Rhythm and blues (also known as
R&B,
R'n'B or
RnB) is the name given to a wide-ranging
genre of
popular music
created by
African Americans in the
late 1940s and early 1950s. The term was originally used by record
companies to refer to recordings marketed predominantly to urban
African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking,
jazz based music with a heavy, insistent beat" was
becoming more popular.
The term has subsequently had a number of shifts in meaning. In the
early 1950s and beyond, the term "rhythm and blues" was frequently
applied to blues records, for instance, John Lee Hooker's "I'm in
the Mood" became number-one on Billboard R&B Music Charts.
Starting in the 1960s, after this style of music contributed to the
development of "
rock and roll", the
term "R&B" became used - particularly by
white groups — to refer to music styles that
developed from and incorporated
electric
blues, as well as
gospel and
soul music. By the 1970s, the term
"rhythm and blues" was being used as a blanket term for soul and
funk. Since the 1990s, the term "
Contemporary R&B" has been used to
refer to a modern version of soul and funk-influenced
pop music.
Etymology
Jerry Wexler of
Billboard magazine coined the term
"rhythm and blues" in 1948 as a musical marketing term in the
United States. It replaced the term "
race
music", which originally came from within the black community,
but was deemed offensive in the postwar world. Writer/producer
Robert Palmer
defined rhythm & blues as "a catchall term referring to any
music that was made by and for black Americans". He has used the
term "R&B" as a synonym for
jump
blues. However,
Allmusic separates it
from jump blues because of its stronger, gospel-esque backbeat.
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.
Rhythm and blues bands usually consisted of piano, one or two
guitars, bass, drums, and sax. 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. Bands
dressed in suits and even uniforms. Lyrics seem fatalistic and the
music feels somehow inevitable.
History
Precursors
The
migration of African Americans to the urban industrial centers of
Chicago
, Detroit
, New York
, Los Angeles
and elsewhere in the 1930s created a new market for
jazz, blues, and related
genres of music, 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 1930s
through musicians such as
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
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". Robert Palmer
described it as "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a heavy,
insistent beat". Jordan's cool music, along with that of
Big Joe Turner,
Roy
Brown,
Billy Wright, and
Wynonie Harris, is now also referred
to as
jump blues. Also in 1948, Wynonie
Harris' remake of Roy Brown's 1947 recording "
Good Rockin' Tonight" hit the charts in
the #2 spot, following
band leader
Sonny Thompson's "Long Gone" at
#1.
In 1949, the term "Rhythm and Blues" replaced the Billboard
category
Harlem Hit Parade. Also in that year, "The
Huckle-Buck", recorded by band leader and saxophonist
Paul Williams, was the #1
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 "
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 #4 hit for
Jimmy Witherspoon, and Louis Jordan and
the Tympany Five once again made the top 5 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).
Early to mid 1950s
Working
with African American musicians, Greek
American Johnny Otis, who had signed
with the Newark, New
Jersey
-based Savoy Records,
produced many R&B hits in 1951, including: "Double Crossing
Blues", "Mistrustin' Blues" and "Cupid's Boogie", all of which hit
number one that year. Otis scored ten top ten hits that
year. Other hits include: "Gee Baby", "Mambo Boogie" and "All Nite
Long".
The Clovers, a vocal trio who
sang a distinctive sounding combination of blues and gospel, had
the #5 hit of the year with "Don't You Know I Love You" on
Atlantic Records.
Also in July 1951,
Cleveland,
Ohio
DJ Alan Freed started a
late-night radio show called "The Moondog Rock Roll House Party" on
WJW-AM . Freed's show was
sponsored by Fred Mintz, whose R&B record store had a primarily
African American clientele. Freed began referring to the rhythm and
blues music he played as "
rock and
roll".
In 1951,
Little Richard Penniman
began recording for RCA Records in the jump blues style of late
1940s Joe Brown and Billy Wright. However, it wasn't until he
prepared a demo in 1954, that caught the attention of
Specialty Records, that the world would
start to hear his new, uptempo, funky rhythm and blues that would
catapult him to fame in 1955 and help define the sound of rock 'n'
roll. A rapid succession of rhythm and blues hits followed,
beginning with "
Tutti Frutti" and
"
Long Tall Sally", which would
influence performers such as
James
Brown,
Elvis Presley, and
Otis Redding.
Ruth Brown on the
Atlantic label, placed hits in the top 5
every year from 1951 through 1954: "
Teardrops from My Eyes", "Five, Ten,
Fifteen Hours", "(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean" and "
What a Dream".
Faye
Adams's "Shake a Hand" made it to #2 in 1952. In 1953, the
R&B record-buying public made
Willie Mae Thornton's original recording
of
Leiber and Stoller's
Hound Dog the #3 hit that year. That same year
The Orioles, a
doo-wop group, had the #4 hit of the year with
Crying in the Chapel.
Fats Domino made the top 30 of the pop
charts in 1952 and 1953, then the top 10 with "
Ain't That a Shame".
Ray Charles came to national prominence in 1955
with "
I Got a Woman".
Big Bill Broonzy said of Charles' music:
"He's mixing the blues with the spirituals... I know that's
wrong."
