For those who are into the history of rhythm and blues, some have come to the conclusion that R&B originated in the mid-1940s right after Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five became popular (though they're referred more as a swing/big band act) during the so-called jump blues era. Same with folks like Big Joe Turner and Roy Brown. But it seems some folks when discussing "real R&B" always go straight to the '60s onwards or some may even think "real R&B" occurred during parts of their own childhood (1970s, 1980s, etc.)

So my question is to y'all, when did y'all think R&B started?

I think it started with songs like "Ch-Choo Boogie" and "The Honeydripper". What about y'all?

And also do you believe rock and roll was another name for rhythm and blues? (I do but of course it'll be great to have you guys' opinion on it).

Let's see where this goes, shall we?

WARNING: This is not about when it "ended". Just when you think it started so stay on topic, please?

I think R&B and R&R started with "Rocket 88".

I think it started with "race music", which came about around the 1910's/1920's.

This should be good.

I think it's hard to decipher because none of us was around during that time. We only have a limited number of archives to go off of.

I find it amazing how music evolves over time.

CANUHELPME said:

I think R&B and R&R started with "Rocket 88".

For "essential DNA" of what we came to know & call "R&B", I'd say this answer is pretty close.

And yeah, Tim....I have long thought of the genesis period of both genres (R&R and R&B) had a lot of elements in common. Hard to cleanly separate the 2 musicaly. I dunno if I'd go so far to say that the names are interchangeable though. ("Rocket 88" & similar excepted, as they could easilly be cited as EITHER genre).

JamFanHot said:

CANUHELPME said:

I think R&B and R&R started with "Rocket 88".

For "essential DNA" of what we came to know & call "R&B", I'd say this answer is pretty close.

And yeah, Tim....I have long thought of the genesis period of both genres (R&R and R&B) had a lot of elements in common. Hard to cleanly separate the 2 musicaly. I dunno if I'd go so far to say that the names are interchangeable though. ("Rocket 88" & similar excepted, as they could easilly be cited as EITHER genre).

Good point... they have always said rock and roll was just another name for R&B. Matter of fact the music closely associated as rock and roll to the mainstream was actually its own genre too (rockabilly; which mixed rock and roll/R&B with country). But even before Rocket 88, you can say people like Wynonie Harris, Joe Turner, Roy Brown and 'em were actually the first "rock and rollers".

LittleBLUECorvette said:

While it was created sometime in the 20s, i'd say it became a full fledged genre sometime in 1959 or 1960. Before then, like someone said, you couldn't really seperate it from early rock n roll and doo wop.

Yea I agree and to add I would suggest it was a popular black genre in the 1920s with the Harlem Renaissance and it became crossover probably around the time eras you mentioned

Hmm... well when the music was popular at that time, they only called it blues music. It was called that primarily because the music didn't have much of a backbeat and if it did, they called it jazz. Then later it was swing.

I am agreeing totally with everyone's answer..i will say that I've heard through the years that the R&B divison from Rock and Roll came when white dj's and record promoters started separating the artists...just think about it, people like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Ruth Brown, Lavern Baker, The Coasters, and eetc. would tour with people like Pat Boone, Dion, Jerry Lewis and etc...i dont think the generation now will tour like that...can't see Keyshia Cole touring with Justin Bieber..lol...but R&B for me goes back to the Golden Age of Gospel Music...for me, that's when it started....

fred12 said:

I am agreeing totally with everyone's answer..i will say that I've heard through the years that the R&B divison from Rock and Roll came when white dj's and record promoters started separating the artists...just think about it, people like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Ruth Brown, Lavern Baker, The Coasters, and eetc. would tour with people like Pat Boone, Dion, Jerry Lewis and etc...i dont think the generation now will tour like that...can't see Keyshia Cole touring with Justin Bieber..lol...but R&B for me goes back to the Golden Age of Gospel Music...for me, that's when it started....

The "real" R&B to me is a mixture of gospel, blues and jazz (swing). That was the music that was popular between 1949 and 1954 at least. Then the subgenres started to take over (doo-wop, rock and roll, soul, etc.) But they're all R&B's children. Gospel is its grandfather though, I agree...

Fury said:

There was no R&B before bobby brown

Serious discussion, Fury, serious.

mjscarousal said:

LittleBLUECorvette said:

While it was created sometime in the 20s, i'd say it became a full fledged genre sometime in 1959 or 1960. Before then, like someone said, you couldn't really seperate it from early rock n roll and doo wop.

