bluesn.
/bluːz/, U.S. /bluz/ 1. colloquial. Usually with the. Feelings of melancholy, sadness, or depression; the ‘blue devils’ (blue devil n. 2a).baby, new town blues: see the first element.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > emotion > suffering > dejection > [noun] > fit of
gloominga1400
dumpa1535
mubble fubbles1589
mulligrubs1599
mumps1599
mood1609
blues1741
mopes1742
gloom1744
humdrums1757
dismals1764
horror1768
mournfuls1794
doldrum1811
doleful1822
glumps1825
jim-jams1896
katzenjammer1897
the sniffles1903
mopery1907
joes1916
woofits1918
cafard1924
jimmies1928
the blahs1969
downer1970
the mind > emotion > suffering > dejection > melancholy > [noun] > melancholy fit or mood
melancholya1586
blues1741
penseroso1763
1741 D. Garrick Let. 11 July (1963) I. 26 I am far from being quite well, tho not troubled wth ye Blews as I have been.
1807 Salmagundi 20 Mar. 116 In a fit of the blues.
1856 G. J. Whyte-Melville Kate Coventry viii. 89 The moat alone is enough to give one the ‘blues’.
1883 Harper's Mag. Dec. 55 Come to me when you have the blues.
1900 F. L. Stanton Songs from Dixie Land 165 When a feller has the blues, 'Taint no use to ask his views.
1943 M. G. McCoy MS Let. 29 Aug. (O.E.D. Archive) 4 I got such a yen for you that it quite gave me the blues.
1960 New Statesman 27 Feb. 274/2 The post-election blues are beginning.
1995 Weekly World News 25 July 18/3 Repeating aloud familiar phrases such as..‘Every cloud has a silver lining’ will help banish your blues.
2003 Heat 29 Mar. 120/3 Taurus... Venus in Pisces this week, and that bodes well for any bulls who've recently been beset by the blues.
2. Music (originally U.S.).
a. A blues melody or song: see sense 2b. Also (esp. in early use) with plural agreement.Recorded earliest in the titles of these songs, with distinguishing word. While Memphis Blues (see quot. 19122) is often said to be the earliest song of this type to take the name blues, Dallas Blues (see quot. 19121) was copyrighted slightly earlier.As the blues (in sense 1) became a common trope in African American folk song (cf. quot. 1900 at sense 1), several melancholic songs began to include blues in their titles, leading to the adoption of the word as the name of the genre.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > the arts > music > type of music > folk music > [noun] > blues
blues1912
rhythm and blues1924
folk-blues1926
bottleneck blues1928
policy blues1928
R&B1949
boogie1976
1912 H. Wand (title of song) Dallas blues.
1912 W. C. Handy (title of song) Memphis blues.
1923 W. C. Handy in Jrnl. Folklore Soc. Texas 53 The blues that are genuine are really folk-songs.
1928 Oxf. Mag. 1 Nov. 84/2 The use of a blues for the slow movement is interesting.
1957 New Yorker 3 Aug. 58/3 The Charles Mingus Jazz Workshop..worked their way..through..a blues played simultaneously in two keys.
1965 B. Dylan (title of song) Subterranean homesick blues.
1984 Sounds 29 Dec. 26/2 The lads..were content to let rip on a steaming twelve-bar blues.
2000 S. Crouch Don't Moon look Lonesome xi. 237 Celestine was playing and singing a dirty, dirty blues.
b. Frequently with the. A melancholic style of music, typically centring on a twelve-bar sequence based around a standard harmonic progression, and having any of a number of distinguishing characteristics intended to express the performer's melancholy, such as the use of blue notes; a vocal style featuring rasping, growling, or the bending or sliding of notes; and certain recurring lyrical themes and structures. Also: music that shares this progression, or any of the other features specified, but is less melancholic in style. Frequently with distinguishing word.The blues originated in the southern United States towards the end of the 19th cent., developing from African American folk songs such as the work songs chanted on plantations, spirituals, and hollers (see field holler n. at field n.1 Compounds 5). In the 1940s, as African Americans migrated to cities in large numbers, the blues found a wider audience and gave rise to rhythm and blues n. and rock 'n' roll n. 2a.folk-, jazz, policy blues, etc.: see the first element.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > the arts > music > type of music > [noun] > style of composition
French Impressionism1884
monothematism1886
impressionism1889
blues1915
neoprimitivism1922
pointillism1922
blue1924
stile concitato1926
kineticism1939
stile antico1944
galant1949
sock it to me (them, etc.)!1970
1915 Chicago Sunday Tribune 11 July viii. 8/1 The ‘blues’ had done it. The ‘jazz’ had put pep into the legs that had scrambled too long for the 5:15.
