"Li'l Liza Jane", also known as "Little Liza Jane","Liza Jane", and "Goodbye Liza Jane", is a song dating back at least to the 1910s. It has become a perennial standard both as a song and an instrumental in traditional jazz, folk music, and bluegrass, and versions have repeatedly appeared in other genres including rock and roll. Numerous scholars and musicologists have written about the song, and it is one of the standards of the New Orleans brass band tradition.
Scholar Dan Gutstein indicates that "Little Liza Jane" and "a suite of closely related folk songs likely originated among enslaved people during celebratory dances or 'frolics' on southern plantations." [1] Gutstein cites ten narratives from the Works Progress Administration Slave Narrative Collection in establishing the song's origins. [2] During the Civil War, some "Liza Jane" songs likely "leaked out" from the folk repertoire of enslaved people and were adopted by regiments from both sides of the war, including the 43rd United States Colored Troops Regiment, the 23rd North Carolina Regiment (known as the Pee Dee Guards), and the Indiana 67th Regiment. [3]
After the war concluded, some "Liza Jane" variants were popularized in burnt cork minstrelsy -- most notably "Goodbye Liza Jane," which was published as sheet music by bandleader Eddie Fox in 1871. [4] However, the best-known variant "Little Liza Jane" likely remained fixed in folk tradition until a variety of writers and performers popularized the melody and certain lyrics in the early 20th century; these individuals would include the writer Anne Virginia Culbertson, the composer Ada de Lachau, the actress Ruth Chatterton, bandleader Earl Fuller, and banjoist Harry C. Browne. [5] Even as many "Liza Jane" variants therefore appeared in nineteenth century and early twentieth century popular culture, Gutstein attributes their ultimate origins as being the name Liza Jane "affixed to 'snotches' of folk melodies or as several 'one-verse songs' among enslaved people on plantations in several states." [6] This may account for the many different titles (such as "Little Liza Jane" and "Goodbye Liza Jane") as well as a wide variety of lyrics.
"Li'l Liza Jane" was first published in 1916 by Sherman, Clay & Co of San Francisco, California as a composition by Countess Ada de Lachau (Ada Louise Metz, 1866-1956). It was described as a "Southern dialect song". The tune was featured as entr'acte entertainment during the 1916-1917 Broadway show Come Out of the Kitchen.
The song's origins, however, seem to go back even earlier. Lucy Thurston remembered a song with the refrain "Ohoooooooo lil Liza, lil Liza Jane" being sung by slaves in the area of Covington, Louisiana before the American Civil War. While the melody is not preserved in the written interview, the lyrics and their rhythm strongly suggest it was the same or very similar to the song published decades later. [7]
The name "Liza Jane" or "Eliza Jane" was a standard female character name in minstrel shows. A tune "Goodbye, Liza Jane" was published by Eddie Fox in 1871. Harry Von Tilzer published "Goodbye, Eliza Jane" in 1903, which has some similarity to the later "Li'l Liza Jane".
Natalie Curtis Burlin's book Negro Folk-Songs, published in 1918, documents a version said to be a Negro folk song with an associated dancing game. In the "Liza Jane" dance, couples would dance in a circle, with an extra man in the middle. The extra man would "steal partners" with one of the couples, and the odd man out would go into the center and do a solo dance, then in cut in on another couple and the process would repeat.
The melody of the chorus is shared with the West African welcome song "Fanga Alafia".
Earl Fuller's Jazz Band featuring Ted Lewis on clarinet recorded a version of the tune for Victor Records in September 1917 that sold well and helped establish the tune as an early jazz standard. Fuller's band recorded it as an instrumental other than an ensemble vocal chant "Oh, Li'l Liza, Little Liza Jane" on part of the chorus.
The 1918 recording with singing and banjo by Harry C. Browne for Columbia Records helped establish the number in old time country music, although it was not the first recording of the number as has sometimes been claimed.
Fats Domino recorded the song in November 1958 for his album Let's Play Fats Domino (1959).
New Orleans' Huey "Piano" Smith & the Clowns recorded "Li'l Liza Jane" in 1956. It reappeared for the 1959 album debut Having a Good Time with Huey 'Piano' Smith & His Clowns. [8]
Bing Crosby included the song in a medley on his album 101 Gang Songs (1961)
Cotton Mill Boys recorded the song and issued it as a B side to their single "Goodbye My Darling" (1969)
Scott Dunbar on his 1972 album "From Lake Mary"
The Ebony Hillbillies recorded "Liza Jane" on the albums - 'Sabrina's Holiday' and 'I Thought You Knew'
Wynton Marsalis in 1997
Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys had a hit with their 1947 recording.
Nina Simone performed the song for many years. It first appeared on her 1960 album Nina Simone at Newport .
The 1964 record "Liza Jane" by "Davie Jones with The King Bees" is David Bowie's first record. Although composer credit was given to Leslie Conn, it is an arrangement of this old standard.
The Band recorded a version in 1968 called "Go Go Liza Jane".
Alison Krauss & Union Station's record won a 1998 Grammy Award in the Best Country Instrumental Performance category. [9]
The New Orleans Nightcrawlers version entitled "Funky Liza" appears on their 2001 album "Mardi Gras in New Orleans".
