R&B and Derivatives Defined
Rhythm & Blues
Rhythm and blues, abbreviated as R&B [or RnB], is a genre of popular music that originated in African American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when “urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a heavy, insistent beat” was becoming more popular. In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, the bands usually consisted of piano, one or two guitars, bass, drums, one or more saxophones, and sometimes background vocalists. R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy, as well as triumphs and failures in terms of relationships, economics, and aspirations.
The term “rhythm and blues” has undergone a number of shifts in meaning. In the early 1950s, it 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” [or “RnB”] became used to refer to music styles that developed from and incorporated electric blues, as well as gospel and soul music. In the 1960s, several British rock bands such as the Rolling Stones, the Who and the Animals were referred to and promoted as being R&B bands; posters for the Who’s residency at the Marquee Club in 1964 contained the slogan, “Maximum R&B”. Their mix of rock and roll and R&B is now known as “British rhythm and blues”. By the 1970s, the term “rhythm and blues” changed again and 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”. It combines rhythm and blues with elements of pop, soul, funk, disco, hip hop, and electronic music. Popular R&B vocalists at the end of the 20th century included Prince, R. Kelly, Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, and Mariah Carey. In the 21st century, R&B has remained a popular genre, becoming more pop-oriented and alternative-influenced, with successful artists including Rihanna, Chris Brown, Ne-Yo, Bruno Mars, SZA, Robin Thicke, and The Weeknd.
Source and full article : Wikipedia
Origin of the Term ‘Rhythm & Blues’
Attributed to Jerry Wexler, Editor, Billboard magazine, June 1949.
“Wexler got his start in music as a journalist for Billboard magazine where he worked as an editor, reporter and writer. During his time at Billboard, Wexler was credited with coining the term “Rhythm and Blues” which went on to define an entire genre of music that had previously been identified as “Race Records”.
Click here for the article ‘Jerry Wexler, The Godfather of R&B’ (AlanticRecords.com)
With thanks to Chris Powers for the reference. (Click here for Chris Powers’ Interview).
R&B Derivatives
Rock and Roll
Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock ‘n’ roll, or rock ‘n roll) is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s from musical styles such as gospel, jump blues, jazz, boogie woogie, rhythm and blues, and country music. While elements of what was to become rock and roll can be heard in blues records from the 1920s and in country records of the 1930s, the genre did not acquire its name until 1954.
In the earliest rock and roll styles, either the piano or saxophone was typically the lead instrument, but these instruments were generally replaced or supplemented by guitar in the middle to late 1950s. The beat is essentially a dance rhythm with an accentuated backbeat, which is almost always provided by a snare drum. Classic rock and roll is usually played with one or two electric guitars (one lead, one rhythm), a double bass (string bass) or after the mid-1950s an electric bass guitar, and a drum kit.
The term “rock and roll” is defined by Encyclopædia Britannica as the music that originated in the mid-1950s and later developed “into the more encompassing international style known as rock music”. The term is sometimes also used as synonymous with “rock music” and is defined as such in some dictionaries.
The phrase “rocking and rolling” originally described the movement of a ship on the ocean, but by the early 20th century was used both to describe the spiritual fervor of black church rituals and as a sexual analogy. Various gospel, blues and swing recordings used the phrase before it became used more frequently – but still intermittently – in the 1940s, on recordings and in reviews of what became known as “rhythm and blues” music aimed at a black audience.
The origins of rock and roll have been fiercely debated by commentators and historians of music. There is general agreement that it arose in the Southern United States – a region that would produce most of the major early rock and roll acts – through the meeting of various influences that embodied a merging of the African musical tradition with European instrumentation. The migration of many former slaves and their descendants to major urban centers such as St. Louis, Memphis, New York City, Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, and Buffalo meant that black and white residents were living in close proximity in larger numbers than ever before, and as a result heard each other’s music and even began to emulate each other’s fashions. Radio stations that made white and black forms of music available to both groups, the development and spread of the gramophone record, and African-American musical styles such as jazz and swing which were taken up by white musicians, aided this process of “cultural collision”.
