Publication info Poor Gal: The Cultural History of Little Liza Jane,
University Press of Mississippi, November 27, 2023. Available at UPM website, Amazon,
and other online merchants. “Liza Jane” is also the subject of a forthcoming
documentary film; please visit the project’s website for a trailer, information on the creative team, details
on participating musicians, and ways to support the production. […For even more,
please see a post regarding some of the lesser-known characters in Poor Gal;
Poor GalSpotify playlist; and the author’s website.]
Dear Readers, this post is meant, simply, to present Poor Gal’s
Table of Contents:
Introduction: Sludge and Theory
I. Snotches of Songs: The WPA Slave Narrative Collection
II. “Liza Jane,” You Little Rogue: Dr. Adonis and the Regiments
III. 1865
IV. Intermission Number One: The Potential Influences of
Robert Burns, “Susan Jane,” and Others
V. “Liza Jane” Meets the Masses: Postbellum Minstrelsy, Part First and Part
Third
VI. From the Bold Soldier Boy’s Songbook to the
Cylinders of George W. Johnson: “Oh, Goodbye Liza Jane”
VII. From the New Orleans Levee to the Hampton Institute: “Little
Liza Jane” ad infinitum
VIII. Intermission Number Two: The Literary “Liza Jane” of
Charles Chesnutt, Jean Toomer, and Margaret Walker
IX. You Went a-Driving with Mister Brown: The Tin Pan Alley
Publishing Bonanza
X. Poor Gal
XI. I’se Got a Gal and You Got None: A Countess-Composer and
an Actress-Aviatrix Popularize “Li’l Liza Jane”
XII. Intermission Number Three: Effie Lee Newsome’s
“Charcoal, Leddy, Charcoal” and Betty Vincent’s “Problems of the Heart”
XIII. “Liza Jane” Meets the Media: Film, Animation, Radio,
Television
XIV. The Lomaxes
XV. The Constellation That Connects Langston Hughes and
David Bowie, Antonín Dvořák and Nina Simone
XVI. Portrait of a Young Enslaved Woman Standing Still in the
Cathedral Silence of the Deep Woods after a Dance
Appendix 1: Loose Ends
Appendix 2: Sheet Music or Notated Music of Major Variants
Also included are an Apologia and Acknowledgments in the “front
matter” of the book as well as Notes, Works Cited, and Index at the end of the
book.
1. Joy on Fire poster for our music video, “Uh Huh,” which
has been an official selection at the Prisma Rome Independent Film Awards (2020),
London Rocks Film Festival (2020), and L.A. Rocks Film Festival (2021). Many
other submissions are pending. You can check out the video through this link.
2. I got my flu shot this year!
3. While the image quality isn’t the greatest, this does
represent the reunion between me and the fox. By reunion, I mean that we jogged
together for the first time since she raised her cubs. As per usual, the fox was
more agile.
4. The “Li’l Liza Jane” project goes onward. Once it’s safe,
I will go to Emory University in Atlanta, via a Rose Library Fellowship, to
research the song in greater depth. We have learned so much about America’s
favorite poor gal, including the fact that the tune has been absorbed internationally
(and nationally) by a great number of cultures. Pictured above is the song
translated into the Chinook language.
When people ask me what I’m doing
with myself these days, the short answer is: making a record, States of America, with Anna Meadors, John Paul Carillo, and Chris Olsen of Joy on Fire, and making
a documentary film about the tune “Li’l Liza Jane” with Emily Cohen. (The
two activities will eventually intersect when Joy on Fire unfurl a punk-jazz
version of “Liza Jane” whilst the cameras roll.) Both music-making and movie-making require
a tremendous amount of exertion, as it turns out. One could speculate on the “ups and downs” of the creative cycle, but in reality, there are only up-sides, so long as I’m expending
the level of effort that my team-mates require of me. The term “team-mate” of
course wouldn’t have applied a few years ago, when I toiled singly as a
writer of poems and stories. That work continues, by the way, but unfortunately
I’ve grown apart from my long-term involvement with the DC Poetry gang, even as
friendships continue with many of its members. Perhaps my next great endeavor
will involve entry into another literary community, or founding a brand-new
one.
