Rhythm And Blues: 1950's 70's And 90's
When Rhythm and Blues music first began, essentially all of the artists were African American, as was the audience receiving the music. In a white-dominated society, these artists found it difficult to spread their blend of soulful vocals and hip-hop beats to a large audience . Because of this societal segregation, R&B music remained “Black” music for many years. As white society slowly became acquainted with Rhythm and Blues, and consequently the music was exposed to a larger audience, R&B exploded onto the music scene. Zondra Hughes, in her EBONY article Are Whites Stealing Rhythm and Blues? agrees: “since the majority of R&B artists were black, and most radio station owners were white, many artists had difficulty getting their music on the air. Later, as white population became exposed to R&B, the genre boomed” (Hughes 1). Originating as a musical style performed by African Americans for African American audiences, Rhythm and Blues music, throughout the 1950’s and 1970’s, was seized by the white-dominated music industry, stripped of its original values and sound, and distributed to popular mainstream artists of the times. The music was, in turn, altered to fit each particular artists’ style, which has ultim
The roots of R&B music go back to the times of slavery. African Americans working on plantation fields used music as a way of communicating with each other and as a forcible form of expression. The deep, soulful, and powerful mix of chanting, hollering, shouting and crooning that defined this ”field music” was filled with every emotion from joy to sorrow; pleasure to pain; and hope to despair. Emerging simultaneously at this time was Gospel music. It was very uncommon for slaves to have actual churches to attend because of harsh rules laid down by white authorities. Rather than lose faith or be held down, African Americans congregated on their own, raising their voices to praise God as well as ask Him to give them strength and courage to press on through the trials and tribulations of the harsh lives they were living. Gospel music in conjunction with strong, rhythmic beats, actually is the main ingredient to the recipe for R&B music. In fact, Jerry Wexler said in an interview: “...it probably should have been rhythm and gospel because rhythm and blues is based far more on gospel changes than on blues changes” (Fox 126). It was because of these deep cultural roots that R&B music was first termed “Race Music.” For all races and ethnicities, music serves as a form of expression and as a definition of an individual’s identity. In his article The Consumption of Music and the Expression of VALUES, Wilfred Dolfsma agrees, saying: “By consuming...music, people want to express who they are, to which group they belong, what their identity is” (Dolfsma 53). African Americans struggled to find their place among white society. Unfortunately, due to the extreme segregation of the times, blacks couldn’t identify with the white culture all around them- the white culture that hated them. Instead, the black culture identified with its own music. Hence throughout the 1940’s Rhythm and Blues remained “Race Music”. In the 1950’s, however, there was an emergence of a new type of music; or perhaps not a new music, but rather a new label for a musical genre. As explained in the book Hole in Our Soul: The Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular Music, in 1949, the term “Race Music” lost its luster (Bayles 110). Furthermore, Ted Fox describes how Jerry Wexler, a writer for Billboard, and one of the greatest producers of black talent for Atlantic records in the 1950’s and 60’s, established a new term for race music. (Fox 123). The new name: Rhythm and Blues. In his interview with Fox, Wexler discusses the process of determining this new name. “ ‘...It was a staff project...we needed to upgrade this term [Race Music] that was starting to sound a little perjorative to us. We all chipped in with ideas, and I said “Rhythm and Blues” and they said that’s it’ “ (qtd in Fox 126).
Some topics in this essay:
Rhythm Blues,
African Americans,
Network York,
Britney Spears,
Redding R&B,
Rock Roll,
Jerry Wexler,
Rock Punk,
Chicago Blues,
Race Music,
r&b music,
rhythm blues,
rock ‘n’ roll,
rock ‘n’,
pop acts,
soul music,
“race music”,
‘n’ roll,
african americans,
rock roll,
music scene,
r&b rhythm blues,
roots r&b music,
rhythm blues music,
american popular music,
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Approximate Word count = 2641
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page double spaced)
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