1919 Current Opinion Sept. 165/1 Widespread discussion of the origin of the ‘blues’, a type of folksong of the underworld.
1938 Pic Mar. 6 The cats are in a groove, or, swingsters are playing the blues.
1956 A. Morgan & R. Horricks Mod. Jazz 16 The twelve-bar blues, long a source of expression for the outpouring of emotion, underwent a startling change with the introduction of the riff in jazz.
1966 Chicago Daily Defender 11 July 10/2 The electric Big City blues of Chuck Berry and Howlin' Wolf.
1972 Listener 10 Aug. 187/1 A musical innovator with tremendous vocal power, he [sc. Bo Diddley] brings gospel and shout singing to the blues.
1980 Boys' Life Apr. 19/1 When it comes to high volume, hard rocking, beefed up blues, American bands have long been upstaged by British groups like Led Zeppelin.
2004 N.Y. Times Bk. Rev. 15 Feb. 8/4 There was a time..when no one sang the blues like mad John Clare.
Phrases
Originally U.S. to sing (also cry, wail) the blues: to lament or complain.
ΚΠ
1918 E. F. Straub Diary 5 May (1923) iv. 76 It has been rainy and very miserable all day long..and everybody seems to be singing the blues.
1933 Amer. Mercury May 84/2 He cried the blues all over Washington to obtain relief loans from the R.F.C.
1951 Billboard 2 June 33/1 Club owners, who only a short time ago were singing the blues, find business increasing.
1967 Jet 30 Nov. 56 James Brown was wailing the blues over not being able to make the right contacts to make the Far East trek.
1971 D. Wells & S. Dance Night People vi. 93 You've got the blues..and when you start reciting your woes to yourself or to another, then you're singing the blues.
2012 Express (Nexis) 19 Oct. 39 We're singing the blues over the England football team's limp performance in Poland.
Compounds
Originally U.S. (chiefly in sense 2). C1.
a. General attributive, as blues album, blues bar, blues lyrics, blues music, blues record, blues revue, blues style, blues tempo, etc.
ΚΠ
1916 Atlanta Constit. 1 Aug. 14/4 Their negro ragtime songs are of the ‘blues’ type.
1923 Daily Mail 28 July 7 A special ‘Blues Trot’ has been devised for dancing with the tunes, which are slower than [those of] a fox-trot.
1927 Melody Maker Sept. 865/2 The Yale..is danced to ‘blues’ tempo.
1935 W. Strange Sunset in Ebony 181 He must have liked the ‘blues’ record; it was a very good one.
1939 L. Hughes Let. 15 Dec. in E. Bernard Remember Me to Harlem (2001) 164 I've come across more than two dozen blues, a dozen or so dialect poems in the blues mood, and a projected blues playlet.
1949 Boys' Life July 23/2 People who once thought Dixieland and barrelhouse and blues music was ‘crazy’ now listen to it comfortably.
1957 Boston Sunday Globe 30 June 43/1 Whether you are a blues fan, a Bach lover or a fire buff, you will find your answer in the Berkshires this week.
1967 Billboard 4 Mar. 26/1 Joe Williams is moving away from his traditional blues style.
1973 A. Dundes Mother Wit 245 Symbolic statements of blues lyrics.
1989 C. S. Murray Crosstown Traffic vi. 132 Ghetto taverns and theatres played host to the great travelling blues revues.
1991 Living Blues Nov. 64/1 Always be suspicious of a blues album that takes two months to record; it smacks of too much overdubbing.
1996 Entertainm. Weekly 31 May 14/3 Watson, revered by axmen from Jimi Hendrix to Eric Clapton, collapsed at a blues bar just as his set began.
2010 New Yorker 1 Nov. 106/3 His close adolescent friendship with Jagger and their mutual love for their blues heroes.
b. attributive. Designating a song, melody, etc., performed in a blues style, as blues ballad, blues riff, blues song, etc.
ΚΠ
1914 Chicago Defender 7 Nov. Mr. William Abel, the race's greatest descriptive singer, will sing the first Blues song, entitled ‘Curses’.
1923 Jrnl. Texas Folk-Lore Soc. 2 54 Loveless Love, a blues which Handy calls a blues ballad, was, he said, based on an old song.