Joy on Fire just concluded an
intense period of recordings, as well as a mini-tour
that whirled us from the hot rooms of a classic music space in West Philly to a Jersey Shore
pool party (“lol”) to the fabulous Lou Costello Room in Baltimore’s Hampden
neighborhood. The mini-tour, three venues in three nights, required a fair
amount of howling, and by the end, I was a bit hoarse. Joy on Fire describe
themselves as “punk jazz,” which means that they’re not timid. To be heard
requires projection. It’s quite a different environment from the “funereal
quiet” of many literary readings. Even when I’ve given readings in bars, or at
outdoor beer festivals, or at flash mob events, I’ve been able to declaim
without howling, but now I howl, and truth be told, where has howling been all my
life? (I seem to recall a poetry book whose title involved a form of that word—either
in advocacy of said act or as testament to its arrival as an art form.) To howl
isn’t even half of it, of course. Music and words had to be joined together,
in a series of trials, with each member of the combo placing her or
his stamp on them. But the biggest adjustment, for me anyhow, has been doing
everything by memory. How many times as a writer (hundreds?) have I stood at a
lectern, holding the words to my eyes, for easy recital? Don’t do and you won’t
learn; don’t learn and you won’t grow. Become a vocalist in a punk-jazz orchestra!
The great Cajun musician, Iry
LeJeune, who died
in 1955 at age 26 after being struck by an automobile.
Over the course of two years engaging in pre-production tasks centering on Li’l Liza Jane: A Movie About A Song,
Emily and I have built a powerful, unbelievable cultural history for a tune—dare I say—more unique than any tune that has developed in North America. I should say “family of
songs” since the many titles, melodies, and lyrics easily approximate the
breadth of a poetic forms handbook. The research discoveries have been shocking,
even triumphant, particularly since they’ve been extraordinarily difficult
to achieve, in certain instances. We’ve been mentored by some of the greatest
folklorists in the country, including Grammy-winner and author of Big Road Blues, David Evans, who has guided us in the present and “in the past,”
and when I say “in the past,” I refer to both historical information as well as an article he published
years ago that helped us establish a relationship between the “Liza Jane”
family and the Cajun standard “J’étais au bal” (“I was at the dance.”) If you
play the version, say, by Cajun legend Iry LeJeune, you can hear where the
melody of “J’étais au bal” (sometimes known as “J’ai été au bal”) overlaps with
the “Liza Jane” family. This relationship is but one pinprick of starlight—out of hundreds—that helps to establish “Li’l Liza Jane” as a monumental constellation. We look forward to fully telling the epic story of America’s favorite Poor Gal.
An apartment poetry reading for
out-of-town
literary visitors Cathy Wagner and Susana Gardner.
It’s no accident that I chose a
song as subject matter for a documentary foray, since folk poetry informs part
of its lengthy history. The thought of poetry sometimes turns my mind toward writing community, and my association with the DC Poetry crowd, in particular. My relationship to that group involved hosting dozens of parties (many legendary); hosting the popular Beer Club Salon
of Ideas; and co-hosting several popular happy hours over the course of two decades (Drink & Walk and Public
Office Hours, to name two). I even started DJ’ing from my Shakers and Jump Blues
projects as the DC Poets took over the basement of the Black Squirrel on
Thursday nights for many seasons. I’m grateful for abiding friendships with many writers
and performers who hail from both generations of the DC Poetry scene (many now expatriates), including Rod
Smith, Heather Fuller, Mark Wallace, Terence Winch, Phyllis Rosenzweig, Tina
Darragh, Doug Lang, Casey Smith, Susana Gardner, Joe Ross, Cathy Eisenhower, Maureen
Thorson, and Tom Orange, among others. Things change, of course, and I wish the
DC Poetry scene good tidings even as I contemplate the next literary community
to join (or found).