Otis Taylor recorded a version of this song for his 2008 album "Recapturing the Banjo." An album dedicated to black musicians playing traditional blues banjo music. Also on the album are Keb' Mo', Corey Harris, Alvin Youngblood Hart, and Guy Davis.
Dr. John recorded a version of this song for his 1972 album "Dr. John's Gumbo."
"Li'l Liza Jane" is also the subject of a forthcoming documentary film, Li'l Liza Jane: A Movie About a Song , [10] featuring the harmonica playing of Phil Wiggins, and contextual interviews.
Fun Lovin' Criminals are an American rap rock band from New York City. They are best known for their hit "Scooby Snacks", which features samples from films by Quentin Tarantino, and the song "Love Unlimited", which recalls Barry White's backing vocal group. Their songs often focus on life in New York City, as well as urban life in general. Their lyrics can be gritty or existentialist in nature, touching on topics such as organized crime and urban violence, but they are just as often humorous or satirical. The band gained a large following internationally, notably in Northwest Europe, around the release of their first two albums in the late 1990s.
Melissa Manchester is an American singer, songwriter and actress. Since the 1970s, her songs have been played by adult contemporary radio stations. She has also appeared on television, in films, and on stage.
Fred McDowell, known by his stage name Mississippi Fred McDowell, was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist.
Huey Pierce "Piano" Smith was an American R&B pianist whose sound was influential in the development of rock and roll.
Camp Records was a record label based in California in the 1960s that specialized in producing anonymous gay-themed novelty records and singles, mostly sold out of the backs of beefcake magazines.
"Liza Jane" was the first recording released as a single by David Bowie, and credited to Davie Jones with the King-Bees. It was released in 1964 when Bowie was 17 years old. The B-side of the single was the Paul Revere and the Raiders song "Louie, Louie Go Home". Both songs on the single were recorded in a seven-hour session at Decca Studios in Broadhurst Gardens, West Hampstead.
The Clown is an album by Charles Mingus, released in September 1957 on Atlantic Records as SD-1260. It is the follow-up to 1956's Pithecanthropus Erectus and features the improvised narration of Jean Shepherd. A deluxe edition of The Clown was issued in 2000 on Rhino featuring two bonus tracks. All the tracks were recorded on March 12, 1957, except for "The Clown", recorded on February 13 of the same year.
"Rock Island Line" is an American folk song. Ostensibly about the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad, it appeared as a folk song as early as 1929. The first recorded performance of "Rock Island Line" was by inmates of the Arkansas Cummins State Farm prison in 1934.
Dan Gutstein is an American writer and vocalist. His writing has appeared in Ploughshares, Poets & Writers, Best American Poetry, storySouth, PANK, DIAGRAM, Fiction, and elsewhere. He has received grants and awards from the Maryland State Arts Council. While he was teaching at George Washington University the web site Rate My Professors named him the 2010–2011 "hottest" professor in America.
Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music, Volume 4 is a two-disc compilation of twenty-eight American folk recordings originally released on 78 rpm records between 1927 and 1940, issued in May 2000 on Revenant Records, catalogue #211. Compiled by experimental filmmaker and notable eccentric Harry Smith as the fourth album of his Anthology of American Folk Music set from 1952, it was never completed by Smith himself. While the CD is out of print, an LP version has been issued, along with the other three volumes, on the Portland-based Mississippi Records label.
"Rich Woman" is a song written by Dorothy LaBostrie and McKinley "Li'l" Millet, who recorded it in 1955, and was most notably recorded by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss on their 2007 album Raising Sand.
"Got the Time" is a song written and performed by the British new wave musician Joe Jackson, appearing as the closing track on his 1979 debut album, Look Sharp!. The song has since been performed frequently in live concerts by Jackson.
Fanga is a dance "interpretation of a traditional Liberian invocation to the earth and sky". The dance originated in Liberia or Sierra Leone. The first performance of a version of Fanga in the United States may have been by Asadata Dafora in 1943; Marcia Ethel Heard believes that Pearl Primus hid Dafora's influence on her work. The dance was written by Primus in 1959 in conjunction with the National Dance Company of Liberia. Fanga was one of the dances through which Primus sought to stylize and perpetuate African dance traditions by framing dance as a symbolic act, an everyday practice, and a ceremony. It was then further popularized by Primus' students, sisters Merle Afida Derby and Joan Akwasiba Derby. Babatunde Olatunji described Fanga as a dance of welcome from Liberia and he, and many others, used a song created by LaRocque Bey to go with the rhythm and dance, assisted by some of the students in his Harlem studio, during the early 1960s. Bey used words from the Yoruba and Vai languages and an African American folk melody popularized by American minstrels.
"If You Could See Me Now" is a 1946 jazz standard, composed by Tadd Dameron. He wrote it especially for vocalist Sarah Vaughan, a frequent collaborator. Lyrics were written by Carl Sigman and it became one of her signature songs, inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998. Dameron himself included a version, sung by Barbara Winfield, on his 1962 album The Magic Touch.
Stretching Out is an album by Ramsey Lewis' Trio featuring tracks recorded in 1960 and released on the Argo label.
Jerry Parker McGee is a Nashville-based singer-songwriter, originally from Meridian, Mississippi.
Leigh Harris was a New Orleans R&B and jazz singer and songwriter.