1947 Billboard 11 Jan. 100/4 A blues lick that gets ‘kitten on the keys’ treatment.
1963 A. Baraka Blues People xi. 167 Bands..had ‘books’ that were jammed with blues numbers.
1977 New Musical Express 12 Feb. 16/3 The soulful blues-ballad ‘Who Will The Next Fool Be’.
1982 Times 22 May 7/1 The band often did well to roll with the changes of Hooker's unstructured blues tunes.
1998 Independent 2 June (Eye section) 7/2 Things such as swampy blues riffs and mariachi licks, a glorious mash of sound.
2005 J. Weiner Goodnight Nobody xi. 90 Evan and I would try to stump each other with increasingly obscure blues songs, swapping tapes and compact discs.
c. attributive. Designating an individual or group that performs blues music, as blues guitarist, blues musician, blues singer, etc.
ΚΠ
1918 Newark (Ohio) Daily Advocate 30 Mar. 7/2 The Red Headed blues singer.
1920 Chicago Defender 31 Jan. 9 Wanted—Lady partner; good Blues singer and good dresser on and off stage.
1940 Atlanta Daily World 9 Sept. 2/7 Walter Davis, a really tremendous blues pianist.
1949 Billboard 30 Apr. 19/2 Capitol gets 48 masters which include everything the blues artist had recorded.
1967 Jet 7 Dec. 62 Muddy Waters and his blues band ‘shocked it’ to the Electric Circus in the East Village area.
1989 C. S. Murray Crosstown Traffic iv. 84 Johnny Winter, the Texan albino blues guitarist..was one of Hendrix's regular New York jamming partners.
1991 Dirty Linen Oct. 19/1 Rory Block or Roy Bookbinder swapping licks and tales of the blues greats.
2005 T. Brookes Guitar 90 Increasingly after World War II, blues musicians were to be heard on small, independent radio stations.
d. attributive. Designating an instrument used in blues music or played in a blues style, as blues guitar, blues piano, etc.
ΚΠ
1931 Montana Standard 1 Aug. 7/4 (headline) Old man gloom invades the West Side Fire Station as his blues banjo is stolen.
1943 Billboard 12 June 21/4 His jazz trumpet, his blues guitar and his Tengarden-ish voice.
1959 S. B. Charters Country Blues iv. 61 There was a little of almost every style of blues guitar on the records.
1964 Los Angeles Sentinel 30 July b5/5 Jesse admires such exponents of the ‘blues harp’ as Sonny Terry.
1975 Los Angeles Times 27 July (TV Times section) 2/1 Some nasty licks on the old blues banjo.
1996 R. Niles et al. in P. Trynka Rock Hardware 74/1 Practically all these players used either the Hohner American Ace harmonica, or the 10-hole diatonic Marine Band which would become the definitive blues harmonica.
C2.
a. Objective with agent and verbal nouns, as blues lover, blues player, blues playing, blues shouter, etc.
ΚΠ
1916 Chicago Defender 25 Nov. 8/5 There is a special course in Blues playing.
1938 ‘Jelly Roll Morton’ in Downbeat Sept. 4/1 Blues players who could play nothing else... What we call ‘ragmen’ in New Orleans.
1949 R. Blesh Shining Trumpets (new ed.) ii. xi. 247 The blues-shouting trombone.
1976 A. Murray Stomping Blues ix. 169 Joe Turner..has long been considered the Big Daddy of traditional blues shouters.
1991 Chicago Aug. 31/1 True blues lovers will find a seat upfront in one of the most intimate settings of any Chicago music club.
2001 S. Danchin Earl Hooker (back cover) The life and early death of a South Side guitar genius, the greatest unheralded Chicago blues-maker.
b. Instrumental, as blues-based, blues-oriented, etc.
ΚΠ
1933 N.Y. Amsterdam News 15 Mar. 16/5 Duke Ellington..returned with his blues-soaked melodies to the air.
1947 Jazzways 2 56/2 A ‘blues’ band, in the sense that it featured blues-based arrangements in a semi-Dixieland style.
1963 A. Baraka Blues People xii. 182 Of the blues-oriented big bands of the thirties and early forties..Count Basie's had the most profound effect on the young musicians of the forties.
1989 Sound Choice Autumn 87/1 As powerful as John Brannon's voice is, it can grate on me, especially on the somewhat slower blues-fueled numbers.
1992 Village Voice (N.Y.) 28 Jan. 70/4 He's possibly the least blues-influenced heavy-hitter in rock.
2011 New Yorker 8 Aug. 8/2 Ford, a champion guitar player, has a pedigree and a blues-soaked approach.
C3.
blues party n. a party organized by West Indians or featuring West Indian music, often requiring payment to gain entry.
ΚΠ
1976 Antioch Rev. 34 305 Blues parties..are held to raise the rent, much as were ‘rent parties’ in the Harlem of the 1920s and '30s.
