The Constellation that Connects Langston Hughes and David Bowie, Antonín Dvořák and Nina Simone

This chapter presents the widening “constellation” of cultural heroes who embraced the “Liza Jane” family of songs. From the literary star Langston Hughes, to one of the greatest musicians in American history, Nina Simone, “Liza Jane” songs continued to appeal at the highest echelons of American culture—and world culture. Shockingly, “Liza Jane” would become David Bowie’s very first single in 1964. Most captivating, perhaps, would be the unlikely friendship that developed between classical composer Antonín Dvořák and his student Harry Burleigh in the 1890s at the National Conservatory of Music in New York. There is good reason to believe that Burleigh sang “Little Liza Jane” to Dvořák, and astonishingly, decades later, R&B saxophonist Lee Allen paid homage to Dvořák’s belief in African American music by accoupling the composer’s seventh “Humoresque” to a bright recording of “Little Liza Jane” in New Orleans.