A Review of
Poor Gal: The Cultural History of Little Liza Jane
By Dan Gutstein
University Press of Mississippi
Hardcover; 316 pages
History of folk song takes readers through a tour of popular culture
By Tracy Carr
Special to the Mississippi Clarion-Ledger
What do David Bowie, Margaret Walker, and Mickey Mouse have in common? Besides being cultural forces in their own rights, they all sang, wrote about, or referred to one specific folk song: “Little Liza Jane.” Not sounding familiar? Pause reading this review and do a quick Google search. Or better yet, check out this 40-song Spotify playlist that Dan Gutstein, author of “Poor Gal: The Cultural History of Little Liza Jane,” created: https://spoti.fi/492vPzE
If you’re like me, “Little Liza Jane” rang a distant bell, perhaps filed in the same mental folder (“folk heroes and songs”) as Babe the Blue Ox and Casey Jones. Once I heard it again, it all came back. If you’re also like me, you’ll fall down an internet rabbit hole once you begin listening to folk songs, and the next time you get in your car, the Bluetooth connection will expose you as someone who blasts the Kessinger Brothers’ version of “Turkey in the Straw” while running errands.
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?
Part of the appeal of the song is its adaptability. Outside of the general melody and the repetition of the name, the lyrics and plot of the song are changeable. Sometimes she’s had her heart broken, sometimes she’s the heartbreaker; sometimes she’s Old Liza Jane, sometimes she’s Lizie Jane. Why all of this malleability—and how did it get to be so popular?
Part of the answer is that the Liza Jane family of songs originated among enslaved people, and “[d]uring the Civil War, some of these variants migrated to regiments from both sides of the conflict before being absorbed, organized, and transformed extensively by the inherently racist institution of minstrelsy, which served as one bridge—but hardly the only one—between the Civil War years and the advent of the recording era, the gate, as it were, to the musical paradises of the twentieth century.” From there, sheet music publication helped the song “leap from folk tradition into popular culture.”
Gutstein’s research is exemplary, thoughtful, and detailed. He includes references to the song in the Works Progress Administration’s Slave Narrative Collection, gathered in the 1930s by the Federal Writers’ Project. I appreciated that Gutstein knows that the layperson reading this book may not know important details about the perception of the Slave Narrative Collection through the years: it was at first considered unreliable, since how on earth could these people, who were mostly in their 80s, possibly remember all that stuff? Over time, however, the narratives were perceived as what they were intended to be: a rich resource for the study of slavery told directly by those who were affected.
As Gutstein takes us through Little Liza Jane’s evolution and just how far and wide her reach extends, he also succeeds in making a history of a song that has quietly dominated the entertainment world, well, entertaining. The book also includes two appendices (which I often find are the most interesting parts of books), one called “Loose Ends” that addresses little uncorroborated tidbits he picked up in his research that had nowhere else to live, and one with sheet music of major variants. Collectors of interesting factoids and music nerds alike will appreciate Gutstein’s detailed and enjoyable work.
Tracy Carr is the coordinator of the Mississippi Center for the Book, a Library of Congress program focused on promoting reading, books, libraries, and literacy.
Clarion-Ledger / Hattiesburg American Mississippi Books Page 