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Origins
Origins of R&B
Rhythm and blues (also known as R&B, R'n'B or RnB) is the name given to a wide-ranging genre of popular music created by African Americans in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The term was originally used by record companies to refer to 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.
Transitions
Transitions
The term has subsequently had a number of shifts in meaning. In the early 1950s and beyond, the term "rhythm and blues" was frequently applied to blues records, for instance, John Lee Hooker's "I'm in the Mood" became number-one on Billboard R&B Music Charts. Starting in the 1960s, after this style of music contributed to the development of "rock and roll", the term "R&B" became used - particularly by white groups — to refer to music styles that developed from and incorporated electric blues, as well as gospel and soul music. By the 1970s, "rhythm and blues" was used as a blanket term for soul and funk. The modern evolution of R&B is named "Contemporary R&B".
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