RnB 50s
RnB 50s : Nat King Cole, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke
The advent of rock’n’roll in 1947 did not only revolutionize American folk and country music but also blues and popular vocals and gospel, while marking the end the era for swing-jazz, big band jazz and boogie-woogie. In the following years, each of these musical genres integrated in its own way the moods, rhythms and instruments of rock music. Beginning in 1950, Rythm'n' Blues (RnB USA) was the music scene where the most popular and high-profile musical genres developed as a result of the aforementioned evolution. As such, RnB defined the modern pop music of Afro-American communities. Throughout the 50s, its most successful subgenres were jazz, blues, RnB rock, RnB gospel and RnB vocals.
- Jazz became a more complex and confidential music segment, praised both technically and artistically but with limited audience. Notwithstanding such evolution, singers Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald - who both started in the 1930s - leave their mark forever in the jazz-song segment.
- Blues modernized and became more widespread with Screaming Jay Hawkins turning classic blues into spectacular popular acts and B. B. King transforming it into elaborate jazzy blues-rock. A number of songs promoted the genre's mass popularity and have since become classics, such as Crawling king snake (1949) (1971), Rollin' stone (1950), Hound dog (1953) (1956) (1963) (1989), On the road again (1953) (1968) (1978), Dimples (1956) (1964-1) (1964-2), and I pity the fools (1961) (1965) (1972).
- RnB rock had its roots in the late 1940s as derived from boogie, blues and swing-jazz (see Rock USA 1940s) and turned into a frenzy in the 50s.
- RnB gospel drew on the popular gospel forms developed in 1941-46 by the spirituals vocal ensemble The Jubalaires. It flourished in 1952-55 with bands like The Soul Stirrers, The 5 Royales, with singer Faye Adams, and even more significantly in 1957-1964 with singer Sam Cooke's stellar 30-hit streak.
- RnB vocals followed the musical style pioneered in the 1930s by The Mills Brothers and supported by the advances made in the 40s on the crooner scene by jazz singer Nat King Cole. It spawned the doo-wop frenzy in the mid-50s with serial hits by new bands like The Platters, Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers, The Moonglows, The Five Satins, or The Coasters.
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RnB Soul 60s
RnB Soul 1960s: James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross
In 1960, RnB's high-profile scene began to be called 'RnB Soul' due to the distinctve trendsetting impact of its vocal stars who were seen as putting their soul into their voice.
- RnB blues-jazz was marked by the beginnings of Aretha Franklin (1942-2018), a singer and musician from gospel who shone as much in the soul vocals and rock registers as in blues-jazz. Nina Simone (1933-2003) was the other great lady of the 60s’ RnB blues-jazz, where veteran Louis 'Satchmo' Armstrong (1901-1971) released 'What a wonderful world' (1967), his biggest commercial success. At the other end of the spectrum, "Little" Stevie Wonder was blind and 13 when his single "Fingertips part II" (1963) topped the Billboard and 17 when his progressive soul track "I was made to love her" (1967) topped the RnB charts. Singer-songwriter and pianist Roberta Flack (born in 1937) personifies the next generation of popular jazz-song and released her first album in 1969.
- RnB rock saw the arrival of The Valentinos with Bobby Womack, Wilson Picket, Ike & Tina Turner and gave way to psychedelic RnB rock in 1968-70 with the rise to fame of Jimi Hendrix, Sly & the Family Stone and Funkadelic.
- On the RnB Soul vocals scene, the king of soul Sam Cooke (1931-1964) suffered a violent death at the age of 33. The new king of soul was Otis Redding (1941-1967) but he too died prematurely at the height of his fame, and it was posthumously that his signature song '(Sitting on) The dock of the Bay' was published in January 1968. Soul singers Ben E. King, Marvin Gaye, Aaron Neville, Roberta Flack and Dionne Warwick also appeared during the decade, as did vocals groups The Temptations, The Four Tops and The Jackson Five. Girl vocal groups had seen popularity earlier – as with the songs "Lollipop" (1958, The Chordettes) and "I met him on a Sunday" (1958, The Shirelles) – and thrived on the RnB Soul scene of the 1960s where the most popular became The Supremes with Diana Ross, in particular with the planetary hit "Baby love" (1964).
- Progressive RnB Soul took hold in 1967 - the same year as psychedelic rock (cf. Rock USA 60s) - and blew a new wind. Incumbent vocals groups such as The Temptations and Diana Ross & the Supremes successfully joined the genre where the band Fifth Dimension took center stage. Three songs among the jewels from this era: Marlena Shaw's 'California soul', Donny Hathaway's 'The Ghetto pt. 2' and 'Cissy strut' by funk pioneers The Meters.
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