Mary J Blige - performing at NBA All-Star Saturday Night.

Rhythm & Blues

At a Glance

A style of popular music performed principally by African Americans from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. The term replaced ‘race music’ and was supplanted by ‘soul’. Rhythm-and-blues grew out of the blues and related styles but is played by an ensemble, typically of a lead singer or instrumentalist, a rhythm section (bass, drums and some combination of piano, electric organ and electric guitar) and a group consisting of voices, wind instruments, guitar or organ. Most rhythm-and-blues music is in the major mode (with ‘blue notes’), uses forms based on the blues and Tin Pan Alley songs and is in quadruple metre with off-beats emphasized. Much is vocal; the lyrics range from those akin to
mainstream popular music to the blues vision of the human condition.

"rhythm and blues." The Concise Grove Dictionary of Music. Oxford University Press, Inc., 1994.
Answers.com 06 Dec. 2007. http://www.answers.com/topic/rhythm-and-blues

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