Writer/producer Robert Palmer defined rhythm & blues as a catchall term referring to any music that was made by and for black Americans. He has used the term R&B as a synonym for jump blues. Lawrence Cohn, author of Nothing But the Blues, writes that rhythm and blues was an umbrella term invented for industry convenience. According to him, the term embraced all black music except classical music and religious music, unless a gospel song sold enough to break into the charts.
In 1947, the term rhythm and blues was coined as a musical marketing term in the United States by Jerry Wexler of Billboard magazine. It replaced the term race music, which originally came from within the black community, but was deemed offensive in the postwar world. In that year, Louis Jordan dominated the top five listings of the R&B charts with three songs, and two of the top five songs were based on the boogie-woogie rhythms that had come to prominence during the 1940s. Jordan's band, the Tympany Five (formed in 1938), consisted of him on saxophone and vocals, along with musicians on trumpet, tenor saxophone, piano, bass and drums. Lawrence Cohn described the music as 'grittier than his boogie-era jazz-tinged blues'. Robert Palmer described it as 'urbane, rocking, jazz-based music with a heavy, insistent beat'. Jordan's cool music, along with that of Big Joe Turner and Wynonie Harris, is now also referred to as jump blues. In 1948, RCA Victor was marketing black music under the name Blues and Rhythm. That year found the Wynonie Harris song 'Good Rockin' Tonight' in the number two spot, following band leader Sonny Thompson's 'Long Gone' at number one.
In 1949, the term rhythm and blues replaced the Billboard category Harlem Hit Parade. Also in that year, 'The Huckle-Buck', recorded by band leader and saxophonist Paul Williams, was the number one R&B tune, remaining on top of the charts for nearly the entire year. Written by musician and arranger Andy Gibson, the song was described as a 'dirty boogie' because it was risqué and raunchy. Paul Williams and His Hucklebuckers' concerts were sweaty riotous affairs that got shut down on more than one occasion. Their lyrics, by Roy Alfred (who later co-wrote the 1955 hit 'The Rock and Roll Waltz'), were mildly sexually suggestive, and one teenager from Philadelphia said, "That Hucklebuck was a very nasty dance". Also in 1949, a new version of a 1920s blues song, 'Ain't Nobody's Business' was a number four hit for Jimmy Witherspoon, and Louis Jordan and the Tympany Five once again made the top five with 'Saturday Night Fish Fry'.
Ruth Brown, on the Atlantic Records label, placed hits in the top five every year from 1951 through 1954: 'Teardrops from My Eyes'; 'Five, Ten, Fifteen Hours'; '(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean' and 'What a Dream'.
Faye Adams' 'Shake a Hand' made it to number two in 1952. In 1953, the R&B record-buying public made Willie Mae Thornton's original recording of Lieber and Stoller's 'Hound Dog' the number three hit that year. That same year, the Orioles, a doo-wop group, had the number four hit of the year with 'Crying in the Chapel'.In 1954 the Chords' 'Sh-Boom' became the first hit to cross over from the R&B chart to hit the top ten early in the year. Late in the year and into 1955, 'Hearts of Stone' by the Charms made the Top 20.
Fats Domino made the Top 30 of the pop charts in 1952 and 1953, then the Top Ten with 'Ain't That a Shame'. Ray Charles came to national prominence in 1955 with 'I Got a Woman'. It was an upfront use of gospel music conventions in an R&B context. Big Bill Broonzy said of Charles' music: "He's mixing the blues with the spirituals...I know that's wrong." At the urging of Leonard Chess at Chess Records, Chuck Berry had reworked a fiddle tune with a long history, 'Ida Red'. The resulting 'Maybellene' was not only a number three hit on the R&B charts that year, but it also reached into the Top 30 on the pop charts. Alan Freed, who had moved to the much larger market of New York City, helped the record become popular with white teenagers. Freed had been given part of the writers' credit by Chess in return for his promotional activities; a common practice at the time.
In 1956, an R&B Top Stars of '56 tour took place with headliners Al Hibbler, Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers and Carl Perkins, whose 'Blue Suede Shoes' was very popular with R&B music buyers. Some of the performers completing the bill were Chuck Berry, Cathy Carr, Shirley & Lee, Della Reese, the Cleftones and the Spaniels with Illinois Jacquet's Big Rockin' Rhythm Band.
Cities visited by the tour included Columbia, SC, Annapolis, MD, Pittsburgh, PA, Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo NY, into Canada and through the mid-Western US ending in Texas. In Columbia the concert ended with a near riot as Perkins began his first song as the closing act. Perkins is quoted as saying, "It was dangerous. Lot of kids got hurt. There was a lot of rioting going on, just crazy, man! The music drove 'em insane." In Annapolis 50,000 to 70,000 people tried to attend a sold-out performance with 8,000 seats. Roads were clogged for seven hours.
Two Elvis Presley records made the R&B top five in 1957: 'Jailhouse Rock/Treat Me Nice' at number one and 'All Shook Up' at number five, an unprecedented acceptance of a non-African American artist into a music category known for being created by blacks.
Nat King Cole, a former jazz pianist who had had number one and number two hits on the pop charts in the early 1950s, 'Mona Lisa' at number two in 1950 and 'Too Young' at number one in 1951, had a record in the top five in the R&B charts in 1958; 'Looking Back/Do I Like It'.
In 1959, two black-owned record labels, one of which would become hugely successful, made their debut: Sam Cooke's SAR and Berry Gordy's Motown Records. Brook Benton was at the top of the R&B charts in 1959 and 1960 with one number 1 and two number 2 hits.
Benton had a certain warmth in his voice that attracted a wide variety of listeners, and his ballads led to comparisons with performers such as Cole, Sinatra and Tony Bennett.
Sam Cooke's hit, 'Chain Gang' is indicative of R&B in 1960 as is Chubby Checker's hit, 'The Twist'.
By the 1970s, the term rhythm & blues was being used as a blanket term to describe soul and funk.
In the 2000s, the initialism R&B is almost always used instead of the full rhythm & blues, and mainstream use of the term usually refers to contemporary R&B, which is a modern version of soul and funk-influenced pop music that originated as disco faded from popularity.