Rhythm & blues, also known as “R&B,” is a popular genre that combines professional songwriting skills with African American traditions like blues and gospel. Some blues and gospel material draws on a shared folk-rooted repertoire of lyrics that may appear in many different songs.
R&B songs, in marked contrast, are new creations expressly written with the goal of garnering radio airplay to score a successful, lucrative commercial hit record. Towards that end, many use arrangements which are unique to one particular song. The term rhythm & blues was coined in the late 1940s in music journalism circles to replace such prejudicial terms as “race records” and “sepia music” that were commonly used in the early years of the record industry. Musical terminology is never precise, so some songs classified as R&B were also described and marketed as “jump blues” or “rock and roll.”
Many of the most important and significant developments in the national history of R&B have taken place in Louisiana. In the late ‘40s such groundbreaking songs as Roy Brown’s “Good Rocking Tonight” (1947) and “The Fat Man” by Fats Domino (1950) were recorded by the great audio engineer Cosimo Matassa at his studio in New Orleans. For the next two decades — an era known as “the Golden Age of New Orleans R&B” — Matassa recorded numerous other top-tier New Orleans R&B classics including “Mother In Law” by Ernie K-Doe (1961), “It’s Raining” by Irma Thomas (1961), Lloyd Price’s “Lawdy Miss Clawdy,” (1952) and “Ooh Poo Pah Doo” by Jesse Hill, (1960.)
The mid-‘60s saw the emergence of the R&B formative funk band known as Meters, who had their own hits, such as “Cissy Strut,” in 1969, and who also played on many R&B sessions produced by Allen Toussaint. In 1972, Toussaint opened his own studio, SeaSaint, where recording activity continued to flourish, resulting in such national R&B and soul music hits as LaBelle’s “Lady Marmalade,” in 1974. Until this day, R&B continues to be an important and ever-evolving creative force in New Orleans music. On the national scene, the term R&B faded from usage for a time until it re-emerged in the ‘90s to describe what has also been called Black Contemporary music, as performed by such artists as Erykah Badu and, more recently, D’Angelo and Lizzo.
Important, popular, and influential R&B hits were also recorded at other studios around the state, where R&B interacted with zydeco, swamp-pop, and rockabilly. R&B classics from around the state include “I Got Loaded,” by Little Bob and the Lollipops, recorded at La Louisianne in Lafayette in 1965; “Sea of Love,” by Phil Phillips, recorded at Goldband in Lake Charles in 1959; and Dale Hawkins’ “Suzie Q,” recorded at radio station KWKH in Shreveport in 1957.
Authored by Ben Sandmel
