Language of the Blues - Edmonton Blues Society

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M O N K E Y M A N
When a woman is in a marriage or committed relationship with a good man, but she
keeps fooling around with someone else, that someone else is called her monkey man.
Country blues singer Charley Lincoln made his feelings about this situation clear in
Songs:
Two kind of people in this world, mama, that I sure can't stand
-faced woman, baby, and a monkey-man
- Ida Cox
- Ida Cox
- Ma Rainey (Gertrude Pridgett Rainey)
- Robert Johnson
M O O NSH IN E
Moonshine is illegally distilled whiskey made by allowing a mash of sugar combined
with fruit, potatoes, or grain to ferment. After fermentation, the mash is strained and the
leftover liquid boiled. The vapor rising from the boiling mash liquid is distilled by
forcing it through condenser cells, and the condensation is collected in bottles.
The distillation process creates a telltale trail of steam, so it was conducted at night, in
complete darkness, with only moonlight for illumination. Moonshine is also called
homemade brew. 290
Most people associate moonshine with Prohibition (1920~1933), but moonshine actually
first became popular during the Civil War, when the Federal government imposed stiff
new taxes on whiskey to help finance the Union Army. The whiskey tax was raised to
$1.10 per gallon in 1894. This created a lively market in moonshine.
After the Civil War, the whiskey tax was not repealed and the Revenue Bureau of the
Treasury Department was formed to collect it. Under Commissioner Green B. Raum, the
exercising n
five to ten million gallons of moonshine were sold annually toward the end of the
19th century.
Prohibition only increased the market for moonshine, and making moonshine became an
eastern Tennessee, northern Georgia, and North and South Carolina. Moonshine is still
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