Rising out of a base of traditional blues, rhythm and blues fuses African rhythms with pop and rock and roll, creating an upbeat, urban form of African American music that eventually gave rise to soul. This was a music of the... [more]

Rising out of a base of traditional blues, rhythm and blues fuses African rhythms with pop and rock and roll, creating an upbeat, urban form of African American music that eventually gave rise to soul. This was a music of the city, a sophisticated sound meant to be danced to, replete with showy stage performances and humorous lyrics. Emerging in the 1930s with the small band of Louis Jordan, rhythm and blues grew in popularity throughout the middle of the century. It encountered rockabilly, rock and roll, jazz and pop, but maintained an identity of its own, a quick-paced bluesy sound, soulfully inflected, rhythmically charged, boasting an energy and ebullience that accorded with the pace and the pathos of America's big cities. As opposed to traditional blues, rhythm and blues often favors big bands and quick time signatures. Although based in the same twelve bar sequences and I - IV - V chord progressions as blues, the rhythmic element is intensified, no longer a languid, dragging beat, but a syncopated quickness, a light, almost airy affect. Improvisation dominates most of the songs, but rhythm and blues moves away from the guitar-based blues and highlights pianos and horns, relegating the guitar to the position of a rhythmic rather than tonically expressive instrument. Rhythm and blues had its beginnings in Los Angeles, where small record labels began to record a few marginal albums, but the industry quickly moved to New York, after Ahmet Ertgun, founder of Atlantic Records, took an interest. Rhythm and blues began to take shape and gain in popularity after jazz musicians were added to studio recordings and Ruth Brown and LaVern Baker -- some of the biggest female names were introduced to the genre. Ray Charles was signed, initially as an imitator of the innovative R&B; artist Charles Brown, but he was soon to develop his own direction, one that would lead to the emergence of soul. Under the impulsion of these artists, rhythm and blues flourished in the mid '50s, booming out of night clubs and concert halls everywhere in New York. Rock and roll musicians soon caught on and developed elements of R&B; into their own form. The distinction between the two styles began to blur, however, and many bands billed themselves as both. But rhythm and blues insisted on its sophistication, drawing a primarily adult crowd -- as opposed to the throngs of teenagers swarming about the rock and roll scene. By the 1960s, however, its force was beginning to wane: shows were isolated to nightclubs, and the new form of soul music inspired by Ray Charles gradually usurped its audience. But the sound of rhythm and blues still permeates modern popular music, from the Beattles to the Rolling Stones to The Who. [show less]