poor gal: the cultural history of little liza jane
Nonfiction. Published by University Press of Mississippi (November 27, 2023). 316 pages. Available at the UPM website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Books-A-Million. Cover photography by Dorothea Lange (top image) and Gordon Parks (bottom image).
Selected Awards
Poor Gal received a 2024 Special Recognition Award from the ASCAP Foundation in its 55th annual Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Book Awards
Advance Praise
Dan Gutstein should be praised not just for his scholarship but his detective work. His meticulous documentation of “Liza Jane” song lyrics and dance games is a model for the type of research that underscores the importance of African American culture. His cross-cultural findings linking minstrel troupes to works of fiction provides evidence of the fluidity of ideas not just within American folklore but American society. The many versions of “Liza Jane” exemplify the complexity one encounters when examining the making of America. —E. Ethelbert Miller, 2023 Grammy nominee and author of If God Invented Baseball
A tour de force of sleuthing, historical study, innovative listening, and all-trails follow-up into the present, Dan Gutstein's Poor Gal traces a key DNA strand of American music. Gutstein's findings ricochet widely and open far-reaching dimensions of an understudied classic hiding in plain sight. —Eric Lott, author of Black Mirror: The Cultural Contradictions of American Racism
An insightful and informative study that traces the cultural history of the “Liza Jane” family of songs. —Lauren Eldridge Stewart, assistant professor of ethnomusicology at Washington University in St. Louis
Excerpts from Reviews and Interviews
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? —Tracy Carr, Mississippi Clarion-Ledger
Poor Gal: The Cultural History of Little Liza Jane offers insight into how one of the most prolific songs in American history evolved from a tune sung by enslaved people to Nina Simone and David Bowie renditions. [ . . . ] To this day, the one-verse song, with no original sheet music, continues to travel across time and space. —Priscilla Ward, Washington City Paper
Award winning UK podcaster Matt Hutchinson interviewed me for his Bluegrass Jam Along podcast. We had a great conversation that spanned many topics, including how the “Liza Jane” family of songs originated, crossed the color line, geographical areas, and historical periods, and as part of all this, accompanied the genesis of an American school of music. We had hardly run out of topics by the time the hour had expired and Matt noted that Poor Gal “could have filled several episodes!” Our conversation is available [here.]
A STORY WE NEED RIGHT NOW
From origins among enslaved people in the antebellum South, to becoming David Bowie's first single, to its present-day irresistible vitality, “Little Liza Jane” has traversed numerous boundaries and continues to touch people from many different sides of the American experience. Poor Gal describes how "Liza Jane" songs formed and how they crossed the color line, geographical regions, historical eras, musical genres, and performance traditions. In an era of great divisiveness, this is triumphant proof of our shared humanity.
Spotify Playlist for Poor Gal
Here is a 40-song playlist that will make an excellent companion for the book. It begins in 1917 and carries forward to 2021, representing numerous musicians, styles, and members of the “Liza Jane” family tree. All of these musicians appear in the book, some briefly and others in greater detail. (Below is a “preview” — click on the title of the playlist to open it in Spotify.)