Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated within African American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to African Americans, at a time when "rocking, jazz based music ... [with a] heavy, insistent beat" was starting to become more popular. In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, the bands usually consisted of a piano, one or two guitars, bass, drums, one or more saxophones, and sometimes background vocalists. R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African American history and experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy, as well as triumphs and failures in terms of societal racism, oppression, relationships, economics, and aspirations.
The term "rhythm and blues" has undergone a number of shifts in meaning. In the early 1950s, it was frequently applied to blues records. Starting in the mid-1950s, after this style of music had contributed to the development of rock and roll, the term "R&B" became used in a wider context. It referred to music styles that developed from and incorporated electric blues, as well as gospel and soul. By the 1970s, the term "rhythm and blues" had changed once again and was used as a blanket term for soul and funk.
In the late 1980s, a newer style of R&B developed, becoming known as "contemporary R&B". This contemporary form combines rhythm and blues with various elements of jazz, soul, funk, disco, blues and electronic.
Etymology, definitions and description Although Jerry Wexler of Billboard magazine is credited with coining the term "rhythm and blues" as a musical term in the United States in 1948, the term had been used in Billboard as early as 1943.Night Club Reviews Billboard February 27, 1943, p. 12Vaudeville reviews Billboard March 4, 1944, p. 28 However, the company's first list of songs popular among African Americans was named Harlem Hit Parade; created in 1942, it listed the "most popular records in Harlem," and is the predecessor to the Billboard RnB chart. "Rhythm and Blues" replaced the common term "race music", a term coined by Okeh producer Ralph Peer based on the common self description by the African American press as "people of race."Jerry Wexler, famed record producer, dies at 91, Nekesa Mumbi Moody, AP Music Writer, Dallas Morning News, August 15, 2008 The term "rhythm and blues" was then used by Billboard in its chart listings from June 1949 until August 1969, when its "Hot Rhythm & Blues Singles" chart was renamed as "Best Selling Soul Singles". Before the term "rhythm and Blues" was popularized, various record companies had already begun replacing the term "race music" with the term "sepia series". "Rhythm and blues" is often abbreviated as "R&B" or "R'n'B". In subsequent decades, the abbreviation "R&B" evolved to encompass a broad range of popular music styles, including soul, funk, disco, and later contemporary R&B, reflecting shifts in production, audience, and industry marketing.
In the early 1950s, the term "rhythm & blues" was frequently applied to blues records.The new blue music: changes in rhythm & blues, 1950–1999, p. 8 American writer and producer Robert Palmer defined rhythm & blues as "a catchall term referring to any music that was made by and for black Americans". He has also used the term "R&B" as a synonym for jump blues. However, AllMusic separates it from jump blues because of R&B's stronger gospel influences. Lawrence Cohn, author of Nothing but the Blues, writes that "rhythm and blues" was an umbrella term invented for industry convenience. According to him, the term embraced all black music except classical music and religious music, unless a gospel song sold enough to break into the charts. Well into the 21st century, the term R&B continues in use (in some contexts) to categorize music made by black musicians, as distinct from styles of music made by other musicians.
In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, the bands usually consisted of piano, one or two guitars, bass, drums, and saxophone. Arrangements were rehearsed to the point of effortlessness and were sometimes accompanied by background vocalists. Simple repetitive parts mesh, creating momentum and rhythmic interplay producing mellow, lilting, and often hypnotic textures while calling attention to no individual sound. While singers are emotionally engaged with the lyrics, often intensely so, they remain cool, relaxed, and in control. The bands dressed in suits, and even uniforms, a practice associated with the modern popular music that rhythm and blues performers aspired to dominate. Lyrics often seemed fatalistic, and the music typically followed predictable patterns of chords and structure.Morrison, Craig (1952). "Go Cat Go!" University of Illinois Press. page 30. R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy, as well as triumphs and failures in terms of relationships, economics, and aspirations.
One publication of the Smithsonian Institution provided this summary of the origins of the genre in 2016."A distinctly African-American music drawing from the deep tributaries of African American expressive culture, it is an amalgam of jump blues, big band swing, gospel, boogie, and blues that was initially developed during a thirty-year period that bridges the era of legally sanctioned racial segregation, international conflicts, and the struggle for civil rights".
