Rhythm and blues
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
"The term "Rhythm and Blues" was coined in 1947 by Jerry Wexler as a replacement for the terms "race music" "sepia music" and "Harlem Hits Parade" during a reorganization of the Billboard charts. --Sholem Stein "In the late 1960s reggae emerged as a reinterpretation of American rhythm and blues."--Sholem Stein [...] "Fats Domino, Amos Milburn, Louis Jordan and Roy Brown were particular favourites. The relaxed, loping style of their music seemed to cater to the West Indian taste for unhurried rhythms. [...] The southern stuff almost had a Caribbean tinge. In Professor Longhair's rumba-like concoctions, for instance, you can hear influences which never crossed the Mason-Dixon line."--Cut 'n' Mix (1987) by Dick Hebdige, p. 62 |
Related e |
Featured: |
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B or RnB, is a genre of popular African-American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when -- in the words of Robert Palmer -- "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, the term rhythm and blues was frequently applied to blues records. Starting in the mid-1950s, after this style of music contributed to the development of rock and roll, the term "R&B" became used to refer to music styles that developed from and incorporated electric blues, as well as gospel and soul music. By the 1970s, rhythm and blues was used as a blanket term for soul and funk. In the 1980s, a newer style of R&B developed, becoming known as "Contemporary R&B".
See also
- African American music
- Contemporary R&B
- Music of the United States
- Rhythm and Blues Foundation
- List of number-one rhythm and blues hits (United States)
- List of artists who reached number one on the Billboard R&B chart