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R & B Artists and Soul Artists
Crest
In the 1950s, gospel singers began writing and singing songs in the gospel blues style but with secular R & B lyrics—a reversal of what Thomas A. Dorsey had done in creating modern gospel music a generation earlier. Gospel blues style with secular lyrics came to be called soul music.
R & B and soul music crested in the 1960s.
Mainstream Genre
Some of the leading songwriters and performers in the R & B/soul genre: Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Fats Domino, Holland, Dozier, and Holland, Marvin Gaye, Jackie Wilson, Al Green, James Brown, Ray Charles, George Clinton, Smokey Robinson, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, Van Morrison, and Stevie Wonder.
R & B/soul fell off somewhat in popularity with the dominance of rock/pop in the 1970s, but had a resurgence in the 1990s, concomitant with the rise of hip-hop.