Reid shares his grandfather’s journey from dancing in broken hob-nailed “tap” shoes to making the Southern Circuit via “country road walking,” to working in Vaudeville, to basement gin-joints, and on to legendary venues such as The Cotton Club and the Apollo Theater. Reid also lets his readers in on the darker side of the Harlem Renaissance, a time of racial segregation, political corruption, and cultural clash that was prevalent during this time period of American history.The book's tempo is fast-paced as the author condenses an encyclopedic amount of events, entertainers, prohibition gangsters, and the birth of a new genre of show business.