R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American history and experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy, as well as triumphs and failures in terms of societal racism, oppression, relationships, economics, and aspirations.

Simple repetitive parts mesh, creating momentum and rhythmic interplay producing mellow, lilting, and often hypnotic textures while calling attention to no individual sound.

[17] R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy,[18][page needed] as well as triumphs and failures in terms of relationships, economics, and aspirations.

"A distinctly African American music drawing from the deep tributaries of African American expressive culture, it is an amalgam of jump blues, big band swing, gospel, boogie, and blues that was initially developed during a thirty-year period that bridges the era of legally sanctioned racial segregation, international conflicts, and the struggle for civil rights".

[3]The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame defines some of the originators of R&B, including Joe Turner's big band, Louis Jordan's Tympany Five, James Brown and LaVern Baker.

In fact, this source states that "Louis Jordan joined Turner in laying the foundation for R&B in the 1940s, cutting one swinging rhythm & blues masterpiece after another".

[20] The great migration of Black Americans to the urban industrial centers of Chicago, Detroit, New York City, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and elsewhere in the 1920s and 1930s created a new market for jazz, blues, and related genres of music.

[26] Jordan's music, along with that of Big Joe Turner, Roy Brown, Billy Wright, and Wynonie Harris, before 1949, was referred to as jump blues.

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".

[30][31] 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".

For the more than a quarter-century in which the cakewalk, ragtime and proto-jazz were forming and developing, the Cuban genre habanera exerted a constant presence in African American popular music.

Robert Palmer recalls: New Orleans producer-bandleader Dave Bartholomew first employed this figure (as a saxophone-section riff) on his own 1949 disc "Country Boy" and subsequently helped make it the most over-used rhythmic pattern in 1950s rock 'n' roll.

On numerous recordings by Fats Domino, Little Richard and others, Bartholomew assigned this repeating three-note pattern not just to the string bass, but also to electric guitars and even baritone sax, making for a very heavy bottom.

[42]In a 1988 interview with Palmer, Bartholomew (who had the first R&B studio band),[43] revealed how he initially superimposed tresillo over swing rhythm: I heard the bass playing that part on a 'rumba' record.

Robert Palmer reports that, in the 1940s, Professor Longhair listened to and played with musicians from the islands and "fell under the spell of Perez Prado's mambo records.

In a related development, the underlying rhythms of American popular music underwent a basic, yet generally unacknowledged transition from a triplet or shuffle feel to even or straight eighth notes.

The Hawketts, in "Mardi Gras Mambo" (1955) (featuring the vocals of a young Art Neville), make a clear reference to Perez Prado in their use of his trademark "Unhh!"

"[58] As Ned Sublette points out though: "By the 1960s, with Cuba the object of a United States embargo that still remains in effect today, the island nation had been forgotten as a source of music.

[61][63][64] Also in July 1951, Cleveland, Ohio DJ Alan Freed started a late-night radio show called "The Moondog Rock Roll House Party" on WJW (850 AM).

A rapid succession of rhythm and blues hits followed, beginning with "Tutti Frutti"[67] and "Long Tall Sally", which would influence performers such as James Brown,[68] Elvis Presley,[69] and Otis Redding.

[68] Also in 1951, the song Rocket 88 was recorded by Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythm at a studio owned by Sam Phillips with the vocal by Jackie Brenston.

[71] Ruth Brown, performing on the Atlantic 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".

In 1953, the R&B record-buying public made Big Mama Thornton's original recording of Leiber and Stoller's "Hound Dog"[72] the year's number three hit.

[87] In 1956, an R&B "Top Stars of '56" tour took place, with headliners Al Hibbler, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, and Carl Perkins, whose "Blue Suede Shoes" was very popular with R&B music buyers.

[88] Some of the performers completing the bill were Chuck Berry, Cathy Carr, Shirley & Lee, Della Reese, Sam "T-Bird" Jensen, the Cleftones, and the Spaniels with Illinois Jacquet's Big Rockin' Rhythm Band.

[95] 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 Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett.

[109] Newer artists such as Usher, R. Kelly, Janet Jackson, TLC, Aaliyah, Brandy, Destiny's Child, Tevin Campbell and Mary J. Blige enjoyed success.

[117][118] Many bands, particularly in the developing London club scene, tried to emulate black rhythm and blues performers, resulting in a "rawer" or "grittier" sound than the more popular "beat groups".

[121] Another American GI, Jimmy James, born in Jamaica, moved to London after two local number one hits in 1960 with The Vagabonds, who built a strong reputation as a live act.

[129] The music of the British mod subculture grew out of rhythm and blues and later soul performed by artists who were not available to the small London clubs where the scene originated.