Language of the Blues - Edmonton Blues Society

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John and Ruby Lomax were recording songs by prisoners at Ramsey State Farm, Camp
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hold barrel staves together until an iron band could be fitted around the end of the barrel.
Another theory is that staving chain was the name for the chain used to chain prisoners
Songs:
- Lil Johnson
- Jelly Roll Morton (Ferdinand Joseph Lematt)
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ST IN G A R E E
The stingaree is related to the stingray, and has a small dorsal fin, one or two venomous
spines on its quick-lashing tail, and a caudal fin shaped like a leaf. That caudal fin is what
separates the stingarees from the stingrays and the skates.
The stingaree that appears in blues songs as a metaphor for female genitalia, however, is
Stingaree, because when San Diego boomed during the Gold Rush of the 1880s, it was
said that one could get stung just as badly by the hookers in the district as by the stingrays
in Mission Bay.
Stingaree. The Stingaree's seventy-one saloons boasted such names as Old Tub of Blood
and Legal Tender. In 1912, police arrested 138 prostitutes in the first of several Stingaree
raids conducted to clean up the district. 355
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