In 1948, RCA a record label started marketing black music under the
name of Blues and Rhythm, in that year Louis Jordan, a pioneering
American jazz, blues, and rhythm & blues musician, dominated the
top five listings of the R&B charts. Jordan’s band called the Tympany
Five which Lawrence Cohn described the music as "grittier than his
boogie-era jazz-tinged blues".Robert Palmer described it as "urbane,
rocking, jazz based music with a heavy, insistent beat". Greek
American Johnny Otis, started working with African American
musicians who had signed with Newark based Savoy records and
produced many R&B hits in 1951, including: "Double Crossing Blues",
"Mistrustin' Blues" and "Cupid's Boogie", all of which hit number one
that year.The Clovers, a vocal trio who sang a distinctive sounding
combination of blues and gospel, had the #5 hit of the year with "Don't
You Know I Love You" on Atlantic Records. In 1956, an R&B "Top
Stars of '56" tour took place, with headliners Al Hibbler, Frankie
Lymon and the Teenagers, and Carl Perkins, whose " Blue Suede
Shoes" was very popular with R&B music buyers. Cities visited by the
tour included Columbia, SC, Annapolis, MD, Pittsburgh, PA, Syracuse,
Rochester and Buffalo, NY, into Canada, and through the mid
Western US ending in Texas. In Columbia the concert ended with a
near riot as Perkins began his first song as the closing act. Perkins is
quoted as saying, "It was dangerous. Lot of kids got hurt. There was a
lot of rioting going on, just crazy, man! The music drove 'em insane."
In Annapolis 70,000 to 50,000 people tried to attend a sold out
performance with 8,000 seats.
The Supremes, an American female singing group, were one of the signature
acts on Motown Records during the 1960s. Originally founded as The Primettes
in Detroit, Michigan in 1959, The Supremes' repertoire included doo-wop, pop,
soul, Broadway show tunes and disco. They were the most commercially
successful of Motown's acts, with twelve of the group's singles peaking at number
one on the Billboard Hot 100. Most of these hits were written and produced by
Motown's main songwriting and production team, Holland-Dozier-Holland. At
their peak in the mid-1960s, The Supremes rivaled The Beatless in worldwide
popularity, and their success made it possible for future African-American R&B
and soul musicians to find mainstream success.
Founding members Florence Ballard, Mary Wilson, Diana Ross and Betty
McGlown, all from the Brewster-Douglass public housing project in Detroit,
formed The Primettes as the sister act to The Primes (with Paul Williams and
Eddie Kendricks, who would go on to form The Temptations). Barbara Martin
replaced McGlown in 1960, and the group signed with Motown the following year
as The Supremes. Martin left the act in early 1962, and Ross, Ballard and Wilson
carried on as a trio.
R&B
music
journalist
“Everything is immaculate about the R&B fan, the girls are just
the sexiest girls on the planet they would say. The hair, the nails,
their sleek you would see high heels whether or not its
comfortable enough to dance in them, you’ll see tight dresses. The
men are smooth you’ll see big chests and white vest on boys,
you’ll see pencil thin moustaches, for women it’s almost having
an unobtainable sassy attitude, it’s having an heir of ‘you can
look but don’t you even think of touching’ and for men it’s about
being smooth and slick and its about being very manly. I think
everyone at some point irrespective of how you look has listened
to R&B and soul music, you don’t have to be a typical R&B fan to
understand and relate to it, it’s about someone else singing a
song and it has you as it’s subject, not someone else” The Expert
at BBC Music Directory
The demographic of an R&B fan is usually from teens to early
middle ages, they are usually from a African origin , from a
working class background and mostly live in America but R&B is
a genre well known around the world.
Contempaory Gospel
Luther Barnes, Helen Baylor, James
Bignon, Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir
Contemporary R& B
Gene Rice, Roachford, Evon Geffries
& Stand, Marc Nelson
Luther
Barnes
Gene Rice
Funk
B.T. Express, Bohannon, Brass
Construction, The Fantastic
Four
Denis Edwards
Motown
Chris Clark, Dennis Edwards,
The Elgins, The Four Tops
BT Express
New Orleans R&B/Blues
Snooks Eaglin, Paul
Gayten, Guitar Slim,
Guitar Slim, Jr.