Yea I agree and to add I would suggest it was a popular black genre in the 1920s with the Harlem Renaissance and it became crossover probably around the time eras you mentioned

Maybe a few years before than. Whenever the first year we can name at least 10 R&B Artist without thinking real hard.

I feel R&B started in the 20's... and of course as it stands for rhythum & blues etc.

I Feel some of the orgins started with blues artist like Robert Johnson. And jazz artist like Billie Holiday.

And eventually it became Rock N Roll.... but i feel there has been so many styles of R&B to just simply call it R&B

50s had the jazzy & doo-wop R&B

60s was the rock & Soul R&B

70s was rock & soul R&B to the next level with funk mixed

80s was pop & funk R&B

90s was ''New jack swing'' meets R&B

2000s had more of an electronic R&B or

Or that's how i would call the R&B over the years:shrug:

Gunsnhalen said:

I feel R&B started in the 20's... and of course as it stands for rhythum & blues etc.

I Feel some of the orgins started with blues artist like Robert Johnson. And jazz artist like Billie Holiday.

And eventually it became Rock N Roll.... but i feel there has been so many styles of R&B to just simply call it R&B

50s had the jazzy & doo-wop R&B

60s was the rock & Soul R&B

70s was rock & soul R&B to the next level with funk mixed

80s was pop & funk R&B

90s was ''New jack swing'' meets R&B

2000s had more of an electronic R&B or

Or that's how i would call the R&B over the years:shrug:

Hmm, Robert Johnson, I always thought was a folk singer. Billie did some blues-esque stuff but she was always a jazz singer to me. She carried more of a jazz vibe with a blues influence (especially with the songs she did). If R&B supposedly started in the '20s, give credit to Ma Rainey, Mamie Smith, Bessie Smith, Thomas A. Dorsey (before he became the father of gospel) for that then, or at least the precursors to R&B. I notice some folks usually would talk about the origins being in the '30s and then jump into the mid-1950s and it's like "wait you're missing a big chunk between 1940 and 1954!" On Morgan Wright's HoyHoy site, he'd about said the same thing about the late 1940s and early 1950s R&B, that it was so different from what was perceived to be R&B that it needed a new name (hence rock and roll).

Terrib3Towel said:

This should be good.

I think it's hard to decipher because none of us was around during that time. We only have a limited number of archives to go off of.

I find it amazing how music evolves over time.

I view when R&B started like I view when the beginning of the world started because, like you said, none of us were around during that time so it really doesn't matter. What does matter though, is to make sure that neither ends. Oh well, one of them died so I guess we can only focus on keeping the world going now.

.

.

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[Edited 12/5/12 22:32pm]

Timmy84 said:

Gunsnhalen said:

I feel R&B started in the 20's... and of course as it stands for rhythum & blues etc.

I Feel some of the orgins started with blues artist like Robert Johnson. And jazz artist like Billie Holiday.

And eventually it became Rock N Roll.... but i feel there has been so many styles of R&B to just simply call it R&B

50s had the jazzy & doo-wop R&B

60s was the rock & Soul R&B

70s was rock & soul R&B to the next level with funk mixed

80s was pop & funk R&B

90s was ''New jack swing'' meets R&B

2000s had more of an electronic R&B or

Or that's how i would call the R&B over the years:shrug:

Hmm, Robert Johnson, I always thought was a folk singer. Billie did some blues-esque stuff but she was always a jazz singer to me. She carried more of a jazz vibe with a blues influence (especially with the songs she did). If R&B supposedly started in the '20s, give credit to Ma Rainey, Mamie Smith, Bessie Smith, Thomas A. Dorsey (before he became the father of gospel) for that then, or at least the precursors to R&B. I notice some folks usually would talk about the origins being in the '30s and then jump into the mid-1950s and it's like "wait you're missing a big chunk between 1940 and 1954!" On Morgan Wright's HoyHoy site, he'd about said the same thing about the late 1940s and early 1950s R&B, that it was so different from what was perceived to be R&B that it needed a new name (hence rock and roll).

oops i did miss the 40s my fault

i would agree int hat late 40s going th the 50s was the start of RNR with the R&B format.

But think of how different R&B gets throughout the years...

May i ask, would you REALLY consedir much of say 90s & 00s R&B to really fit the format?

Few R&B artists from the 90s & 00s really had the rhythum & blues thing going , i seriously think of New Jack Swing as a thing on it's own & than eventually just ''hiding'' as R&B.

Cause most R&B of the 90s seemed to fit new jack the whole decade...

