Julius Caesar suspects Brutus of practicing compositions on the
piano. “I heard music,” the strongman alleges. “Études, Brute?” If only our
back-stabbiz had been musicians, instead. They’d of (sic) kept their steely,
steely connives in their two-nix and we’d of (sic) slugged-down an Orange
Julius Caesar Salad. In short, weed’a lived and it wouldn’a been uh backstabbiz
atoll. Later, Caesar and Brutus haggle over which catalogue-retailer to
patronize. “J. Crew, Brute?” says Caesar. They have some thought-balloons in
this arena, some Ideas of Merch. To this point, the pooch hasn’t initiated a
coup, a coo hasn’t emanated from the putsch. And as for empire, Romulus hasn’t
reamed us out, Remus hasn’t loaded a CD-Romulus into the disc drive. Anything
could happen, even détente, even breaking bread, peace-meal. It’s both
terrifying and wonderful all at once, kind of like Brutus, bored out of his
bust, making his late-night Bru-tay call to a gal, a Gaul pursued by the scent-o’tour,
himself. Rife goes on. A gambling conference kindles-up at a hotel across the
street, where someone delivers The Keno Address. When indentured servants
reinsert their false teeth, they become dentured servants, no? Ever notice how
antlers resemble driftwood? It’s like mature bucks are washing up on shore,
waves and waves of sea-sawbucks, them and their weather-worn driftwood antlers,
ten bucks a dozen in Ten-buck-two. If you have a job, or if you seek a job, then
you’re under occupation. Behold the afternoon sun. It could be—a little
bit—hotter before the instrument begins to fail, and it will begin to fail, the
mechanism failing the person: this is our bleak future, dear citizen, all mechanisms
will begin to fail. At the request of Brutus, Julius Caesar agrees to engage in
the nautical guessing game, Battleship. As dick-tater, Caesar goes first, of
course. “A-2, Brute?” he guesses. He guesses correctly, even though he doesn’t
kitchen-sink no gravy bloat. The bodies of the other senators reflect on every
bright surface, their motions unlike stabbing but in emphasis of their numbers,
their jagged rationale. They attack Julius Caesar for being a crass-dressing
tyranny even as they, themselves, will become tyranny, with or without the
salad dressage, and they, themselves, will be slain by the residents of tyranny
2-B. Recital is a good deity, too shrewd for the mothball operas that
resolve themselves (phone booth, no mouthpiece) in the public confessionals of prepaid
gravity, amid the sunlit metals of confrontation.
If
only Novelty Government U.S.A. would “heart.” If only it would spray-paint.
Then it could spell “i ♥ melody” in a fuzzy charcoal proclamation on the
northbound side of an overpass which fjords—yes, fjords—a minor, trickly
tributary. (A crick.) Novelty Government might prefer a gal named Melody. Or it
might prefer the melodious through-action of music, “i ♥ melody.” Some constituents might regard the potential for two affections
as ambiguous, too complicated to merit their untethered support. After all, they
had voted for Novelty Government U.S.A. with the lobster-redness of
exasperation, a lobster-redness that hearkened back to the single-minded exasperation
of earlier generations, pioneers, men and women donning severe sugarloaf caps.
Novelty Government does womanize, thus, on the one hand, professing amour (and
sporting ‘under amour’ garb) for the hand of one woman in particular, might
wrinkle a few lobster-red thought balloons, but as for “i ♥ melody,” the melody
of song, well, just what in the Jiminy Cricket does that proclaim? And what
kind of melody would Novelty Government U.S.A. prefer to heart? (Jessica
Simpson cover-crooning a ditty by Scritti Politti?) One opines “if only” since
Novelty Government doesn’t appear to heart, own spray-paint, hang out on the
overpass, know a gal named Melody, and tap its toes to melody. It’s not
difficult to imagine Novelty Government U.S.A. in the girth of a business suit,
adopting poses that could be described as the “scrunched fists of seasonal desecration”
or “lobster-red effort to distinguish between a bowel movement and a gasser” or
“juvenile hyperventilation upon denial of favorable building permit to
construct another leisure resort.” Novelty Government U.S.A. would like us to
think that everything conspires against it—virulent veganism of everyday
columnists, ghostly voters arising from Tammany Hall graveyards, grousing of international
cultures yearning for subsistence—when instead, Novelty Government can cradle
“the red telephone” anytime it chooses. It can destroy the world again, and
again, and again.
