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2.6.14R 'n' B: A Brief History
Origins
In the 1920s and 1930s, many African American folk-blues musicians migrated to the big cities of the north and found themselves getting drowned out when playing in the rowdy bars.
What to do? Put down the acoustic guitar and pick up an electric one (invented in the 1930s and widely used in the Swing era). Get a good microphone and P. A. system. Get some loud horn players and a drum kit. Big bands had all of these components.
Breakout
By the late 1940s, electrified urban blues (African American pop music) had become a new mainstream genre. Billboard magazine labelled it rhythm & blues in the late 1940s, later shortened to R & B.
Still, white racist fears of African American “sexualized” music and lyrics kept R & B records on the sidelines, while sanitized covers by white artists such as Pat Boone climbed the charts and made piles of money.