Rhythm And Blues History

The intended audience for the early rock and roll of the 1950's and 1960's were that of a teenage audience while blues, jazz and country were aimed toward the more adult crowds. With the maturation of an unprecedentedly immense and prosperous teenage audience, rock and roll music developed the sound of young America and soon spread about the world. Folklorists like to sentimentalize blues music as being an unadulterated expression of culture, but documented blues music was carefully promoted to its intended audience from its very beginning. As early as the 1920s, music intended at African-Americans was labeled as “race music”, and the best way to publicize it was in the pages of African-American newspapers. These newspapers had a wide transmission

The birth of R&B was created by African American in the early 1960’s from Soul music, Jazz, Gospel, Pop music and Blues as time went on R&B was born. In its earlier days, R&B Music was all about racial issues, and artists gave a lot of importance to the style and arrangement, which included different instruments and rhythms to produce different types of sounds. The result was live music that had catchy lyrics and was widely used in dance

Rock ‘n’ roll has played a major role in some known historical developments post World War 2. Music plays a significant part in America 's Cold War culture. Music gave us a sense of new technologies and helped the world to prosper. It also is linked with African Americans living in the South. Music was known for shaping the lives of the people during the 1950s and 1960s. Music was geared towards the youth, race, ethnicity, gender and class. “All Shook Up: How Rock ‘n’ Roll Changed America” by Altschuler, Glenn C, tells us the story of the birth of rock and roll during the concrete years of 1955 to 1965. Altschuler gives us a overview of how rock ‘n’ roll has an historical context. “ For two years the Times printed dozens of

In 1951, Alan Freed, a European American disc jockey for a Cleveland radio station, first coined the term rock’n roll. Fifty years later, if you were to poll the general public on which race would dominate that genre of music, the response would be overwhelmingly whites. But rock’n roll is not a white mans music. African American’s were and still are an essential cornerstone of the genre known as rock’n roll. But rock’n roll simply would not exist if it weren't for African Americans. Their presence is felt in almost every genre of music known to the United States. Early twentieth century black musicians helped shape, influence and create my favorite genre of music today.

Black talents were often paid considerably less, barred from cafes, and often could not sleep or eat in the hotel in which they were performing. Teddy Wilson was only allowed to record with Benny Goodman but he was black and Benny thought playing in public with him could hurt his career. The narrator stated “the music might be colorblind but the country is not.” However, he eventually allowed him to step into the limelight and Benny described that show as one of the bests. Even though racism was heavy swing music still gave the minorities a place to go where they were judged based off the music they played and not their skin color. For example, Chick Webb was a black hunchback but he played his music with so much energy and talent that no one

R&B is derived from numerous influences, including Jazz, Blues, and Boogie-Woogie rhythms. This happened during the Post-war period, 1945-1973, better known as the long boom. R&B can’t really be a difference between any other genre except the Blues, they’re different because R&B is more instrumental than Blues, Blues is more vocal music. But when you

Rising into the mainstream in the early 1960’s, Motown music gained popularity as it produced a wave of African-American musicians who successfully integrated their music, creating a newly unified musical culture between White and Black Americans. Simultaneously Motown provided musical backing for an extensive battle of cultural change in the USA; the American Civil Rights Movement. Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown Records produced music with the aim to sell to anyone despite their age or colour. The revolutionary processes and features of the ‘Motown Machine’ produced socially conscious, straightforward and all-rounded music and artists. This has been one prominent influence that Motown has provided to the production of contemporary music

segregated music during the '50's and helped blacks win civil rights in general due to the

Between 1914 and 1924, New Orleans exported musicians in the United States, while Chicago synthesized jazz styles & this time New York established the national structure of the black entertainment world of the future in the country. Still, the bulk of the black audience and much of the black musical community were not in these three major centers before 1923. We must look to the territories to complete the picture of black musical life of this period to fully understand the developments in the rest of the 1920s and

Different types of R&B music originated from many U.S. cities. Rhythm and blues was the most popular music created by and for African Americans between the end of world war two and the 1960s. Because of the enormous job growth that took place during world war two, a younger black audience rapidly moved from rural areas to urban communities. R&B tended to emphasize blues style vocals and song structure. Rhythm and blues are sometimes deemed to be offensive because of its sometimes vulgar language and content. R&B music, sometimes not considered to be kid friendly because the lyrics can be sexual and explicit. Some R&B artists are R. Kelly, Usher, Beyoncé and Mary J. Blige. R&B is a type of music that stands for different trials in someone’s life, in which they are going

Rhythm & Blues evolved in the forties from the original genre, blues. Rhythm & Blues was disparate from blues in the sense it focused less on improvisation and more passionately on the song and lyrics, it too included back beats in which blues alone, did not. In the 50’s the genre gained popularity through artists such as Ruth Brown and Ray Charles. Though it was widely popular across the United States, like present day rap, it was different according to the region the artist was coming from. In New York and Philadelphia and Chicago, Rhythm & Blues had smooth production and vocal interplay. In Detroit and Motown, Rhythm and Blues was greatly influenced by Gospel Music and acclimatized a pop music sound. In the southern region, Rhythm & Blues involved loud horns, passion, soul, and syncopated rhythm. By the sixties and seventies era, Rhythm & Blues started to disappear off of the map as Funk music swept through america gaining interest of previous Rhythm & Blues fans. Surely enough, Rhythm & Blues made it’s come back in the 80’s and 90’s reinvented now including more Hip-Hop inspired, urban, stylistic

Their sounds were reaching white teens across America thanks to these disc jockeys and the increased availability radios.

R&B’s full name is Rhythm and Blues; it came from Jazz and Blues, and it is a genre of popular African-American music. It developed from and incorporated electric blues, as well as gospel and soul music. In the 1970s, the term R&B changed again and used for soul and funk. In the 1980s, a new style of R&B developed, was “Contemporary R&B”. In the 1950s through the 1970s, the R&B bands usually consisted of piano, guitar, bass, drums, saxophones. Then, many kinds of music were developed from R&B.

WEAA a non-profit, National Public Radio (NPR) affiliated station that served the Baltimore market, opened in August 1977. The station known for playing jazz grew in popularity over the years even winning the acclaimed title of Jazz Station of the Year in 1999 by Gavin Magazine. In 2000, 2002, and 2005 the Citypaper newspaper even named WEAA the best radio station in Baltimore. Despite the popularity of the station, executive management realized the organization was not living up to its full potential due to a lack of a robust organizational infrastructure in addition to a negative culture. Determined to have the radio station raise its market potential, they hired Fiske in August of 2006 to act as a change agent.

Due to disco, it seemed like the significance of race and racial tensions declined. “The “color-blind” music gave the impression of a color-blind society…” (Vincent.205) That was false, as black artists, black radios and the black community suffered overall. Disco was in no ways in the control of blacks once major labels took control. “…stiff criteria for white performers to succeed in black music, but disco changed that.” (Vincent.209) Black artists continued to lose their standing in the music industry. Funk was what was supposed to come from black music and show the values of black community, but the result was disco, which would signify the death of R&B. “The resulting corporate domination over the recruitment of acts, production of the music, promotion, distribution, and ultimately radio airplay and the radio format all served to validate the premise that black music was “taken over” by the corporations.” (Vincent.211) As a result, black radio essentially became