I’m excited for 2020, when my
collaboration with Joy on Fire will result in the release of a limited-edition
LP on 180 gram vinyl as well as an EP of six songs. Li’l Liza Jane: A Movie About A Song will enter production, combining an
impressive roster of musicians and scholars who will create a durable monument
to a deserving folk tune. All the while these two projects
have been percolating, I’ve been adding to, shaping, and editing several
manuscripts, including a novel, a collection of stories, and at least one
collection of poems. I’d love to start reading from my creative writing again,
and I’d also love to identify publication opportunities for these manuscripts. Too,
I’m nomadic right now, splitting time between the care of my elderly parents
and the makes-takes of Trenton, N.J., so I’m on the lookout for an unoccupied shotgun shack somewhere in eastern U.S.A. I’d be interested in
knowing if there’s a literary collective out there which needs a bloke like me, or
if others felt like bonding together in order to form one. For these, or any reasons, drop me a communiqué, yo! Meanwhile, best wishes to you, and thanks for taking a gander at this here Statement of Human-being-ness. xo
If I slept two or three restless hours on the night of
Sunday, March 4, 2018, I don’t remember. All sorts of unsettling scenarios kept
nagging me every time I began to drift—nobody would show up, the historic windstorm
would double back, I would improbably fail my partners Emily and Erich with
some horrendous oversight—until I threw myself out of bed at daybreak and began
hoofing toward the Capital Fringe Trinidad Theatre in Washington’s H Street
Corridor. I carried in my backpack what any good co-producer would carry: a couple
of four-terabyte hard drives and ten home-made (hand-crafted!) sandwiches.
A little back-story: After reading my research-post on the
song “Li’l Liza Jane,” Emily Cohen contacted me last July. She and I had
collaborated on several earlier projects, but hadn’t spoken in a couple years. We
both declared that we required something else in our lives, something bigger than
ourselves. After a typical Emily-Dan conversation (okay: sometimes we quarrel, we’ve had
some classic donnybrooks, but it’s very productive!) we decided to embark upon
a documentary film project. We would call it Li’l Liza Jane: A Movie About A Song. Around Thanksgiving, the luminary
cinematographer Erich Roland joined the team as Director of Photography and we began
planning the production of a fundraising trailer. In time, we settled on the
Trinidad Theatre space and the date, March 5th. Everything would happen there
and then.
A couple days before my night of tossing and turning, a
severe windstorm with hurricane-force gusts pummeled the D.C. area, upending
trees and power lines. It spared the Trinidad Theatre, however, and it spared Emily,
who lives in Wyoming, and who made it to D.C. after enduring a few frustrating air-travel delays. The crew—including Andrew Capino (Assistant Camera) and
Lenny Schmitz (Sound Engineer)—had already begun to load-in a copious amount of
gear when I arrived. Emily and her personal assistant (her father Mike) arrived
with coffee. Our featured musician Phil Wiggins brought a bag of thirty harmonicas to the filming session.
Our featured interviewees Faye Moskowitz, Bobby Hill, and Elena Day appeared,
and all four of our people-to-be-filmed brought their A games. So did the fabulous
Capital Fringe staffer, David Carter, who assisted us throughout the
day.
Phil kept a harmonica in each hand and played both interchangeably
as he cycled through his stirring rendition of “Li’l
Liza Jane” again and again. Faye surprised us not only by singing, but singing “Liza Jane”
lyrics that nobody had ever heard before. Bobby emphasized that African
American people didn’t always have a chance to describe their plight, and so,
told their stories in song. Elena emphasized that, at the heart of “Li’l Liza
Jane,” stands an independent woman who would be an impressive person, now, during
an era when women are empowering themselves. As opposed to the worst happening
(as when I panicked, sleepless) the best had happened, instead. Each person put
her or his stamp on the session.
Check out our trailer [click here] if you haven’t done so
already. The amount of effort and professionalism on display speaks to the great
affection we have for music, for one another, and for the support of a good
cause. The full story of America’s favorite poor gal, Li’l Liza Jane, will be
told, and with any luck, this trailer will be helpful in attracting funders
to the project. Emily and I will be following every lead, tirelessly, in the
days to come. By doing so, and by eventually endowing the film with adequate
resources, we hope to reward the trust of all the crew members and interviewees
who helped us to create this preview. Notably, we want to think of the men and
women—dating back nearly 200 years, enslaved people and hardscrabble fiddlers alike—who recited some
of the original versions of the tune, as well as Li’l Liza Jane herself. . . .
.whoever, and how many different women, she may be.
