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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 ...
- 1940s–1950s, U.S.
Apr 19, 2024 · rhythm and blues, term used for several types of postwar African-American popular music, as well as for some white rock music derived from it. The term was coined by Jerry Wexler in 1947, when he was editing the charts at the trade journal Billboard and found that the record companies issuing Black popular music considered the chart names then in use (Harlem Hit Parade, Sepia, Race) to be ...
- Ed Ward
Anthony Hamilton Neo-soul Vocalist. In 1990, Billboard (the leading music trade magazine that charts popular music) reintroduced the term R&B—the retro label that had been coined (as rhythm and blues) in the 1940s—to categorize all styles of Black popular music other than hip-hop. R&B embraces the soulful, medium-tempo ballads of Luther ...
Early R&B. Evolving out of jump blues in the late '40s, R&B laid the groundwork for rock & roll. R&B kept the tempo and the drive of jump blues, but its instrumentation was sparer and the emphasis was on the song, not improvisation. It was blues chord changes played with an insistent backbeat. During the '50s, R&B was dominated by vocalists ...
Sep 20, 2016 · Photo by Walter Larrimore, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives. Hear “Rhythm & Blues,” a Smithsonian Folkways playlist. One important stylistic prototype in the development of R&B was jump blues, pioneered by Louis Jordan, with his group Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five. Originally from Arkansas, Jordan was a former member of Chick Webb’s ...
Jun 7, 2021 · R&B Music Guide: The Evolution of Rhythm and Blues. For decades, the Billboard Hot 100 and Top 40 charts have been populated with rhythm and blues, an American musical genre first developed by Black artists in the mid-twentieth century.
Sep 27, 2004 · Rhythm and blues (R&B), which combines soulful singing and a strong backbeat, was the most popular music created by and for African Americans between the end of World War II (1941-45) and the early 1960s. Such Georgia artists as Ray Charles, Little Richard, and James Brown rank among the most influential and innovative R&B performers. Ray Charles.
