Rhythm And Blues

About the Rhythm And Blues genre

The term rhythm and blues entered common usage in 1948 when Jerry Wexler of Billboard magazine introduced it as a replacement for 'race music', which had become socially unacceptable in the postwar years. The shift reflected both changing industry standards and a broader cultural recalibration. Writer and producer Robert Palmer described R&B as a catchall term for music made by and for black Americans, sometimes using it interchangeably with jump blues to capture the genre's stylistic range.

As Lawrence Cohn documented in Nothing but the Blues, the term functioned as an umbrella category born of industry convenience. It encompassed virtually all black music except classical and religious material, though gospel records that crossed over to the charts found themselves classified under the R&B banner. This broad definition meant rhythm and blues records contained extraordinary diversity in sound and approach, unified more by their audience and cultural context than by strict sonic boundaries. Collectors seeking to understand postwar American music must grapple with this genre as both a marketing invention and a genuine cultural marker that shaped which records got pressed, promoted, and remembered.