cry the blues vs sadden

cry the blues

verb
  • To complain, especially in order to obtain sympathy for one's own purportedly sad situation. 

  • To sing in the style of blues music. 

sadden

verb
  • To make sad or unhappy. 

  • To darken a color during dyeing. 

  • To become sad or unhappy. 

  • To render heavy or cohesive. 

How often have the words cry the blues and sadden occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )