Poor Gal

Poor Gal traces the unparalleled formation, evolution, and adoption of the folk song “Little Liza Jane” and its sibling tunes. From likely origins as “one-verse songs” among enslaved people on southern plantations, the “Liza Jane” family spread via the travels of Civil War regiments, roustabouts, post-war minstrel troupes, influential sheet music publications, and decades of cultural sharing. These courtship songs—bouncy, comical, sometimes elegiac—usually feature a precious, yet obstinate love interest (Liza Jane). As the recording era dawned, and the musical paradises of the twentieth century began to beckon, “Liza Jane” songs were embraced by ground-breaking performers in every genre of American popular music, as well as major films, animations, radio shows, and television broadcasts. From Nina Simone to the Fibber McGee and Molly radio program; from Pete Seeger to the early talkie Coquette; from Harry Belafonte’s television special New York 19 to David Bowie making “Liza Jane” his very first single—a family of humble folk songs, literally, reached the stars. Yet the story of “Little Liza Jane” also involves lesser-known figures, such as Civil War correspondent “Dr. Adonis,” who may have penned the first reference to any “Liza Jane” song, as well as citizen-musicologist Harris Barrett, a cashier at the Hampton Institute, whose stunning article on slave songs preceded the WPA Slave Narrative Collection by twenty-five years. In trying to identify the original Liza Jane, Poor Gal concludes with the image of a young enslaved woman in the solitude of the woods after a dance.