When we run out of liquid assets (and we will run out of beer) perhaps our bankers will lend a hand, lend an ear, you know,
a personal loan from an actual body. Let’s deconstruct the moment when a man
claiming to be Jackson Shiitake knocks on your door: (1) He prefers to be
called “Jack” and (2) “Jack” Shiitake doesn’t know jack sheet-music about the
mushrooming morel of the story. The elk prefers a member of its ilk (who is an
elk) and owing to a sense that its ilk has been bilked out of funny-money honey-bunny,
the Elk would like to Lodge a complaint. Behold, dear citizen, the Sneeze-Fart
Combo also known as Novelty Government U.S.A. “Please refer to the press kit,”
says representative of Sneeze-Fart Combo, when asked about a list of active
conspiracy theories. The press kit sits beside the steamship round of beef
electric carving kiosk, and contains, does the press kit, an expository essay (entitled
“Meineke Kampf”) that describes the political need to muffle, to muzzle, to squelch.
What’s Happening!! comes on TV.
There’s Fred Perry, in the red beret and suspenders, popping around as his
character, Rerun. There’s Fred Perry haplessly chasing the pickup truck,
wind-milling with futility. You’re watching a rerun of Rerun running (and
re-running) after the vehicle in which Raj and Dwayne have achieved a comfy
existence. Nowadays, your potato rental doesn’t include utilities, your snifter
rental doesn’t include utilities, your venison rental doesn’t include
utilities. (You gotta pay alternating current, you gotta pay landfill, you
gotta pay sports drink, you gotta pay fossil fuel.) Buddy, I know of only one
society that can boast hundreds of names for “The Imbecile,” or pronounce it
“IN-BUH-SOYLE,” if you prefer poetry.
When unseeded and relatively unknown Aļona Ostapenko (more
commonly known as Jelena Ostapenko) met No. 3 seed Simona Halep in the finals
of the French Open, the sports oracles might’ve foreseen a quiet, straight-sets
triumph for Halep, who, with a win, would’ve overtaken Angelique Kerber to
become the top-ranked women’s tennis player in the world, a height she hadn’t
yet reached. If contemplating the all-time greats, one considers the likes of
Billie Jean King and Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Margaret Court and
Evonne Goolagong, Steffi Graf, and of course, the still-active Williams
sisters, Venus and Serena. The nationalities—American, Czech, Australian, German,
American—leave off Halep’s Romanian origins and Ostapenko’s Latvian roots. When
Halep took the first set and led 3-love in the second set, it seemed as if she
would become only the second Romanian woman to win a grand slam event, joining
Virginia Ruzici, who also triumphed at Roland Garros in 1978. No Latvian tennis
players—neither men nor women—had ever won a grand slam event.
En route to the finals, Ostapenko played four three-set
matches, including a notable quarterfinal triumph against No. 11 seed Caroline
Wozniacki (4-6, 6-2, 6-2). This might’ve favored Halep, who’d only faced two
lengthy matches before the finals, among them a 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 semifinal victory
over No. 2 seed Karolína
Plíšková. Down one set, and love-three in the second set, Ostapenko
might’ve been content to capitulate, might’ve been content in the knowledge
that she’d earned a berth in a grand slam final just a few days after her
twentieth birthday. But the viewer could detect the formulation of the
comeback, in Ostapenko’s expressions and gestures, from the flailing, frowning,
and pouty, to the steely, sage, and jubilant. She captured six of the ensuing
seven games, to secure the second set, 6-4. Her opponent was no slouch, and
took a 3-1 lead in the third set, but even then, the viewer couldn’t envision a
derailment. The wiry-armed Latvian was swinging for the lines.
It’s not that simple, of course. According to
Reuters, Ostapenko committed 54 unforced errors to accompany
her—punishing—display of 54 winners. (Halep would collect 10 and 8,
respectively.) Ostapenko would lose her serve six times, but this wouldn’t deter
the upstart, as she would break Halep’s serve eight times. She didn’t just punish the ball on winners
(and unforced errors) but virtually every time she swung her racket. Trailing
in the match didn’t seem to matter. So long as there were more balls to
clobber, she would clobber them. Ostapenko profited from a ridiculous bounce, a
net cord at 3-3 in the third set, but many champions receive lucky bounces,
especially those who fight the hardest. She took five straight games to close
the match 3-6, 6-4, 6-3, her first title as a professional. The French Open
champion didn’t play recklessly, but just shy of recklessness, and maybe that’s
how we can define her game. Ostapenko delivered powerful ground-strokes from
numerous angles, balances, and stances, just shy of recklessness. She dwelt—regally,
precariously, bravely—on that edge, and won the French Open as an unseeded (and
mostly teenage) player. She should never play tennis any other way.
Ostapenko’s smile is
as formidable as her inside-out forehand.