Snooks Eaglin
Pop Soul/Quiet Storm
The Average White Band,
California Raisins, Heatwave,
Jennifer Holliday
The Average
White Band
R&B
Roy Brown, Wynonie Harris,
Big Joe Turner, Chick Willis
Master Henry Gibson
Roy Brown
Soul
Master Henry Gibson, Little
Johnny Taylor, Calvin Bridges
Traditional Gospel
Abyssinian Baptist Gospel Choir,
Rance Allen, Margaret Allison,
Amazing Zion Travelers
Abyssinian Baptist
Gospel Choir
R&B has a mainstream appeal. Rhythm and Blues in 1948
was a term used in the United States, used to replace the term
“race music”, which originally came from within the black
community but was deemed offensive. Robert Palmer defined
rhythm & blues as "a catchall term referring to any music that
was made by and for black Americans“. Lawrence Cohn,
author of Nothing but the Blues, writes that rhythm and blues
was an umbrella term invented for industry convenience.
According to him, the term embraced all black music except
classical music and religious music, unless a gospel song sold
enough to break into the charts.
Background Records is a famous American
Record Label owned by artist manager Barry
Hankerson and his son Jomo. The label is home
to Alliyah, Jojo, Timbaland & Magoo, Tank ,
Kali Girls, Jak and HardNox.
Jive Records was formed by Clive Calder
in 1977 in London but was launched in
the United States. The word “Jive was
inspired by Township Jive, a form of
South African music and dance.
Atlantic records is best known for it’s many
recording of R&B. It is one of the most
important American independent labels
The label was founded in 1947 by Ahmet
Ertegün and Herb Abramson. Upon its
creation, Atlantic was principally a jazz and
Blues and Soul Magazine , is a
magazine that covers R&B, hiphop, house, garage and jazz.
Vibe was launched in 1993 by Quincy
Jones and funded by Tim e Inc. It
features R&B and Hip-hop artists,
actors and other entertainers. The
magazines target audience is young
Rap-Up is a magazine found by Devin
Lazerin and was launched in 2001. It
was originally a website devoted to Hiphop but then Lazerine decided to pitch
the possiblity of a magazine to
publishers. The magazine focuses on
Hip-hop and R&B
Blues and Soul comes out every fortnight, it
covers all the latest UK and US urban music
information including news, charts, reviews,
events and clubs, interviews and editorials on
influential artists in the past and present
Vibe comes out every month it is based on
urban culture, influencing global music,
life and style for more then 8 million
readers around the world. It includes
fashion, politics and culture features for a
multicultural audience.
Rap-Up comes out 4 times a
year, it features some of R&B’s
biggest stars 50 Cent, Beyoncé,
T.I., Ciara, Rihanna, Eve, Nelly,
Pharrell, Mary J. Blige, The
Game, and Nicole Scherzinger
MTV base is a digital television channel
which began in the United Kingdom, it plays
all genre of music appealing to the youth
audience rap, hip-hop, R&B, Rock,
Alternative, Afrobeat, Kwaito, Reggae and
many other genres from the African
continent, USA and other urban hotspots.
Kiss 100 is a radio station that
specializes in Hip-hop, R&B , urban
and dance music. It began as a
pirate station in October 1985, it
attracted a huge following before
getting its licence in 1990. It was
said to have 500,000 listeners as a
pirate radio station
For years and years critics of R&B have been predicting the
death of R&B, saying that the form of music is slowly fading.
In the last year an R&B singer Kev Samples released a
mixtape called ‘The Death of R&B’ where he dissed R&B
singers Neyo, Jamie Foxx, T-pain and Ray J. But despite these
predictions R&B is still loved by many audiences. For the
many artists that are criticised for being ‘weak R&B singers’
there is also an inoovative and creative one, and these artists
will survive long after the weak ones. Artists such as Jennifer
Hudson and J.Holiday are defining the future of R&B.
Jennifer
Hudson
J.Holiday