to Toronto, Canada. We’ll pass on his stint in the U.S. Navy. Motown liked him, but it was this thing about being chased by the law (AWOL). Sometime later, he met with Stevie Wonder who renamed him Rick James; he released a single but it still took another 4 years for Motown to invite him in. The rest is history. Rick James truly led a rather “interesting” life, but he did leave behind a few things to be remembered in Western New York: His brother LeRoi Johnson, a prominent attorney and artist in Buffalo, his grave at Forest Lawn Cemetery and his parrot, who now lives happily (and serenely) in its home in Delevan, NY. And then, of course, there’s his music….
Writer Joyce Carol Oates was born in Lockport, New York and grew up on her parents’ farm in Millersport. She characterized hers as “a happy, close-knit and unextraordinary family for our time, place and economic status”, but her childhood as “a daily scramble for existence”. Oates began writing at the age of 14, when her grandmother, Blanche Woodside gave her a typewriter. Oates graduated from Williamsville South High School in 1956, where she worked for her high school newspaper. She was the first in her family to complete high school. Oates eventually drew on aspects of her grandmother’s life in writing the novel The Gravedigger’s Daughter (2007). Regardless of what she is reported to have said, Oates grew up in chaos. She was adopted because of her father being murdered; Grandmother Blanche lived with them after she survived an attempted murder-suicide at her own father’s hands. She survived, her father did not. When Oates was a child, her next-door neighbor was sent to Attica Correctional Facility for arson and attempted murder. (Awful circumstances but great fodder for her novels!) Beginning school in a one-room schoolhouse, she became a voracious reader at a young age, reading Bronte, Dostoevsky, Faulkner, Thoreau and Hemingway which influenced her greatly. Writing continually, Oates retired from teaching at Princeton and went on to teach creative short fiction at UC Berkeley. Her extensive bibliography contains poetry, plays, criticism, short stories, eleven novellas, and sixty novels (“The Falls” is centered around Niagara Falls).
Salamanca native, Emmy-winning broadcaster, poet and author Ira Joe Fisher recently launched his newest poetry collection, “The Birth of Snow.” A forties baby he grew up in Little Valley, graduating from LVHS in 1965. Western New York is in his heart and his blood, which is probably why winter is his favorite season. In an Olean times Herald article this past March Fisher said, “I’ve always said I grew up in a poem with the hills, forests, snow and beautiful leaves of Western New York,” he said. “It’s a poetic place.” Fisher’s broadcasting career began at 16 when he worked at the WGGO radio station in Salamanca. After four years in U.S. Air Force, he moved to a Texas radio station, then again to Spokane, Washington where he wrote, hosted and reported the news. Another move took him to Cincinnati and a news anchor stint alongside Nick Clooney (George’s dad). He settled in NYC and worked at NBC and CBS, often appearing on the CBS “Early Show.” In his meanderings he was also a weather reporter and he is best known for his ability to write backwards on plexiglass as he explained the weather systems. Fisher presently teaches at Mercy University in Dobbs’s Ferry and in Ridgefield, Conn., making Ridgefield his and his wife, Shelly’s, home.
Bits:
James H. McGraw, #9 of ten children was born in Harmony, Chautauqua County in 1860. He co-founded McGraw-Hill publishing and since his passing until this day, someone from the McGraw family has held the reins of the company.
Katherine “Kate” Stoneman (April 1841 – May 19, 1925), born in Lakewood, Chautauqua County was an early 20th-century suffragist and the first woman admitted to the Bar Association in the State of New York.