National ArchiveBlack’s Dictionary
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Archive / Browse / gutbucket
Entry · catalog no. 1040

gutbucket

/ /
adjective · south ·
Verified
1.
Raw, low-down, and unpolished — describing blues or jazz played in the earthy barrelhouse manner, or the cheap dive where such music lived.
The band dropped into a gutbucket blues that shook the whole room.
Origin & Attribution
New Orleans jazz of the 1920s. Named for the bucket that caught the drippings, or gutterings, from the barrels in barrelhouse saloons where Black musicians played for hand-outs.
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
south ·
Spoken by
$GUTBUCThe Record · cultural traction
26 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
60/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
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Citations & Sources
Louis Armstrong — "Gut Bucket Blues," recording · 1925
submitted
Green's Dictionary of Slang — reference
submitted
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See also