Find out where Hoochie Coochie, made famous by Muddy Waters himself, means, exactly… and discover the term’s deep origins!
Search Results: Language of the Blues (345)
A lighthearted subcategory of urban blues called hokum was popular in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Find out all about this old, raucous, raunchy genre of blues music!
Migratory workers who jumped on trains and hitchhiked without direction were a staple in blues songs. Now discover the interesting origin of both the word and the lonely travelers…
This is the latest installment of our weekly series, The Language of the Blues, in…
The blues harp goes all the way back to a Chinese Emperor! See how the harp successfully emulated the field hollers that became the blues, and why it’s been such an important instrument in the genre!
In the blues, a Hambone is usually, unsurprisingly, a euphemism. Find out how it got into blues song, and who popularized it in this week’s fascinating LOTB column!
The murky origins of the fascinating “Griots”, African magic men and their parallells to blues singers.
Grinding on each other! Find out the fascinating origins of this popular blues word and phrase!
Greens are the tough-yet-nutritious leaves of collards, kale, mustard, or turnip… and since this is the blues, slang for a number of other things. Find out the whole story now!
See how grave dirt came to be used as a curse, and how the bleus tied it into our modern vocabulary!