In 1954
The Chords' "
Sh-Boom" became the first hit to cross over from the
R&B chart to hit the top 10 early in the year. Late in the
year, and into 1955, "
Hearts of
Stone" by
The Charms made the top
20.
At Chess Records in the spring of 1955,
Bo
Diddley's debut record "Bo Diddley"/"I'm A Man" climbed to #2
on the R&B charts and popularized Bo Diddley's own original
rhythm and blues beat that would become a mainstay in rock and
roll.
At the urging of
Leonard Chess at
Chess Records,
Chuck Berry had reworked a
country fiddle tune with a long history,
entitled "
Ida Red". The resulting "
Maybellene" was not only a #3 hit on the R&B
charts in 1955, but also reached into the top 30 on the pop charts.
Alan Freed, who had moved to the much larger
market of New York
City
, helped the record become popular with white teenagers. Freed had been given
part of the writers' credit by Chess in return for his promotional
activities; a common practice at the time.
Late 1950s
In 1956, an R&B "Top Stars of '56" tour took place, with
headliners
Al Hibbler,
Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, and
Carl Perkins, whose "
Blue Suede Shoes" was very popular with
R&B music buyers. Some of the performers completing the bill
were
Chuck Berry, Cathy Carr,
Shirley & Lee,
Della Reese, the Cleftones, and the
Spaniels with
Illinois
Jacquet's Big Rockin' Rhythm Band. Cities visited by the tour
included Columbia, SC, Annapolis, MD, Pittsburgh, PA, Syracuse,
Rochester and Buffalo, NY, into Canada, and through the mid Western
US ending in Texas. In Columbia the concert ended with a near riot
as Perkins began his first song as the closing act. Perkins is
quoted as saying, "It was dangerous. Lot of kids got hurt. There
was a lot of rioting going on, just crazy, man! The music drove 'em
insane." In Annapolis 70,000 to 50,000 people tried to attend a
sold out performance with 8,000 seats. Roads were clogged for seven
hours.
Film makers took advantage of the popularity of "rhythm and blues"
musicians as "rock n roll" musicians beginning in 1956. Little
Richard, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Big Joe Turner, The Treniers,
The Platters, The Flamingos, all made it onto the big screen.
Two Elvis Presley records made the R&B top five in 1957:
"
Jailhouse Rock"/"Treat Me
Nice" at #1, and "
All Shook Up" at #5,
an unprecedented acceptance of a non-
African American artist into a music
category known for being created by blacks.
Nat King Cole, a former
jazz pianist who had had #1 and #2 hits on the pop
charts in the early 1950s ("
Mona Lisa" at #2 in 1950 and
"
Too Young" at #1 in 1951), had a record
in the top 5 in the R&B charts in 1958, "Looking Back"/"Do I
Like It".
In 1959, two black-owned record labels, one of which would become
hugely successful, made their debut:
Sam
Cooke's Sar, and
Berry Gordy's
Motown Records.
Brook Benton was at the top of the R&B
charts in 1959 and 1960 with one #1 and two #2 hits. Benton had a
certain warmth in his voice that attracted a wide variety of
listeners, and his ballads led to comparisons with performers such
as
Cole,
Sinatra and
Tony
Bennett.
Lloyd Price, who in 1952
had a #1 hit with "
Lawdy Miss
Clawdy" regained predominance with a version of "
Stagger Lee" at #1 and "Personality" at #5 for
in 1959.
The white bandleader of the Bill Black Combo,
Bill Black, who had helped start Elvis Presley's
career, was popular with black listeners. Ninety percent of his
record sales were from black people, and his "Smokey, Part 2"
(1959) rose to the #1 position on black music charts. He was once
told that "a lot of those stations still think you're a black group
because the sound feels funky and black." Hi Records did not
feature pictures of the Combo on early records.
1960s and later
Sam Cooke's #5 hit "
Chain Gang" is indicative of R&B in
1960, as is
Chubby Checker's #5 hit
"
The Twist". By the early 1960s,
the music industry category previously known as rhythm and blues
was being called
soul music, and similar
music by white artists was labeled
blue
eyed soul.
Motown Records had its
first million-selling single in 1960 with
The Miracles' "
Shop
Around", and in 1961,
Stax Records
had its first hit with
Carla Thomas'
"Gee Whiz! (Look at His Eyes)". Stax's next major hit, the
Mar-Keys' instrumental "
Last Night" (also released in
1961) introduced the rawer
Memphis soul
sound that Stax became known for. Also in the 1960s, R&B and
soul influenced
British blues,
mod and
beat
music bands such as
The Animals,
The Yardbirds,
The Rolling Stones,
The Who,
The Kinks and
The Beatles. It was also a foundation
for
garage rock and
freakbeat. In Jamaica, R&B influenced the
development of
ska.
By the 1970s, the term
rhythm and blues was being used as
a blanket term for soul,
funk, and
disco. Around the same time, earlier R&B was an
infuence on
British pub rock and
later, the
mod revival. In the 2000s,
the term
R&B is almost always used instead of the full
rhythm and blues, and mainstream use of the term usually
refers to
contemporary R&B,
which is a modern version of soul and funk-influenced
pop music that originated as disco faded from
popularity.
See also
References
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