Rhythm and Blues History and Music Downloads.

Rhythm and blues music has a story filled with the sounds of American musical history. More commonly known as simply R&B, it might surprise many people from newer generations of music to learn that true rhythm and blues began somewhere around the 1940s, and was essentially the very base beginning of rock and roll.

R&B was a form of music created in the heart of black America, and stemmed from the new found popularity of jazz, blues, ragtime, and the like. It was blues with a harder sound, a more pronounced beat, the sound that pushed the limits of society and made people want to dance.

It broke the dividing barriers of race and social classes and spawned one of the most prominent sounds in American music. It took what jazz had done to expand the music market and the soul of the era, and broke it through to the other side.

Originally, rhythm and blues was called "race music", a term started in the black communities to refer to this new beat. It was later dubbed "rhythm and blues" in 1949 for Billboard charts, as the term "race music" was now being seen as offensive, and R&B music was being seen all over the charts.

Primarily a post-war African American musical form, it didn't stay exclusive to the black community for long. During the height of R&B music, when it was popular in the studio and on the radio waves, you would most typically see a piano, a saxophone, drums, bass, and guitars.

It was played in a relaxed kind of tone, often using repetitive lyrics and chords. The actual music lines of the songs were fairly simplistic, with a distinctive beat. Music was rehearsed to the point of complete memorization and perfection before recordings.

From the peak of rhythm and blues in America, we get such famous musicians as Fats Domino, Little Richard, Ruth Brown, Chuck Berry, Ray Charles, Otis Redding, and John Lee Hooker. It is widely thought that Elvis Presley's obvious use of the R&B sounds helped to make this style of music popular with white teenagers. Once it became popular without regard to race or social class, R&B became a musical force that could not be stopped or reckoned with- no matter how much the socialite parents wanted to make it go away.

Rhythm and Blues was spurned much like jazz had been before it, but eventually the power of the music overcame all adversity and found its way into American music history. We can thank the hard work of these earliest R&B musicians for even the music we have today, from contemporary R&B to rock and roll, it all started right here in history.

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