When: 1943
Super Genre: R&B
Description:
“(Jump) Blues dramatically changed when the band stopped being an anonymous whole but received a face: the frontman, the singer/songwriter. The moment black musicians stepped forward with their own music, driven by a powerful and driven backbeat, it quickly was discarded as something vile, not meant for “decent, white people”. The previous term for R&B, “Race Music”, already made that very clear. Race Music was a Billboard category reserved for Blues music, as Jazz and Gospel also featured white musicians. Such outspoken racism was put to a halt in 1948, with the replacement of the term by “Rhythm and Blues”, abbreviated as R&B. Thus at first R&B was seen as synonymous with Blues, but it quickly developed into a separate style.
True R&B (from the forties, as the term received a new meaning at the end of the century) had very few instruments, similar to Gospel. Melodies became shorter and more repetitive like riffs, and a steady backbeat is omnipresent. Despite sparse instrumentation, R&B focused on an infectious rhythm, like a proto-groove. With more emphasis on albums, performance and singer personality than ever before, the birth of Rhythm ‘n’ Blues must be acknowledged as a milestone in the evolution of popular music. It creates the concept of high-profile singers with personal music, who combine their songs on albums in order to reach large audiences. And when finally white singers start reshaping R&B in the form of Rock ‘n’ Roll, few realized that they witnessed the shape of grand things to come.” - Musicmap
Sample Song: Tutti Frutti by Little Richard
Papa’s Favorite Song: Bo Diddley by Bo Diddley
Up next…Folk Blues/Country Blues (& Delta Blues)
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