Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated within the African-American community in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to African Americans, at a time when "rocking, jazz based music ... [with a] heavy, insistent beat" was starting to become more popular. In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, the bands usually consisted of a piano, one or two guitars, bass, drums, one or more saxophones, and sometimes background vocalists. R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American history and experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy, as well as triumphs and failures in terms of societal racism, oppression, relationships, economics, and aspirations.
Charles Edward Anderson Berry was an American singer, guitarist and songwriter who pioneered rock and roll. Nicknamed the "Father of Rock and Roll", he refined and developed rhythm and blues into the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive with songs such as "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957), and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958). Writing lyrics that focused on teen life and consumerism, and developing a music style that included guitar solos and showmanship, Berry was a major influence on subsequent rock music.
Johnnie Clyde Johnson was an American pianist who played jazz, blues, and rock and roll. His work with Chuck Berry led to his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for breaking racial barriers in the military as a Montford Point Marine, where he endured racism and inspired social change while integrating the previously all-white Marine Corps during World War II.
Louis Thomas Jordan was an American saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and bandleader who was popular from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. Known as "the King of the Jukebox", he earned his highest profile towards the end of the swing era.
Jump blues is an up-tempo style of blues, jazz, and boogie woogie usually played by small groups and featuring horn instruments. It was popular in the 1940s and was a precursor of rhythm and blues and rock and roll. Appreciation of jump blues was renewed in the 1990s as part of the swing revival.
"Johnny B. Goode" is a song by American musician Chuck Berry, written and sung by Berry in 1958. Released as a single in 1958, it peaked at number two on the Hot R&B Sides chart and number eight on its pre-Billboard Hot 100 chart. The song remains a staple of rock n' roll music.
The origins of rock and roll are complex. Rock and roll emerged as a defined musical style in the United States in the early to mid-1950s. It derived most directly from the rhythm and blues music of the 1940s, which itself developed from earlier blues, the beat-heavy jump blues, boogie woogie, up-tempo jazz, and swing music. It was also influenced by gospel, country and western, and traditional folk music. Rock and roll in turn provided the main basis for the music that, since the mid-1960s, has been generally known simply as rock music.
"Roll Over Beethoven" is a 1956 song written by Chuck Berry, originally released on Chess Records, with "Drifting Heart" as the B-side. The lyrics of the song mention rock and roll and the desire for rhythm and blues to be as respected as classical music. The song has been covered by many other artists, including the Rolling Stones and The Beatles. Rolling Stone magazine ranked it number 97 on its 2004 list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time".
"I Hear You Knocking" is a rhythm and blues song written by American musician Dave Bartholomew. New Orleans rhythm and blues singer Smiley Lewis first recorded the song in 1955. The lyrics tell of the return of a former lover who is rebuffed.
"Saturday Night Fish Fry" is a jump blues song written by Louis Jordan and Ellis Lawrence Walsh, best known through the version recorded by Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five. The recording is considered to be one of the "excellent and commercially successful" examples of the jump blues genre.
Let the Good Times Roll: The Music of Louis Jordan is the thirty seventh studio album by B. B. King, released in 1999. It is a tribute album to jazz saxophonist and singer Louis Jordan, and is made up entirely of covers of songs written or performed by Jordan. The album was released in 1999 on MCA Records.
"Caldonia" is a jump blues song, first recorded in 1945 by Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five. Although credited to Fleecie Moore, his wife at the time, Jordan is the actual songwriter. The song was a hit for Jordan as well as several other musicians.
"Junco Partner", also known as "Junco Partner (Worthless Man)", is a blues song first recorded by James Wayne in 1951. It has been recorded and revised by many other artists over several decades, including Louis Jordan, Michael Bloomfield, Dr. John, Professor Longhair, James Booker, Hugh Laurie, and the Clash. It has been covered in various genres of music including blues, folk, rock, reggae, and dub.
"Merry Christmas Baby" is an R&B Christmas standard credited to Lou Baxter and Johnny Moore. In 1947, Johnny Moore's Three Blazers recorded the tune, featuring vocals and piano by Charles Brown. Subsequently, many performers have recorded renditions of the song, including Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ike & Tina Turner, Otis Redding, B.B. King, Elvis Presley, Bruce Springsteen, Christina Aguilera, and Melissa Etheridge.
Tympany Five was a successful and influential American rhythm and blues and jazz dance band founded by Louis Jordan in 1938. The group was composed of a horn section of three to five different pieces and also drums, double bass, guitar and piano.
"Let the Good Times Roll" is a jump blues song recorded in 1946 by Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five. A mid-tempo twelve-bar blues, the song became a blues standard and one of Jordan's best-known songs.
"Ain't That Just Like a Woman (They'll Do It Every Time)" is a 1946 song written by Claude Demetrius and Fleecie Moore and recorded by Louis Jordan and Tympany Five. The song reached number one on the R&B Jukebox chart for two weeks and peaked at number seventeen on the pop chart. Chuck Berry, who acknowledged the influence of both Louis Jordan and Carl Hogan, copied the latter's guitar intro to the song for his 1958 classic "Johnny B. Goode".
Carl D. Hogan was an American jazz and rhythm and blues guitarist and bassist. He is known for playing the lead guitar riff on Louis Jordan's "Ain't That Just Like a Woman " which was later imitated by Chuck Berry for his hit "Johnny B. Goode".
"We Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town" is a song originally recorded on September 3, 1936, by Piedmont blues musician Casey Bill Weldon. Weldon performed it as a solo piece, with vocals and acoustic guitar plus piano and double bass accompaniment.
"Salt Pork, West Virginia" is a song attributed to Fleecie Moore and William J. Tennyson Jr., performed by Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five, and released on the Decca label. It peaked at No. 2 on Billboard's race record chart and remained on the chart for 15 weeks. It ranked No. 8 on the magazine's list of the most played race records of 1946.
