In Poor Gal: The Cultural History of Little Liza Jane, Dan Gutstein takes on the challenge of tracing one of the USA’s most widely sung folk songs through history from the Civil War era to the 1970s. He examines the meandering of the “Liza Jane” song family between Black and white musical traditions, as reflected in studio recordings and on the page, stage, and screen. Illustrated through the saga of “Liza Jane” is the song’s presence within some of both the most disturbing and most uplifting moments in African American history. Gutstein suggests that the song served as a bridge between Black and white Americans in the era of segregation, perhaps because the “every-woman” character of Liza Jane is not racially bound (219). The book is a testament to Gutstein’s meticulous research, his profound care for “Little Liza Jane,” the many voices that have carried her through centuries, and the far-reaching significance of the song and her sister variants.
Two helpful concepts Gutstein uses to frame Poor Gal are “snotches” and “sludge.” Each of the book’s sixteen chapters, for example, is a snapshot in time, piecing together parts of the song’s story. Chapters are organized in a more-or-less chronological order and are based around periods and settings where “Liza Jane” was found—from 1860s newspaper columns to minstrel shows, the Bristol Sessions, Mickey Mouse, The Andy Griffith Show, and the music of Nina Simone and David Bowie. These chapters reflect the concept of “snotches,” small fragments or motifs of a song that, when considered within a larger pattern alongside other snotches, take on greater meaning in the re-creation of that which is unknown within the history of a song tradition. “Sludge,” meanwhile, refers to the messiness or uncertainty surrounding historical records. By drawing on these concepts throughout the book, Gutstein acknowledges the challenges of tracking down a history of “Liza Jane.”
A great gift of a folk song such as the “Liza Jane” family, from a scholarly perspective, is the variety of musical, cultural, and contextual facets that may be unearthed in its study. Through some combination of lyrical and musical analysis and attention to performance style, and social, historical, and performance contexts, the possible approaches to the study of folk song are limitless, if one bears in mind that options for historical case studies may be highly dependent on which records were preserved. Given this, I humbly suggest that Poor Gal is “a” cultural history, rather than “the” cultural history, of “Little Liza Jane.” Regardless, Gutstein, as an experienced musician and writer with an impressive history of combining the two crafts, brings a great deal of careful research and vast historical context and analysis to an understanding of this song’s story. He appreciates the importance of interdisciplinary study, evidenced by his citation of musicologists, ethnomusicologists, African American music scholars, folklorists, historians, and many others.
With full appreciation that Gutstein is writing from a different angle, I note an issue that folklorists, sociolinguists, and perhaps anthropologists might consider in a similar study involving printed folksong lyrics. Throughout Poor Gal, Gutstein references published lyrical transcriptions from the “Liza Jane” song family, going as far back as 1864. Many, if not most, of the transcriptions employ the racialized dialectal interpretations of the (usually white) transcriber. Thus, some discussion of the politics of language transcription and eye dialect may aid readers in considering the unavoidable biases of these lyrical transcriptions, or any transcription based on oral performance.
Gutstein’s evident care for Liza Jane and the people who have sung and recorded her stories in the past 160 years has paid off. Poor Gal would make a welcome addition to the bookshelf of any scholar with an interest in American folksong, the blending of white and African American music traditions, or archival studies of folklore, folk music, and popular culture in the United States.
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[Review length: 637 words • Review posted on February 19, 2025]