And current R&B is just pop... lets not pretend

Gunsnhalen said:

Timmy84 said:

Hmm, Robert Johnson, I always thought was a folk singer. Billie did some blues-esque stuff but she was always a jazz singer to me. She carried more of a jazz vibe with a blues influence (especially with the songs she did). If R&B supposedly started in the '20s, give credit to Ma Rainey, Mamie Smith, Bessie Smith, Thomas A. Dorsey (before he became the father of gospel) for that then, or at least the precursors to R&B. I notice some folks usually would talk about the origins being in the '30s and then jump into the mid-1950s and it's like "wait you're missing a big chunk between 1940 and 1954!" On Morgan Wright's HoyHoy site, he'd about said the same thing about the late 1940s and early 1950s R&B, that it was so different from what was perceived to be R&B that it needed a new name (hence rock and roll).

oops i did miss the 40s my fault

i would agree int hat late 40s going th the 50s was the start of RNR with the R&B format.

But think of how different R&B gets throughout the years...

May i ask, would you REALLY consedir much of say 90s & 00s R&B to really fit the format?

Few R&B artists from the 90s & 00s really had the rhythum & blues thing going , i seriously think of New Jack Swing as a thing on it's own & than eventually just ''hiding'' as R&B.

Cause most R&B of the 90s seemed to fit new jack the whole decade...

And current R&B is just pop... lets not pretend

lol why did I know you was gonna jump into the "current"? Well nowadays contemporary R&B is a blanket term for pop music sung by black folks. So technically I wouldn't call it "R&B".

Keep it in the origins people.

Timmy you know this thread is a trap....

mjscarousal said:

LittleBLUECorvette said:

While it was created sometime in the 20s, i'd say it became a full fledged genre sometime in 1959 or 1960. Before then, like someone said, you couldn't really seperate it from early rock n roll and doo wop.

Yea I agree and to add I would suggest it was a popular black genre in the 1920s with the Harlem Renaissance and it became crossover probably around the time eras you mentioned

That's around the time I'm thinking so too. When it became less and less of an old man sitting on a porch humming and singing belly aching type songs and became more of a finger popping, ass shaking, ass twisting, jump up and holler and shout and party type of music.

as far as orgins which i'm sure many already know but...

The meaning behind the name is this: the "rhythm" part comes from the music's typical dependance upon four-beat measures or bars and employ a backbeat (beats two and four accented in each measure). And the "blues" portion came from the lyrics and melodies of the songs, which were often sad, or 'blue' during the music's emergence in the World War II era. Over time the name was shortened to R&B as a matter of convenience.

So from what i get is... it started within jazz & blues. But as Timmy was saying maybe more fromt he jazz side.. consedering a lot of those artists where seein as more jazz than blues.

And by the 40's it had originated into R&B?

I do get a little confused as to when the exact change happened...

I only have articles & interviews to go off of

I'd say mid-late 40s is the basis for both early RnB and rock, as we know it. Def post WW 2 for my money. Personally I associate these genres w/ the emergence of the electric guitar. While it's true that both jazz and country were early adopters of this instrument, I associate it most strongly w/ (early) RnB and rock. (Later RnB became much more bass heavy in the 60s- beyond, so I'm talking a diff animal here ...much of what was considered RnB 50+ years ago might sound like full on blues or rock to modern ears.)

Much of what came before was what Muddy Waters referred to as "country blues" which is the basis for RnB IMHO....which was just electrified, faster paced, and w/ a more urban feel.

One of the great ironies is that the Stones are one of the last trad RnB groups still rockin'.

Gunsnhalen said:

as far as orgins which i'm sure many already know but...

The meaning behind the name is this: the "rhythm" part comes from the music's typical dependance upon four-beat measures or bars and employ a backbeat (beats two and four accented in each measure). And the "blues" portion came from the lyrics and melodies of the songs, which were often sad, or 'blue' during the music's emergence in the World War II era. Over time the name was shortened to R&B as a matter of convenience.

So from what i get is... it started within jazz & blues. But as Timmy was saying maybe more fromt he jazz side.. consedering a lot of those artists where seein as more jazz than blues.

And by the 40's it had originated into R&B?

I do get a little confused as to when the exact change happened...

I only have articles & interviews to go off of

Most of the early blues music from the 1920s to at least the early 1940s had NO backbeat to it. Some of it didn't even have drums.

In order for it to be rhythm, it needed drums and catchy drum beats. And at the time especially during the Harlem Renaissance, that unfortunately did not happen. If it did, it wasn't blues, it was jazz and most of the dancers performed to jazz than the blues.

During the World War II era, folks like Louis Jordan, Joe Liggins and Joe Turner performed more upbeat stuff that wasn't easily identified as "blues music" or "jazz".