Trailer Day Trivia
Varieties of sandwiches: 3
Renditions of “Li’l Liza Jane”: 2
Number of fog machines: 1
Crew members: 5
Number of temple oranges: 7
Cans of sparkling “Refreshe”: 12
Number of microphones: 3
Guide to the Photographs
1. Phil Wiggins
2. Emily Cohen, Erich Roland, Andrew Capino, and
Phil Wiggins
3. Faye Moskowitz
4. Tape
5. Elena Day
6. Bobby Hill and crew
7. Emily Cohen and Dan Gutstein
Still photography by Mike Cohen
(1, 3, 4, 5, 6) and Dan Gutstein (2, 7)
Of course, Poor Gal is now available! Please note publication and ordering info for Poor Gal: The Cultural History of Little Liza Jane, University Press of Mississippi, November 27, 2023. Available at UPM website, Amazon, and other online merchants.
In 1927, the poet Carl Sandburg declared, “There are as many
Liza songs in the Appalachian Mountains as there are species of trees on the
slopes of that range.” This unmagnified observation would help introduce one of
the “Liza Jane” compositions in his crucial effort, The American Songbag, a celebrated, voluminous compilation that bestowed
significance upon numerous folksongs. “Liza Jane” appealed to lonesome drifters
who attempted to ranch the “flat prairies and level horizons” on the western
plains of the Appalachians, yet another tune, “Good-By Liza Jane,” apparently
accompanied a Midwestern circus as a minstrel song. The character, Liza Jane,
is rather incidental to the silliness of the circus minstrelsy—a horse falls
partway down a well, a snail bursts through the tail of the goose that swallowed
it, a woman crosses a bridge that that wasn’t yet built—but in the mountain
range version, Liza Jane (the character) assumes more prominence. In that piece,
the narrators make jugs of molasses in order to “sweeten little Liza Jane” and
contrast the hardest work of their lives (“a-brakin’ on the train”) with the
easiest, “a-huggin’ little Liza Jane.” Questions about the relationships of
these variations as well as their origins might not persevere in the
inquisitive mind of the listener would the song not persevere among recording
artists. Nina Simone, for example, delivered stirring renditions of “Li’l Liza
Jane” throughout her career, including a fabulous live performance at the
Newport Jazz Festival in 1960. Wynton Marsalis, David Bowie (as Davie Jones),
The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Pete Seeger, Harry Belafonte, Bing Crosby, Trombone Shorty, Coleman Hawkins, Bob Wills, Duane Eddy,
Doc Watson, Slim Harpo, and Fats Domino, among countless others, performed the song. In many renditions of the tune, Liza Jane represents an object of courtship,
one who eludes the promises of gifts and affection with elegiac steadfastness.
The Hill Billies
recorded “Mountaineer’s Love Song” in 1926.
Step Back
When investigating John Lomax’s early 1930s recordings in Louisiana, the writer Joshua Clegg Caffery
encountered “Little Liza Jane,” terming it a “crossover dance number” performed
by African American string bands and jug bands. In his book, Traditional Music in Coastal Louisiana: The
1934 Lomax Recordings, Caffery parses a version of the song performed by
Wilson “Stavin’ Chain” Jones. The most charming passage of the tune, “Some
people tell me Liza don’t steal, Little Liza Jane / And I caught little Liza in
my cornfield, Little Liza Jane,” stamps a humorous realization onto a piece
that otherwise, according to Caffery, veers between “unrelated episodes constructed
out of stock phrases.” Even as that might be an unfair qualification, the
author draws a distinction between Stavin’ Chain’s version of
“Liza Jane” and the repertoire of Appalachian fiddle tunes such as “Susan Jane”
and “Lasses Cane,” songs quite similar to the mountaintop variation introduced
by Sandburg (although not the minstrel piece.) Terming them “second cousins
once removed,” Caffery still acknowledges lineage between the Louisiana
and Appalachian compositions. Many early recordings of “Li’l Liza Jane” predate
the Lomax field recordings, among them these two popular versions: Earl
Fuller’s Famous Jazz Band recording of “Li’l’ Liza Jane—One Step” in 1917 and The
Hill Billies recording of “Mountaineer’s Love Song” in 1926, both in New York City.
The former, recorded by white musicians, carries the traditional “Little Liza Jane” melody,
whereas the latter (its “second cousin once removed”) clips along with obvious
Appalachian fiddling qualities. While “Mountaineer’s Love Song” doesn’t mention
Liza Jane in its title, the singers frequently recall her throughout the piece.