It surprises me often enough when intelligent people reject
the meaningfulness of athletic competition. To the contrary, the fearless
vision of Aļona
Ostapenko and her unwavering dedication to attacking the boundaries of the
tennis court, moved me—I admit—to teary eyes, right after she scorched a
backhand return of serve down the line to clinch her match versus Simona Halep.
Ostapenko appears to be a kindly person and she didn’t exult in a way that
mocked her opponent, yet there too, I found the celebratory imagery to radiate
importance: a dazzling reward that compensated her own achievement, as well as
the powerful force (Halep) arranged against her. The seasoned American
announcing crew was stunned; who wouldn’t be? And who wouldn’t see this performance
as a blueprint for any creative foray? There. That’s the crush. Learning from
this young person to gamble—every moment—on the promise of your vision.
1. We know very little about this song and its musicians.
2. Likely personnel include: Richie Mayo (bass), Frank Perry
(guitar), Mel Barnet (tenor saxophone), Mike Marrow (drums), and Don Edmonds
(piano).
3. The band recorded “Crawlin’ (The Crawl)” on Varsity Music’s
Campus label in Philadelphia, 1957.
4. A few years later, in 1961, a band known as the Untouchables
re-recorded the song, bundled with “Benny the Beatnik,” on To-Da Music’s Rello
label. While the personnel aren’t fully known, the guitar player (Frank Perry)
for the Paramours appears to be part of this recording, and is given credit for
composing this second version. It ain’t no slouch, as they say.
5. The original version may have been responding to The
Stroll, which was both a teenage dance and an early rock ‘n’ roll song. In the
dance, a line of boys and a line of girls would face each other at opposite
sides of the room, akin to “reels” from other eras. One couple at a time, the
dance partners would meet in the middle and stroll down the two lines, dancing while
holding hands. The song, “The Stroll,” was first recorded by a Canadian band,
The Diamonds, and first released in December, 1957, on the Mercury label.
Ultimately, it’s a pop song, but owing to its rowdy saxophone, it reached #5 on
the R&B charts. The record, the recording, would enable the song and the
dance to occur simultaneously, a great triumph, perhaps, for connoisseurs of
coincidence.
6. Dictionaries, as we know them, tend to define “stroll” as
to “walk in a leisurely way” whereas “crawl” is typically cast as “dragging the
body along on hands and knees.” The former is pleasant whereas the latter is burdened
and grimy. (Ahem.) But that’s not all. The song is called “Crawlin’ (The Crawl),”
as if to insist upon some slangy distance, the parentheses, between the two
worlds. At the very least, “Crawlin’” is much less theoretical than “The Crawl”
and to some degree must represent the unscripted form of the experience.
7. As an aside, “paramour” is defined as “a lover,
especially a lover of a person who is married to someone else.”
8. Both versions of “Crawlin’ (The Crawl)” were re-released
in 2013, as part of an early rock revival on Jazzman Records in the United
Kingdom. Some Jazzman records emphasize the concept of burlesque, which their
choice of labels—Sleazy, Sin Street, Smutt, et cetera—amply confirms.
9. “Shakers?” you ask. “SHAKERS,”
I reply. Look into it.
10. In the end, here we have a suggestive song that’s
crawlin’, played by a group of lovers, recorded sixty years ago, with wailing
guitar and growling horn, and it’s no wonder that the band members have to
shout “yeah!” at intervals. In part, those shouts acknowledge the genesis of an
edgy translation, a code that instructs us to move.
If it’s feasible,
then it can be stored in the freezer. If it’s dirigible, then it can be mourned
by a dirge. Too many dirges, however, might cause you to walk with a blimp. In
the next room, Yokel Ono sits on a barstool and croons about life in the rural
prefecture. In one of the songs, an ante-lope makes off with the poker kitty
that otherwise belongs to the rubber baron. He, the rubber baron, derives great
affluence from prophylactic sales, but his penile business practices draw wide condom-nation.
So yeah, a different fellow wants to raise fruit trees in anonymity, and so this
fellow adopts a nom de plum, or would
that be a nom de prune? Sadly, he struggles at agriculture, and succumbs, mildly, to gardening of the
arteries. His real name is Norman, he’s a standard fellow, and when war finally
erupts, he settles on Norm de Guerre
as the assumed name for his saboteur of duty. Eventually, his alias gets him on
the A-List. When the Jerusalemite studies you, by the by, he got his Zion you,
he got his Zion you. I hate it when the hit man, one Mr. Reaper Cussin’s, mouths
off, over and over again. Finally, I have to confront the hit man, one Mr.
Reaper Cussin’s. “Hey Bud,” I say, “Are you assassin’ me?”
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)
