Rhythm and Blues

Rhythm and blues was the phrase that came into use in 1949 as a replacement for the earlier term "race records." Race records was the accepted expression for all recordings by black artists that began in 1920 with Mamie Smith's hit "Crazy Blues." In its June 25, 1949 issue, Billboard's music trade magazine announced that the term "race" would be terminated and replaced with rhythm and blues. This new expression was the accepted term for the American blacks during the 1950s and 1960s. Rhythm and blues was primarily ensemble music, a notable contrast to that of the blues. Usually a solo vocalist, a vocal group or an instrumentalist would provide the melody with a rhythm section of piano, bass, guitar and drums supplying the rhythmic background.

During the era of the classic blues songsters, it was the major record companies like Colombia, Victor, Bluebird, Okeh and Decca that monopolized the recording industry. But from the late 1940s onward the smaller black-owned record companies that started in the southern cities of Memphis, Nashville and Houston took over control of rhythm and blues recordings. Eventually, small companies were springing up on the West Coast and into northern cities like Chicago, Detroit, Newark, Philadelphia and New York.

Big Joe Turner was among the first of the blues singers to get on the band-wagon of rhythm and blues when he recorded "Shake, Raffle and Roll" in April 1954 for Atlantic Records. A hit that remained on the R&B charts for over six months. But in June of that year, a young ambitious white musician named Bill Haley recorded it and took the limelight away from Big Joe Turner's version. In 1955, Turner was again up-staged by white performers who preferred to do a cover record on his tunes. Pal Boone recorded Turner's first hit For Atlantic Records. "Chains of Love" and following Big Joe's "Shake, Rattle and Roll" was "Flip, Flop and Fly" recorded by Johnny Ray.