Louis Jordan started off as a big band/swing performer but by the post-WWII era when he came up with "Caldonia" and "Ch-Choo Boogie", that's when the genre "jump blues" came from so he became the king of that.

Joe Liggins, Joe Turner and the likes jumped on that genre like wildfire. Joe Turner predated jump blues with "Roll 'Em Pete" years before but it had no drums, just a piano (played by Pete Johnson) and vocals by Turner.

It wasn't long until people like Roy Brown and Wynonie Harris came on and added a stronger urge of gospel to their jump blues that made it again hard to categorize because this music had a harder, edgier, almost controversial sound because you didn't mix gospel with blues in those days.

By 1949, this became known as "rocking music" and it was around that year that Jerry Wexler himself coined this music "rhythm and blues (R&B)". And that same year, they gave it another name, "rocking music". By the early 1950s, "rocking music" changed to "rock and roll". This was around the time people like Ike Turner (1951), Ray Charles (1951; two years earlier he had made the charts as lead singer of the Maxin Trio), Little Richard (he debuted in 1951 at 18) and groups like The Orioles and Billy Ward and His Dominoes came on the scene and added to the new sound (rock and roll). Ruth Brown became early R&B's first queen. LaVern Baker was right behind her.

Urban blues, different from R&B, emerged around this time with Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, B.B. King and Little Walter but I never really called what they did as R&B. I always saw them as blues artists. They were actually far from R&B because they left the gospel sitting in the shelf before Sunday mornings. Big Mama Thornton was also an urban blues artist.

By 1953, doo-wop emerged (after earlier progenitors like the Orioles, the Ink Spots and 'em) with the Moonglows, Penguins, Crows, etc., etc. and that became the new "R&B sound" so to speak and it soon became linked to rock and roll as well because doo-wop catered to younger audiences than those who were listening to the earlier R&B of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Louis Jordan, by then, had left jump blues to record "Saturday Night Fish Fry", one of the first rock and roll/R&B major hits and continued performing under the R&B genre until he fell out of favor with audiences in the mid-1950s.

Then in 1954, you can say that what became known as rock and roll (to historians) happened with people like the Drifters ("Money Honey"), Ray Charles ("I Got a Woman") and The Midnighters ("Work With Me, Annie") though it was just as essential to R&B.

What's funny is that Little Richard himself didn't become a hit maker in R&B or rock until 1956, in which by then, older R&B artists like Wynonie, Roy, etc., fell out of favor. Fats Domino, one of the few early R&B stars, became a rock and roll star during that period.

You can say that if you wanna find the real origins, go to Big Joe Turner and Louis Jordan as the godfathers of R&B though R&B itself didn't become a full fledged genre until around 1949.

brooksie said:

I'd say mid-late 40s is the basis for both early RnB and rock, as we know it. Def post WW 2 for my money. Personally I associate these genres w/ the emergence of the electric guitar. While it's true that both jazz and country were early adopters of this instrument, I associate it most strongly w/ (early) RnB and rock. (Later RnB became much more bass heavy in the 60s- beyond, so I'm talking a diff animal here ...much of what was considered RnB 50+ years ago might sound like full on blues or rock to modern ears.)

Much of what came before was what Muddy Waters referred to as "country blues" which is the basis for RnB IMHO....which was just electrified, faster paced, and w/ a more urban feel.

One of the great ironies is that the Stones are one of the last trad RnB groups still rockin'.

Muddy Waters wasn't really R&B lol he was straight up blues, just urban with a country flavor (like most of the urban blues artists were). I guess urban blues was a response to the younger R&B sound but Muddy Waters would've probably shook his head if you referred to him as R&B. R&B had a LOT of saxophones and pianos in it when it started. But I guess one of the early R&B/rock hits that had a guitar leading was Stick McGhee's "Drinkin' Wine".

Does R & B even exist? Isn't it just a term used to describe "black" music?

MickyDolenz said:

I think it started with "race music", which came about around the 1910's/1920's.

I agree....

rialb said:

Does R & B even exist? Isn't it just a term used to describe "black" music?

Nowadays, its just stands for generic, formulaic crap which has little to do with Rythym and Blues. It's just been jacked.

The 'rhythm' part is as old as gods teeth, the 'blues' part not so much. But yeah Robert 'Crossroads' Johnson and all that.

[Edited 12/6/12 5:18am]

rialb said:

Does R & B even exist? Isn't it just a term used to describe "black" music?

It is a term used to describe music being done by black artists and no it does not exist.