poor gal: the cultural history of little liza jane
Nonfiction. Published by University Press of Mississippi (November 27, 2023). 316 pages. Available at the UPM website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Books-A-Million. Cover photography by Dorothea Lange (top image) and Gordon Parks (bottom image).
Advance Praise
Dan Gutstein should be praised not just for his scholarship but his detective work. His meticulous documentation of “Liza Jane” song lyrics and dance games is a model for the type of research that underscores the importance of African American culture. His cross-cultural findings linking minstrel troupes to works of fiction provides evidence of the fluidity of ideas not just within American folklore but American society. The many versions of “Liza Jane” exemplify the complexity one encounters when examining the making of America. —E. Ethelbert Miller, 2023 Grammy nominee and author of If God Invented Baseball
A tour de force of sleuthing, historical study, innovative listening, and all-trails follow-up into the present, Dan Gutstein's Poor Gal traces a key DNA strand of American music. Gutstein's findings ricochet widely and open far-reaching dimensions of an understudied classic hiding in plain sight. —Eric Lott, author of Black Mirror: The Cultural Contradictions of American Racism
An insightful and informative study that traces the cultural history of the “Liza Jane” family of songs. —Lauren Eldridge Stewart, assistant professor of ethnomusicology at Washington University in St. Louis
Excerpt from Review
I would not, at first glance, have thought that a cultural history about one folk song would be interesting, engaging, and often thought-provoking, but “Poor Gal” is all of these things. Who knew that “Little Liza Jane” was the glue holding the universe together, at least since the first date-stamped reference appeared in a Louisville newspaper in 1864, picked up steam throughout the various regiments in the Civil War, and emerged postbellum as an enduring part of the entertainment world? —Tracy Carr, Mississippi Clarion-Ledger
A STORY WE NEED RIGHT NOW
From origins among enslaved people in the antebellum South, to becoming David Bowie's first single, to its present-day irresistible vitality, “Little Liza Jane” has traversed numerous boundaries and continues to touch people from many different sides of the American experience. Poor Gal describes how "Liza Jane" songs formed and how they crossed the color line, geographical regions, historical eras, musical genres, and performance traditions. In an era of great divisiveness, this is triumphant proof of our shared humanity.
Spotify Playlist for Poor Gal
Here is a 40-song playlist that will make an excellent companion for the book. It begins in 1917 and carries forward to 2021, representing numerous musicians, styles, and members of the “Liza Jane” family tree. All of these musicians appear in the book, some briefly and others in greater detail. (Below is a “preview” — click on the title of the playlist to open it in Spotify.)