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame defines some of the originators of R&B, including Joe Turner's big band, Louis Jordan's Tympany Five, James Brown and LaVern Baker. In fact, this source states that "Louis Jordan joined Turner in laying the foundation for R&B in the 1940s, cutting one swinging rhythm & blues masterpiece after another". Other artists who were "cornerstones of R&B and its transformation into rock & roll" include Etta James, Fats Domino, Roy Brown, Little Richard and Ruth Brown. The "doo wop" groups were also noteworthy, including the Orioles, the Ravens and the Dominoes.
The term "rock and roll" had a strong sexual connotation in jump blues and R&B, but when DJ Alan Freed referred to rock and roll on mainstream radio in the mid-1950s, "the sexual component had been dialed down enough that it simply became an acceptable term for dancing".
History Precursors
The great migration of Black Americans to the urban industrial centers of Chicago, Detroit, New York City, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and elsewhere in the 1920s and 1930s created a new market for jazz, blues, and related genres of music. The migration of African Americans to urban centers in the 1920s and 1930s helped shape rhythm and blues by blending jazz, blues, and urban influences. These genres of music were often performed by full-time musicians, either working alone or in small groups. The precursors of rhythm and blues came from jazz and blues, which overlapped in the late-1920s and 30s through the work of musicians such as the Harlem Hamfats, with their 1936 hit "Oh Red", as well as Lonnie Johnson, Leroy Carr, Cab Calloway, Count Basie, and T-Bone Walker. There was also increasing emphasis on the electric guitar as a lead instrument, as well as the piano and saxophone.
Late 1940s
R&B originated in African-American communities in the 1940s.The new blue music: changes in rhythm & blues, 1950–1999, p. 172. In 1948, RCA Victor was marketing black music under the name "Blues and Rhythm". In that year, Louis Jordan dominated the top five listings of the R&B charts with three songs, and two of the top five songs were based on the boogie-woogie rhythms that had come to prominence during the 1940s. Jordan's band, the Tympany Five (formed in 1938), consisted of him on saxophone and vocals, along with musicians on trumpet, tenor saxophone, piano, bass and drums. Lawrence Cohn described the music as "grittier than his boogie-era jazz-tinged blues". Author Robert Palmer described it as "urbane, rocking, jazz-based music ... [with a] heavy, insistent beat". Jordan's music, along with that of Big Joe Turner, Roy Brown, Billy Wright, and Wynonie Harris, before 1949, was referred to as jump blues. Then, Paul Gayten, Roy Brown, and others had had hits in the style now referred to as rhythm and blues. In 1948, Wynonie Harris's remake of Brown's 1947 recording "Good Rockin' Tonight" reached number two on the charts, following band leader Sonny Thompson's "Long Gone" at number one.
In 1949, the term "Rhythm and Blues" (R&B) replaced the Billboard category Harlem Hit Parade. Also in that year, "The Huckle-Buck", recorded by band leader and saxophonist Paul Williams, was the number one R&B tune, remaining on top of the charts for nearly the entire year. Written by musician and arranger Andy Gibson, the song was described as a "dirty boogie" because it was risque and raunchy. Paul Williams and His Hucklebuckers' concerts were sweaty riotous affairs that got shut down on more than one occasion. Their lyrics, by Roy Alfred (who later co-wrote the 1955 hit "(The) Rock and Roll Waltz"), were mildly sexually suggestive, and one teenager from Philadelphia said "That Hucklebuck was a very nasty dance". Also in 1949, a new version of a 1920s blues song, "Ain't Nobody's Business" was a number four hit for Jimmy Witherspoon, and Louis Jordan and the Tympany Five once again made the top five with "Saturday Night Fish Fry". Many of these hit records were issued on new independent record labels, such as Savoy (founded 1942), King (founded 1943), Imperial (founded 1945), Specialty (founded 1946), Chess (founded 1947), and Atlantic (founded 1948).
Afro-Cuban rhythmic influence African American music began incorporating Afro-Cuban rhythmic motifs in the 1800s with the popularity of the Cuban contradanza (known outside of Cuba as the habanera)."[Afro]-Latin rhythms have been absorbed into black American styles far more consistently than into white popular music, despite Latin music's popularity among whites" (Roberts The Latin Tinge 1979: 41). The habanera rhythm can be thought of as a combination of tresillo and the backbeat.