Poor Gal - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Poor Gal write by Dan Gutstein. This book was released on 2023-12-15. Poor Gal available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Poor Gal: The Cultural History of Little Liza Jane chronicles the origins and evolution of a folk tune beloved by millions worldwide. Dan Gutstein delves into the trajectory of the “Liza Jane” family of songs, including the most popular variant “Li’l Liza Jane.” Likely originating among enslaved people on southern plantations, the songs are still performed and recorded centuries later. Evidence for these tunes as part of the repertoire of enslaved people comes from the Works Progress Administration ex-slave narratives that detail a range of lyrics and performance rituals related to “Liza Jane.” Civil War soldiers and minstrel troupes eventually adopted certain variants, including “Goodbye Liza Jane.” This version of the song prospered in the racist environment of burnt cork minstrelsy. Other familiar variants, such as “Little Liza Jane,” likely remained fixed in folk tradition until early twentieth-century sheet music popularized the melody. New genres and a slate of stellar performers broadly adopted these folk songs, bringing the tunes to far-reaching listeners. In 1960, to an audience of more than thirty million viewers, Harry Belafonte performed “Little Liza Jane” on CBS. The song was featured on such popular radio shows as Fibber McGee & Molly; films such as Coquette; and a Mickey Mouse animation. Hundreds of recognizable performers—including Fats Domino, Bing Crosby, Nina Simone, Mississippi John Hurt, and Pete Seeger—embraced the “Liza Jane” family. David Bowie even released “Liza Jane” as his first single. Gutstein documents these famous renditions, as well as lesser-known characters integral to the song’s history. Drawing upon a host of cultural insights from experts—including Eileen Southern, Carl Sandburg, Thomas Talley, LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka, Charles Wolfe, Langston Hughes, and Alan Lomax—Gutstein charts the cross-cultural implications of a voyage unlike any other in the history of American folk music.
RICH GIRL, POOR GIRL
RICH GIRL, POOR GIRL - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook RICH GIRL, POOR GIRL write by FAITH BALDWIN. This book was released on 1938. RICH GIRL, POOR GIRL available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle.
The Poor Girl and True Woman
The Poor Girl and True Woman - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Poor Girl and True Woman write by William M. Thayer. This book was released on 1859. The Poor Girl and True Woman available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle.
What's a Poor Girl to Do?
What's a Poor Girl to Do? - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook What's a Poor Girl to Do? write by Elizabeth A. Topping. This book was released on 2001. What's a Poor Girl to Do? available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle.
Poor Pearl, Poor Girl!
Poor Pearl, Poor Girl! - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Poor Pearl, Poor Girl! write by Anne B. Cohen. This book was released on 2014-07-03. Poor Pearl, Poor Girl! available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. The year was 1896, and nineteenth-century journalists called the murder of Pearl Bryan the "Crime of the Century." From the day Pearl's headless body was found to the execution of her murderers on the gallows, the details of the murder fascinated newspaper reporters and ballad composers alike. Often glossing over the facts of the case, newspaper accounts presented the events according to stereotypes that were remarkably similar to those found in well-known murdered-girl ballads, such as "Pretty Polly," "Omie Wise," and "The Jealous Lover." Events, characters, motivations, and plot were presented through this framework: the simple country girl led astray by a clever degenerate. Nearly all variants of the Pearl Bryan ballad point the same moral: Young ladies now take warning Young men are so unjust, It may be your best lover But you know not whom to trust. Representations of this formula appear in such diverse genres as the ballad "Poor Ellen Smith" and the novel An American Tragedy. As Anne Cohen demonstrates, both newspaper accounts and ballads tell the Pearl Bryan story from the same moral stance, express the same interpretation of character, and are interested in the same details. Both distort facts to accommodate a shared pattern of storytelling. This pattern consists of a plot formula—the murdered-girl formula—that is accompanied by stereotyped scenes, actors, and phrases. The headless body—surely the most striking element in the Pearl Bryan case—is absent from those ballads that have survived. Anne Cohen contends that a decapitated heroine does not belong to the formula—a murdered heroine, yes, but not a decapitated one. Similarly, newspapers made much of Pearl's "innocence" and tended to downplay the second murderer. Only one murderer, the lover, belongs to the stereotype. Poor Pearl, Poor Girl! is a ballad study conducted on historic- geographic lines; that is, it seeks to trace the history and interrelations of a series of ballad texts and to relate the ballads directly to their ideological and historical context in the American scene. It also compares the narrative techniques of ballad composition with the techniques of other forms of popular narrative, especially newspaper journalism.