The immediate roots of rock and roll lay in the rhythm and blues, then called “race music”, and country music of the 1940s and 1950s. Particularly significant influences were jazz, blues, gospel, country, and folk. Commentators differ in their views of which of these forms were most important and the degree to which the new music was a re-branding of African-American rhythm and blues for a white market, or a new hybrid of black and white forms.
Source and full article: Wikipedia
Soul
Soul music (often referred to simply as soul) is a popular music genre that originated in the African American community throughout the United States in the 1950s and early 1960s. It combines elements of African-American gospel music, rhythm and blues and jazz. Soul music became popular for dancing and listening in the United States, where record labels such as Motown, Atlantic and Stax were influential during the Civil Rights Movement. Soul also became popular around the world, directly influencing rock music and the music of Africa.
According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is “music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of funky, secular testifying”. Catchy rhythms, stressed by handclaps and extemporaneous body moves, are an important feature of soul music. Other characteristics are a call and response between the lead vocalist and the chorus and an especially tense vocal sound. The style also occasionally uses improvisational additions, twirls and auxiliary sounds. Soul music reflected the African-American identity and it stressed the importance of an African-American culture. The new-found African-American consciousness led to new styles of music, which boasted pride in being black.
Soul music dominated the U.S. R&B chart in the 1960s, and many recordings crossed over into the pop charts in the U.S., Britain and elsewhere. By 1968, the soul music genre had begun to splinter. Some soul artists developed funk music, while other singers and groups developed slicker, more sophisticated, and in some cases more politically conscious varieties. By the early 1970s, soul music had been influenced by psychedelic rock and other genres, leading to psychedelic soul. The United States saw the development of neo soul around 1994. There are also several other subgenres and offshoots of soul music.
The key subgenres of soul include the Detroit (Motown) style, a more pop-friendly and rhythmic style; deep soul and southern soul, driving, energetic soul styles combining R&B with southern gospel music sounds; Memphis soul, a shimmering, sultry style; New Orleans soul, which came out of the rhythm and blues style; Chicago soul, a lighter gospel-influenced sound; Philadelphia soul, a lush orchestral sound with doo-wop-inspired vocals; as well as psychedelic soul, a blend of psychedelic rock and soul music.
Source and full article: Wikipedia
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in African-American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of soul music, jazz, and rhythm and blues (R&B). Funk de-emphasizes melody and chord progressions and focuses on a strong rhythmic groove of a bassline played by an electric bassist and a drum part played by a drummer, often at slower tempos than other popular music. Like much of African-inspired music, funk typically consists of a complex groove with rhythm instruments playing interlocking grooves that created a “hypnotic” and “danceable feel”. Funk uses the same richly colored extended chords found in bebop jazz, such as minor chords with added sevenths and elevenths, or dominant seventh chords with altered ninths and thirteenths.
Funk originated in the mid-1960s, with James Brown’s development of a signature groove that emphasized the downbeat—with heavy emphasis on the first beat of every measure (“The One”), and the application of swung 16th notes and syncopation on all basslines, drum patterns, and guitar riffs. Other musical groups, including Sly and the Family Stone, The Meters, and Parliament-Funkadelic, soon began to adopt and develop Brown’s innovations. Notable funk women include Chaka Khan, Marva Whitney, Lyn Collins, Brides of Funkenstein, Vicki Anderson, Anna King (The JB’s singer), and Parlet.
Source and full article: Wikipedia
Doo wop
Doo-wop is a genre of rhythm and blues music that originated among African-American youth in the 1940s, mainly in the large cities of the United States, including New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Detroit, and Washington, DC. It features vocal group harmony that carries an engaging melodic line to a simple beat with little or no instrumentation. Lyrics are simple, usually about love, sung by a lead vocal over background vocals of repeated nonsense syllables, and often featuring, in the bridge, a melodramatically heartfelt recitative addressed to the beloved. Gaining popularity in the 1950s, doo-wop enjoyed its peak successes in the early 1960s, but continued to influence performers in other genres.
British R&B
British rhythm and blues (or R&B) was a musical movement that developed in the United Kingdom between the late 1950s and the early 1960s, and reached a peak in the mid-1960s. It overlapped with, but was distinct from, the broader British beat and more purist British blues scenes, attempting to emulate the music of American blues and rock and roll pioneers, such as Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. It often placed greater emphasis on guitars and was often played with greater energy.