Neither rendition, however, accounts for the genesis of “Li’l Liza Jane”—not
nearly. The nearly untraceable Countess Ada De Lachau published sheet music for a
version of the song, “Li’l Liza Jane,” that was performed as entr’acte
incidental music for a thriving Broadway three-act comedy, Come Out of the Kitchen, starring Ruth Chatterton, an actress who
knew Amelia Earhart and would later fly solo several times, herself, across the
United States, in addition to becoming a best-selling novelist. Broadway
audiences heard “Li’l Liza Jane” as many as 224 times between the play’s
opening in October 1916 and closing in May 1917, not long after Congress voted
to declare war on Germany as part of the mobilization for World War I. Don
Tyler, in his book, Music of the First
World War, cannot classify “Li’l Liza Jane” easily, dubbing it “part folk
song, part [minstrel] song, part early jazz, and part early country.”
Wilson “Stavin’ Chain”
Jones is pictured during John Lomax’s field recording sessions in 1934.
Step Back, Twice
According to The American Songbag,
one C.W. Loutzenhiser of Chicago recalls seeing a performance of the minstrel
song “Good-By Liza Jane” as a child attending the circus. No date accompanies
this information, but we can assume that minstrels may have been performing
versions of the song in the nineteenth century. At least
two writers published scores earlier than the mysterious Countess Ada De
Lachau, one being Harry von Tilzer’s “Good Bye Eliza Jane” (1903) and the
earliest being Eddie Fox’s “Good Bye Liza Jane” (1871.) The Fox version doesn’t
overtly lampoon Blacks, and instead, bills itself as a “comic song,” offering
rural themes and silly couplets such as “Chickens and hens have gone to roost /
A hawk flew down and bit an old goose.” The von Tilzer sheet music, on the
other hand, portrays two Black faces in a stereotyped cover image and narrates a
dialect-heavy scenario in which Eliza Jane has betrayed a lover, who then
demands his belongings and promises to skip town before having to pay the rent.
To be sure, the song’s estimable legacy exceeds sheet music and popular
recordings, and we must take an important moment to understand that “Li’l Liza
Jane” also served as a dancing game, or more specifically, a “Stealin’
Partners” dance-game song. In her 1918 collection, Negro Folk Songs, Book 4, the ethnomusicologist Natalie Curtis
Burlin informed the tune “‘Liza Jane” as one during which an unaccompanied man
would dance in the center of a circle, surrounded by couples. He would ‘steal’
a female partner, and the resulting single man would repeat the process, amid
joyous lyrics in which a suitor urges Liza Jane to follow him, to Baltimore: “I
got a house in Baltimo’, L’il’ ‘Liza-Jane / Street-car runs right by ma do’,
L’il’ ‘Liza-Jane / O Eliza, L’il’ ‘Liza-Jane / O Eliza, L’il’ ‘Liza-Jane.” (As
an aside, Natalie Curtis Burlin famously spent time transcribing songs on
Native American reservations, including one stay accompanied by her pal,
Theodore Roosevelt.) Additionally, Curtis Burlin would note an observation by Charles
N. Wheeler, who wrote about a tune, “‘Liza Jane,” sung by African American
soldiers in France, during World War I, perhaps the New York 15th (Colored)
Regiment. According to his article in the Chicago
Tribune, Wheeler related the words, probably sung as cadence, which began,
“I’se got a gal an’ you got none—L’il’ ‘Liza Jane / House an’ lot in
Baltimo’—L’il ‘Liza Jane.”
The Countess
Ada De Lachau helped popularize
the song by publishing this sheet music in
1916.
