R&B(Rhythm and blues)

Rhythm and blues 

Rhythm and blues (aka R&B or RnB), a popular music genre combining jazz, gospel, and blues influences, is a musical term for post-war musical chart listings which mainly encompassed the rich and varied folk music of the African Americans as well as other Americans. First performed by African American artists, rhythm and blues became the biographical mirrors of work songs, ballads or lyrics from minstrel shows, church hymns and gospel music, and some of the secular music of America in the 1900s. The combination of rhythm and blues brought forth the manifestation of particular emotions by the singer or lead instrument in reflections of the very melodic and soulful "blues" with an accompaniment of "rhythmic" concentration and force.

Cultural Background

As rhythm and blues combined the elements of jazz, gospel music and the blues, it thus created a very personalized form of melody and rhythm which has become known as one of the outstanding styles of American music. From jazz and its combination of African black folk music blended with European folk and pop music, rhythm and blues incorporated the syncopated beats supported by colorful chordal combinations to mirror the emotions and experiences of the composer and singer/musicianThe term was coined as a musical marketing term in the United States in 1949 by Jerry Wexler at Billboard magazine. It replaced the term race music (which was deemed offensive), and the Billboard category Harlem Hit Parade in June 1949. The term was initially used to identify the rocking style of music that combined the 12 bar blues format and boogie-woogie with a back beat, which later became a fundamental element of rock and roll. In 1948, RCA Victor was marketing black music under the name Blues and Rhythm. The words were reversed by Wexler of Atlantic Records, the most aggressive and dominant label in the R&B field in the early years. By the 1970s, rhythm and blues was being used as a blanket term to describe soul and funk. Today the acronym R&B is almost always used instead of the full rhythm and blues, and mainstream use of the term refers to a modern version of soul and funk-influenced pop music that originated at the demise of disco in 1980.

In its first manifestation, rhythm and blues was one of the predecessors to rock and roll. It was strongly influenced by jazz, jump blues and black gospel music. It also influenced jazz in return. Rhythm and blues, blues, and gospel combined with bebop to create hard bop. The first rock and roll hits consisted of rhythm and blues songs like Rocket 88 and Shake, Rattle and Roll, which appeared on popular music charts as well as R&B charts. Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On, the first hit by Jerry Lee Lewis, was an R&B cover song that reached #1 on pop, R&B and country and western charts.

. Such rhythm and blues sounds also derived from the religious music of the African black churches, especially in the southern and midwestern regions of the United States. As the ministers encouraged their church members to freely "testify" about their faiths, the spontaneity of such testimonies gave rise to the rhythm and blues lyrics and melodies which related the stories of very personal experiences in song. Moreover, rhythm and blues sometimes imitated the black African folk songs using a "call" and "response" to organize the group work unit and to lighten their tasks by singing. As this vocal method grew in the United States, it evolved to a solo presentation and answer rather than using the many voices needed for the earlier "call" and "response" folk songs. Through all of this musical diversity, rhythm and blues has become one of the great musical achievements in American music

Musicians paid little attention to the distinctions between jazz and rhythm and blues, and frequently recorded both genres. Numerous swing bands (i.e, Jay McShann's, Tiny Bradshaw's, and Johnny Otis's) also recorded rhythm and blues. Count Basie had a weekly live rhythm and blues broadcast from Harlem. Even a bebop icon Tadd Dameron arranged music for Bull Moose Jackson and spent two years as Jackson's pianist after establishing himself in bebop. Most of the R&B studio musicians were jazz musicians, and many of the musicians on Charlie Mingus' breakthrough jazz recordings were R&B veterans. Lionel Hampton's big band of the early 1940s—which produced the classic recording Flying Home (tenor sax solo by Illinois Jacquet)—was the breeding ground for many of the bebop legends of the 1950s. Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson was a one-man fusion; a bebop saxophonist and a blues shouter.

The 1950s was the premier decade for classic rhythm and blues. Overlapping with other genres such as jazz and rock and roll, R&B developed regional variations. A strong, distinct style straddling the border with blues came out of New Orleans, and was based on a rolling piano style first made famous by Professor Longhair. In the late 1950s, Fats Domino hit the national charts with Blueberry Hill and Ain't That a Shame. Other artists who popularized this Louisiana flavor of R&B included Clarence "Frogman" Henry, Frankie Ford, Irma Thomas, The Neville Brothers and Dr. John.

At the start of their careers in the 1960s, British rock bands like The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds and the Spencer Davis Group were essentially R&B bands.

source:newworldencyclopedia.org