bluebeat
nounEtymology From blue + beat, named after Blue Beat Records, a London record label that released Jamaican R&B and ska in the 1960s. The label was named after the blues genre.
1
Any of various styles of Jamaican music, popular in the United Kingdom in the 1960s, precursor of reggae.
- Reggae music came to the UK shores as bluebeat and later through names like ska and rocksteady.1971 November 13, Billboard, volume 83, number 46, page 34:
- Chris returned with a trunk full of bluebeat 45s that sold out in days. On his next trip he decided to learn more about the Jamaican music business.2010, Joe Boyd, White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s, page 180:
3 more examples
- There we could all dance, or in my case tap my feet the night away to OUR music: ska, bluebeat and motown.2011, Ted Curtis, Robert Dellar, Leslie Esther, Mad Pride, page 38:
- Bluebeat and ska from a boombox on the pavement. A suedehead dancing a delirious, inebriated moonstomp with a girl who looked like a solicitor's apprentice.2013, Joseph O'Connor, Where Have You Been?, page 271:
- West Indian youngsters, marooned in this cultural maelstrom and kicking their heels in inner-city estates, took refuge in their musical roots: ska, bluebeat and rocksteady.2019 February 16, Kim Willsher, “From Soho to Paris, how migrant music brought two capitals to life”, in The Guardian, →ISSN: