An American record label founded in 1968 by Bob Krasnow, along with former A&M Records executives Tommy Lipuma and Don Graham. Blue Thumb was originally intended to be the name of Captain Beefheart's band, but Bob didn't think the name was right for the group.

Blue Thumb started out distributing themselves, but went to Capitol/EMI for distribution during late 1970 and early 1971. Gulf and Western's Famous Music Group took over distribution from mid 1971 until 1974, when Famous Records was sold off to ABC Records later in the year. ABC kept the Blue Thumb imprint going (primarily for reissues, Pointer Sisters and Crusaders albums), right up until ABC was bought out by MCA Records during the first part of 1979. MCA then discontinued the Blue Thumb imprint altogether.

The label was revived in 1995 for non-jazz (usually blues & adult contemporary) releases. This remained so, even after the 1998 mega-merger with parent Universal Music Group and PolyGram and being put under the fold of the Verve Music Group. But in early 2005, the Blue Thumb imprint was deactivated and was replaced with Verve Forecast to handle such releases.