
īefore the "Rhythm and Blues" name was instated, various record companies had already begun replacing the term "race music" with the term "sepia series". The term "rhythm and blues" was then used by Billboard in its chart listings from June 1949 until August 1969, when its "Hot Rhythm & Blues Singles" chart was renamed as "Best Selling Soul Singles". However, the company's first list of songs popular among African Americans was named Harlem Hit Parade created in 1942, it listed the "most popular records in Harlem" and this replaced the common term " race music", which originally came from within the black community, but was deemed offensive in the postwar world. It combines rhythm and blues with elements of pop, soul, funk, disco, hip hop, and electronic music.Įtymology, definitions and description Īlthough Jerry Wexler of Billboard magazine is credited with coining the term "rhythm and blues" as a musical term in the United States in 1948, the term had been used in Billboard as early as 1943. In the late 1980s, a newer style of R&B developed, becoming known as " contemporary R&B". By the 1970s, the term "rhythm and blues" had changed again and was used as a blanket term for soul and funk. It referred to music styles that developed from and incorporated electric blues, as well as gospel and soul music.įrom 1960s to 70s, several British bands and groups such as the Rolling Stones, the Who and the Animals were referred to and promoted as being R&B bands. Starting in the mid-1950s, after this style of music had contributed to the development of rock and roll, the term "R&B" became used in a wider context.

In the early 1950s, it was frequently applied to blues records. The term "rhythm and blues" has undergone a number of shifts in meaning. 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. In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, the bands usually consisted of a piano, one or two guitars, bass, drums, one or more saxophones, and sometimes background vocalists. heavy, insistent beat" was becoming more popular. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to African Americans, at a time when "rocking, jazz based music .


Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated in African-American communities in the 1940s.