The origins of the movement were in the British jazz, skiffle and folk movements of the 1950s. The 1958 visit of Muddy Waters influenced key figures Cyril Davies and Alexis Korner to turn to electric blues and form the band Blues Incorporated, which became something of a clearing house for British rhythm and blues musicians. A flourishing scene of clubs and groups emerged in the later 1950s and 1960s and bands began to break through into mainstream success. Major acts included the Rolling Stones, Manfred Mann, the Animals, the Yardbirds, Them, and the Spencer Davis Group, who dominated the UK and US charts from 1964, in the wake of the Merseybeat craze, becoming central to the mod subculture in the UK and a second wave of British Invasion acts in the US.
Source and full article: Wikipedia
New Orleans R&B
New Orleans rhythm and blues is a style of rhythm and blues music that originated in the U.S. city of New Orleans. Most popular from 1948 to 1955, it was a direct precursor to rock and roll and strongly influenced ska. Instrumentation typically includes drums, bass, piano, horns, electric guitar, and vocals. The style is characterized by syncopated “second line” rhythms, a strong backbeat, and soulful vocals. Artists such as Roy Brown, Dave Bartholomew, and Fats Domino are representative of the New Orleans R&B sound.
New Orleans rhythm and blues can be characterized by predominant piano, “singing” horns, and call-and-response elements. Clear influences of Kansas City Swing bands can be heard through the extensive use of trumpet and saxophone solos. A “double” bass line, when the guitar and bass play in unison, was combined with a strong backbeat to make the music easy to dance to. It is also common to hear the influence of Caribbean rhythms such as the mambo, rhumba, and the calypso.
In addition, the usage of blue notes is characteristic. Like most blues, New Orleans R&B typically follows a standard three-stanza form that contains tonic, subdominant, and dominant chords. Within these chords, the three “blue notes”, also known as flatted notes, are the third, fifth, and seventh scale degrees. In New Orleans R&B, the flatted third is particularly notable.
Source and full article: Wikipedia
Reggae
Reggae is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, “Do the Reggay” was the first popular song to use the word “reggae”, effectively naming the genre and introducing it to a global audience. While sometimes used in a broad sense to refer to most types of popular Jamaican dance music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that was strongly influenced by traditional mento as well as American jazz and rhythm and blues, especially the New Orleans R&B practiced by Fats Domino and Allen Toussaint, and evolved out of the earlier genres ska and rocksteady. Reggae usually relates news, social gossip, and political commentary. Reggae spread into a commercialized jazz field, being known first as “rudie blues”, then “ska”, later “blue beat”, and “rock steady”. It is instantly recognizable from the counterpoint between the bass and drum downbeat and the offbeat rhythm section. The immediate origins of reggae were in ska and rocksteady; from the latter, reggae took over the use of the bass as a percussion instrument.
Reggae is deeply linked to Rastafari, an Afrocentric religion which developed in Jamaica in the 1930s, aiming at promoting Pan Africanism. Soon after the Rastafarian movement appeared, the international popularity of reggae music became associated with and increased the visibility of Rastafarianism spreading the Rastafari gospel throughout the world. Reggae music is an important means of transporting vital messages of Rastafarianism. The musician becomes the messenger, and as Rastafarians see it, “the soldier and the musician are tools for change.”
Source and full article : Wikipedia
Ska
Ska is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. It combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. Ska is characterized by a walking bass line accented with rhythms on the off beat. It was developed in Jamaica in the 1960s when Prince Buster, Clement “Coxsone” Dodd, and Duke Reid formed sound systems to play American rhythm and blues and then began recording their own songs. In the early 1960s, ska was the dominant music genre of Jamaica and was popular with British mods. Later it became popular with many skinheads.
Music historians typically divide the history of ska into three periods: the original Jamaican scene of the 1960s; the 2 Tone ska revival of the late 1970s in Britain, which fused Jamaican ska rhythms and melodies with the faster tempos and harder edge of punk rock forming ska-punk; and third wave ska, which involved bands from a wide range of countries around the world, in the late 1980s and 1990s.
Source and full article : Wikipedia