out from the isolated individual experience and restructured as problems shared by the community. As shared problems, threats can be met and addressed within a public and collective context” (1998: 33).4
RHYTHM AND BLUES
The designation rhythm and blues (R&B) replaced Harlem Hit Parade (1942–45) and race records (1945–49) in the Billboard charts beginning June 25, 1949, continuing the tradition of categorizing music made by African Americans aimed at an African American audience.5 But now it no longer covered gospel and other religious music and sermons. Independent record labels flourished in the decade after World War II to cater to local tastes, with many of them specializing in R&B (see figure 14). They had a close relationship with the new independent radio stations exploding in local markets. Several tributaries were covered under the umbrella category R&B.
As the large swing bands, which provided the dance music of the 1930s, became impractical to support in the 1940s because of war rationing, a new style of dance music developed called jump blues, played by a smaller jazz ensemble, with a piano (and sometimes guitar), bass, and drums rhythm section, and a few horns (trumpet and saxophone). The most successful artist in this genre was Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five, who crossed over to the pop charts frequently between 1944 and 1949, hitting #1 there with “G. I. Jive” in 1944.6 Figure 15 shows how Jordan’s 1946 recording of “Choo Choo Ch-Boogie” integrates a twelve-bar blues form into a verse-chorus structure. Vocalists in this style who were particularly forceful, often with more sexually oriented lyrics, were called shouters, exemplified by Big Joe Turner (“Roll ’em Pete,” 1938; “Shake, Rattle and Roll,” 1954) and Wynonie Harris (“Good Rockin’ Tonight,” 1948), both of whom were covered in the early rock and roll era by white artists Bill Haley and Elvis Presley.
Many songs in the jump blues style were based on a boogie woogie rhythm, typically played by the bass player or left hand of a pianist (at the bass end). Boogie woogie was first popularized by virtuoso solo pianists in the late 1920s and 1930s, including Meade Lux Lewis (“Honky Tonk Train Blues,” 1927), Pinetop Smith (“Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie,” 1928), and Albert Ammons (“Boogie Woogie Stomp,” 1936).7
A major blues scene developed in Chicago, where first-generation migrants from the South modernized their southern roots with the electric guitar, bass, and drum set. Chess Records, located in the black South Side of Chicago, was the primary label, featuring songwriter and bassist Willie Dixon and guitarist and vocalist Muddy Waters, who often teamed up (e.g., “Hoochie Coochie Man,” 1954). Other major artists include B. B. King (based in Memphis), John Lee Hooker (based in Detroit), and Howlin’ Wolf and Little Walter (both in Chicago). This strand of R&B, called Chicago blues or urban electric blues, thrived from the late 1940s through the mid-1950s (see figure 16). It was enormously influential on rock in the 1960s in both its vocal styles and electric guitar styles, which established the model for both singing and guitar soloing.
A smoother and more restrained R&B style was pioneered by pianist and vocalist Nat King Cole (1919–65), who was one of the earliest artists to cross over onto the pop charts; vocalist Charles Brown; and electric guitarist and vocalist Aaron “T-Bone” Walker (1910–75), who is credited with reintroducing the guitar into black dance music. Cole’s “Straighten Up and Fly Right” topped Billboard’s Harlem Hit Parade chart (not yet called R&B) for ten weeks starting April 29, 1944; spent six weeks at the top of the Juke Box Folk chart (not yet called country); and reached the Top 10 of Best Selling Retail Records chart (July 1, 1944) and Top 20 of the Juke Box Pop chart, an extraordinary accomplishment. Walker’s 1947 single “Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday Is Just as Bad)” had an immediate impact on R&B, helping along the postwar rise of the electric guitar.
African American male vocal groups began recording a style just after World War II, which a decade later would become known (retrospectively) as doo wop. They were preceded in the 1930s by the very popular Mills Brothers and Ink Spots, who both had a broad audience. The first commercially successful groups in the post–World War II style were the Ravens (New York), with their Top 10 Harlem Hit Parade (R&B) hit “Ol’ Man River” in 1947, followed by the Orioles (from Baltimore) with their #1 R&B hit “It’s Too Soon to Know” in 1948. Clyde McPhatter, lead singer with the Dominoes (“Have Mercy Baby,” 1952) before moving on to a solo career, is often credited with introducing gospel-style singing into R&B, preceding Ray Charles by a few years. The name doo wop comes from a phrase that was used by the background singers. Early examples, from the mid-1950s, include the Clovers (“Good Lovin’,” 1953); the Drifters (“Let the Boogie Woogie Roll,” 1953, not released until 1960); the Turbans (“When You Dance,” 1955, R&B #3, pop #33); and a song called “Do Wop” by the De Villes (1958).
Women vocalists, including Dinah Washington (the most commercially successful), Ruth Brown, LaVern Baker, and Etta James, would have a major and defining presence in R&B in the 1950s (see figure 17). They would occasionally cross over to the pop charts (which expanded to a hundred slots beginning 1955), gaining a greater audience, but reaching the pop Top 40 was much more difficult. For example, Dinah Washington placed forty-seven songs in the R&B charts between 1944 and 1961, thirty-five of which rose to the R&B Top 10; after a single pop crossover in 1950, she finally began crossing over to the pop charts in 1959, placing twenty-one songs (in 1959–63), seven of which reached the pop Top 40. Ruth Brown placed twenty-four songs in the R&B charts between 1949 and 1960, twenty-one of which rose to the R&B Top 10; she too, did not cross over until the late 1950s, placing seven songs (1957–62), two of which reached the pop Top 40.
Ruth Brown’s records sold so well that she is credited with keeping her record label, Atlantic, afloat in the early 1950s. But with twenty-one Top 10 R&B hits and only two hitting the pop Top 40, one can get some sense of the frustrations of R&B artists in the 1950s, especially in the face of bland cover versions by white singers reaching larger audiences. Eventually learning that she was not receiving her share of royalties, Brown enlisted an attorney and testified before Congress at a federal racketeering law hearing in 1986, putting some pressure on Atlantic; her activism had a major impact for her peers. Atlantic Records settled with Brown and many other artists from her era, and as a direct result of her actions the Rhythm and Blues Foundation (2019) was established in 1988 to provide financial assistance, educational outreach, and performance opportunities, seeded by a $1.5 million grant from Atlantic cofounder Ahmet Ertegun. Brown’s (1996) autobiography provides a vivid firsthand account of the R&B generation of the 1950s.
R&B Music and Society
In his book on R&B in the 1950s and 1960s, Brian Ward (1998) suggests significant parallels between the concurrent historical developments of the civil rights movement and rhythm and blues. His starting point was 1954: the Supreme Court Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision (separate public school facilities for black and white children were inherently unequal) in May and the Chords’ “Sh-Boom” crossing over to the pop charts a few months later in July. From about 1956 to 1963 there was a mood of optimism for integration reflected in crossover success and black admiration for some of the white pop of the era.
Ward lays out three premises of his book: (1) both production and consumption patterns are important in understanding R&B (the music industry does not just initiate and sustain trends that do not have relevance for its audience); (2) blacks are not just passive consumers—by actively purchasing recordings, going to concerts and clubs, and choosing to listen to various radio stations they can impact musical production; and (3) Americans are acculturated into attributing certain musical techniques and devices to blacks and to whites. These techniques are generally agreed-on codes, clearly recognized by some adult whites, for example, who initially objected to rock and roll, and by some blacks in the later 1960s who wished to assert less assimilated identities.
R&B of the 1950s–60s challenges notions of authenticity or purity of earlier styles, such as blues and gospel, which were also commercial