1985 Economist 9 Nov. 16/2 Make available church halls, old territorial drill-halls, and suchlike semi-vacant premises out of earshot of people's homes, for the all-day, all-night ‘blues parties’ that, in inhabited streets, are a cause of racial friction.
2009 I. Thomson Dead Yard iii. 34 Jamaicans held ‘bashments’ or ‘blues parties’ at each other's houses: in festively crowded front rooms West Indian mento and American R & B would be played into the early hours.
blues-rock n. music combining elements of blues and rock, spec. a style of music characterized by blues-based harmonic progressions, typically played at fast tempos on amplified instruments (esp. the electric guitar); frequently attributive.
ΚΠ
1961 Billboard 6 Feb. 31/5 Country-type material is given something of a blues-rock treatment.
1976 New Musical Express 12 Feb. 25/3 Fleetwood Mac's music is now a unique synthesis of the best elements of late sixties blues-rock..and seventies California high pop.
2002 D. S. Bowman in K. Holm-Hudson Progressive Rock Reconsidered ix. 185 The continuing electric guitar style of the 1960s counterculture—emotive, blues-rock stylings (either virtuosic or slow and sustained, as in Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix).
blues rocker n. (a) (apparently) a person who performs blues music in an energetic style (cf. rock v.1 9b); (also) a fast, vigorous piece of music having a blues rhythm (cf. rocker n.1 6b); (b) (now usually) a person or group that performs blues-rock.In quot. 1949 as the name of a band: see rocker n.1 6a.
ΚΠ
1949 in Billboard 8 Oct. 37 Blues rockers.
1950 Billboard 25 Mar. 38/2 Up-tempo slam-bang blues rocker jumps all the way.
1954 Atlanta Daily World 6 May 3/8 Memphis Slim, the blues rocker, came up with a new blues tune that looms to be a rhythm and blues hit.
1979 Washingtonian Dec. 35/3 The fact that blues-rocker Hodge counts jazz pianist Keith Jarrett among his biggest musical influences is intriguing.
2010 C. Knowles Secret Hist. Rock ‘n’ Roll 202 The template set down by British blues rockers Free on their 1970 hit ‘All Right Now’—lean, blues-based riffing, topped with clipped lead guitar and bluesy bellowing.
blues scale n. Music any of various scales commonly used in the blues, esp. a major scale with the imposition of one or more blue notes.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > the arts > music > musical sound > pitch > system of sounds or intervals > [noun] > other scales
hendecachord1761
pentachord1786
Scotch scale1786
maqam1793
pelog1817
harmonic scale1880
whole-tone scale1900
pentatonic1909
harmonic series1910
blues scale1939
1939 N.Y. Times 23 Apr. (Book Review) 6/5 Jazz harmonization is..effected from two sources: ‘barbershop’ harmony and the blues scale.
1949 R. Blesh Shining Trumpets (new ed.) i. v. 107 The blues scale..enters into and colors all singing and playing by American Negroes.
1997 Village Voice (N.Y.) 3 June 55/5 The blues scale..uses the bent thirds and fifths klezmer players revel in.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2013; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
bluesv.
/bluːz/, U.S. /bluz/ Chiefly U.S.
1. intransitive. To dance to blues music. rare.
ΚΠ
1928 Sunday Express 27 May 15/3 Shall she Charleston, Blues or Bridge that evening?
2. transitive. To introduce elements of blues style into the performance of (a piece of music). In later use also with down or (now usually) up. Also intransitive: to play or sing music in the style of the blues.
ΚΠ
1943 Lowell (Mass.) Sun 17 Dec. 24/2 The Bizet music has not been jived, boogied, bluesed or barrel-housed, as you might suspect when informed that it is being presented with an all-Negro cast.
1977 Sun Reporter (San Francisco) (Electronic ed.) 1 Sept. 8 Black artists were rocking, rolling, and bluesing long before the thieving hillbilly Presley was born.
1988 D. D. Harrison Black Pearls Introd. 11 They took familiar nonblues numbers and, with the assistance of pianists or jazz bands, jazzed them up or bluesed them down.
1992 Daily Variety (Nexis) 8 Oct. Best part: Jane Krakowski bluesing up ‘A Simple Melody’.
1999 San Antonio (Texas) Express-News (Nexis) 17 Dec. 19 h Rocking, caroling, ballading and bluesing, she's a treat.
2011 Jerusalem Post (Nexis) 7 June (Arts section) 24 We took some of her well-known hits and have bluesed them up.
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, March 2013; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
<
n.1741
v.1928