Roots in Slavery
Whether or not the African American soldiers drew from Countess Ada De
Lachau, they nevertheless restated her entry to “Li’l Liza Jane.” A phrase—“I’se got a gal an’ you got none”—reinforces the basic situation of the stealing partners dance game. The placement of
Baltimore in many versions of “Li’l Liza Jane” may comment on some of the
song’s evolutionary twists or may offer poetic convenience, seeing as
“Baltimore” can be (and is) end-rhymed with words like “door” and “floor,” both
evidence of house ownership, and both cited as reasons why Liza Jane should
follow her suitor. The Countess Ada De Lachau’s sheet music, despite being
billed as a “Southern Dialect Song,” contains a curious nod to old minstrel songs: “I will
take good care [of] thee,” a line that Nina Simone maintains in her 1960
Newport appearance. Long before Simone wowed the audience at Newport, more than one ex-slave narrative referenced the presence of “Liza Jane” songs in the antebellum South. One such narrative from the Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Progress
Administration confirms that a version of “Li’l Liza Jane” was being sung in
Louisiana before the Civil War. This blogger found the narrative of Lucy
Thurston extremely painful to read, but she recited, at 101 years of age, quite
a few lines of the Liza song she sang: “Hair as [black] as coal in de mi--ine /
Lil Liza Jane / Eyes so large and big and [fine] / Lil Liza Jane / OHooooo Lil Liza,
Lil Liza Jane / OHooooo Lil Liza, Lil Liza Jane.” Indeed, the score by Countess
Ada De Lachau emphasizes a refrain similar to Lucy Thurston’s rendition.
“Ohe—————Liz – a, Li’l Liz – a – Jane,” it reads, with weight placed on the
“Ohe,” which may actually be “Oh” on the one hand, and the first syllable of “Eliza” (“E”) on the other hand. Then it plunges toward the name of the woman who, either lightheartedly
or earnestly, the crooner courts.
Slim Harpo and His
King Bees play “Little Liza Jane” in 1961.
Apologies, Further
Listening, and Listening
“I apologize for the imperfections in this work,” wrote Carl
Sandburg, in the prefatory material to The
American Songbag. “No one else is now, or ever will be, so deeply aware and
so thoroughly and widely conscious of the imperfections in these pages.” Your
humble blogger would like to express the same feelings—obviously on a much
smaller scale—as those of Sandburg, a stately character revered for his writings,
politics, and humility alike. To the contrary, The American Songbag stands out as a work of massive significance. Sandburg’s work, along with a few other sources, led me to a host of electrifying Appalachian-themed recordings of
the song. Look for Uncle Am Stuart “Old Liza Jane” (1924), Fiddlin’ John
Carson, “Goodbye Liza Jane” (1926), Tenneva Ramblers “Miss Liza Poor Gal”
(1928), Bradley Kincaid “Liza up the ‘Simmon Tree” (1928), and Charlie Poole
“Goodbye Liza Jane” (1930), among others already mentioned. Don’t neglect its
second cousin once removed, either. Among others already mentioned, seek Huey
“Piano” Smith and His Rhythm Aces “Little Liza Jane” (1956), Fats Domino “Lil’
Liza Jane” (1959), Art Neville “Little Liza Jane” (1965), Scott Dunbar “Little
Liza Jane” (1970), and the Slim Harpo version, “Little Liza Jane,” that sits
atop this concluding paragraph. What is it about Slim Harpo, man? Recorded
blurry from the public address system at the National Guard Armory on Sage
Avenue in Mobile, Alabama, on July 1st,1961, the King Bees and their leader play
this version Through-The-Roof. By then, more than one hundred years had elapsed
between Lucy Thurston singing “Li’l Liza Jane” in slavery and James “Slim
Harpo” Moore inhabiting the song as part of a raucous celebration. The shouting
and hollering in 1961 ought to learn us a thing or two about the magnificence
of human transformation.
Likely personnel for Slim Harpo’s version of “Little Liza Jane”—James
“Slim Harpo” Moore (vocals and harmonica), Rudolph Richard (guitar), James
Johnson (bass guitar), Sammy Brown (drums), and Willie Parker (tenor sax).
Sources of
Information Carl Sandburg, The American Songbag (Harcourt, Brace
& Company, New York, 1927)
Harry von Tilzer
sheet music for “Good Bye Eliza Jane” (1903) at Library of Congress
Eddie Fox sheet music
for “Good Bye Liza Jane” (1871) at Library of Congress Natalie Curtis Burlin,
Negro Folk Songs, Book 4 (G.
Schirmer, New York, 1918) Natalie Curtis Burlin entry at Wikipedia
Countess Ada De Lachau sheet music for “Li’l Liza Jane”
(1916) at Duke University Library
Lucy Thurston Works Progress Administration slave narrative (late
1930s)
