Author: Debra Devi

This is the latest installment of our weekly series The Language of the Blues, in which author and rock musician Debra Devi explores the meaning of a word or phrase found in the blues. Grab a signed copy of Devi’s entertaining & award-winning glossary The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu (Foreword by Dr. John) at Bluescentric.com. Also available as an eBook. Second line is the famously funky marching groove that musicians call “the big four,” for its drum accent on every four count. Second line originated in New Orleans, where “the second line” refers to the people…

This is the latest installment of our weekly series The Language of the Blues, in which author and rock musician Debra Devi explores the meaning of a word or phrase found in the blues. Grab a signed copy of Devi’s entertaining & award-winning glossary The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu (Foreword by Dr. John) at Bluescentric.com. Also available as an eBook. Saltwater is slang for alcohol. It shows up in the Charlie Patton song “Revenue Man Blues”: My doney loves saltwater, she always wants a drink If they see you with a bottle, they’ll almost break your…

This is the latest installment of our weekly series The Language of the Blues, in which author and rock musician Debra Devi explores the meaning of a word or phrase found in the blues. Grab a signed copy of Devi’s entertaining, award-winning glossary The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu (Foreword by Dr. John) at Bluescentric.com. Also available as an eBook. In French Creole, salté means “dirty.” To jouer en salté means to play a dirty trick on someone. In Wright’s English Dialect Dictionary, salty appears to have an Old English meaning similar to “horny.” It was used…

This is the latest installment of our weekly series The Language of the Blues, in which author and rock musician Debra Devi explores the meaning of a word or phrase found in the blues. Grab a signed copy of Devi’s entertaining & award-winning glossary The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu (Foreword by Dr. John) at Bluescentric.com. Also available as an eBook. A rounder is a professional gambler who travels around looking for high-stakes poker games. A rounder takes big risks for big money…and sometimes loses big. Gambling poker games weren’t allowed in the United States until the…

This is the latest installment of our weekly series The Language of the Blues, in which author and rock musician Debra Devi explores the meaning of a word or phrase found in the blues. Grab a signed copy of Devi’s entertaining & award-winning glossary The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu (Foreword by Dr. John) at Bluescentric.com. Also available as an eBook. Like the word “rock,” roll was originally associated with manual labor in the Delta, specifically the rolling of heavy bales of cotton onto a ship–a job that took three men per bale and was often accompanied…

This is the latest installment of our weekly series The Language of the Blues, in which author and rock musician Debra Devi explores the meaning of a word or phrase found in the blues. Grab a signed copy of Devi’s entertaining & award-winning glossary The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu (Foreword by Dr. John) at Bluescentric.com. Also available as an eBook. *All quotes are from the author’s interviews with the artists. By the 1940s, the term rock’n’roll was well established in Southern juke joints as meaning “to have sex.” Rock ’n’ roll didn’t emerge as a distinct…

This is the latest installment of our weekly series The Language of the Blues, in which author and rock musician Debra Devi explains the meaning of a word or phrase found in the blues. To find out what the words in your favorite blues songs really mean, grab a signed copy of Devi’s award-winning glossary The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu (Foreword by Dr. John) at Bluescentric.com. Also available as an eBook. The roots of rock are in a West African etymon for dance: rak. An etymon is an original root word from which other words have…

This is the latest installment of our weekly series The Language of the Blues, in which author and rock musician Debra Devi explores the meaning of a word or phrase found in the blues. Grab a signed copy of Devi’s entertaining & award-winning glossary The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu (Foreword by Dr. John) at Bluescentric.com. Also available as an eBook. A roadhouse is a drinking establishment that is outside town or city limits and is therefore beyond any municipality’s jurisdiction. Roadhouses can get away with providing unregulated entertainment, such as gambling and prostitution. Most roadhouses also…

This is the latest installment of our weekly series The Language of the Blues, in which author and rock musician Debra Devi explores the meaning of a word or phrase found in the blues. Grab a signed copy of Devi’s entertaining & award-winning glossary The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu (Foreword by Dr. John) at Bluescentric.com. Also available as an eBook. Riding the blinds refers to the dangerous hobo practice of riding between cars on a moving freight train, so as to be out of sight of the train crew or police. On a passenger train, this spot…

This is the latest installment of our weekly series The Language of the Blues, in which author and rock musician Debra Devi explores the meaning of a word or phrase found in the blues. Grab a signed copy of Devi’s entertaining & award-winning glossary The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu (Foreword by Dr. John) at Bluescentric.com. Also available as an eBook. A rider is a sexual partner, or a steady lover. Riding is probably the most common metaphor for sexual intercourse in blues. Riding is also used metaphorically in the Voodoo, or Vodou, religion to describe divine…