Most of us know what Rhythm and Blues is, but are we familiar with how it all started and where it came from. Unlike some forms of music the actual definition doesn’t go back a very long way. The 1940’s was the first time that the music was described like that.
The market originally for the new type of music was aimed at African Americans in the 1940’s and then became the basis of another new form of music in the 1950’s, Rock and Roll. Rhythm and Blues continued to flourish as a way of categorising that particular type of music in the decades that followed. It enabled R&B to incorporate soul music or gospel music.
In more recent years and certainly since the 1980’s R&B has changed and needed to identify itself differently. Contemporary R&B has become the term used to describe the new wave of Rhythm and Blues that has emerged.
Rhythm and Blues had it’s roots in Jazz and blues music. These two forms merged in a way that created R&B. It was at a time when the two earlier form were being brought to large urban areas in America when they had been largely confined to rural areas and larger audiences hadn’t been exposed to that type of music before.
As the audience grew, so jazz and blues merged into a new form and a new name for this type of music had to be found. From this base, the music form spread and developed into what it is today.
Rhythm and blues has wide audience today, possibly the largest audience it has ever had. It has entered mainstream music and there is even a blend between R&B and pop, with R&B becoming an essential part of the popular music we have today.
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