CLARENCE FROGMAN HENRY AUTOGRAPH SIGNED rhythm and blues singer and pianist, for Sale

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CLARENCE FROGMAN HENRY AUTOGRAPH SIGNED rhythm and blues singer and pianist, For Sale

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CLARENCE FROGMAN HENRY AUTOGRAPH SIGNED rhythm and blues singer and pianist,:
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CLARENCE FROGMAN HENRY SIGNED AND INSCRIBED 8X10 INCH PHOTOClarence Henry II, known as Clarence \"Frogman\" Henry, is an American rhythm and blues singer and pianist, best known for his hits \"Ain\'t Got No Home\" and \" But I Do\".Clarence Henry II (born March 19, 1937), known as Clarence \"Frogman\" Henry, is an American rhythm and blues singer and pianist, best known for his hits \"Ain\'t Got No Home\" (1956) and \"(I Don\'t Know Why) But I Do\" (1961).[1]
CareerClarence Henry was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, in 1937, moving to the Algiers neighborhood in 1948. He started learning piano as a child, with Fats Domino and Professor Longhair being his main influences. When Henry played in talent shows, he dressed like Longhair and wore a wig with braids on both sides. He joined Bobby Mitchell & the Toppers in 1952, playing piano and trombone, before leaving when he graduated in 1955 to join saxophonist Eddie Smith\'s band.[1][2]
He used his trademark croak to improvise the song \"Ain\'t Got No Home\" one night in 1955. Chess Records\' A&R man Paul Gayten heard the song, and had Henry record it in Cosimo Matassa\'s studio in September 1956. Initially promoted by local DJ Poppa Stoppa, the song eventually rose to number 3 on the national R&B chart and number 20 on the US pop chart.[3] The gimmick earned Henry his nickname of \'Frogman\' and jump-started a career that endures to this day.[1]
He toured nationally with a six-piece band until 1958, and continued to record.[2] A cover of Bobby Charles\' hit \"(I Don\'t Know Why) But I Do\", and \"You Always Hurt the One You Love\", both from 1961, were his other big hits.[4]
Henry opened eighteen concerts for the Beatles across the US and Canada in 1964, but his main source of income came from the Bourbon Street strip in New Orleans, where he played for nineteen years.[1] His name could still draw hordes of tourists long after his hit-making days had ended. He still plays at various conventions, including the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.
HonorsHenry\'s pioneering contribution to the genre has been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. In April 2007, Henry was honored for his contributions to Louisiana music with induction into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.
Covers and re-use of Henry\'s hitsThe Band recorded a version of Henry\'s 1956 song \"Ain\'t Got No Home\" for their 1973 album Moondog Matinee. It was also used in a famous bathtub scene in the cult movie The Lost Boys with actor Corey Haim singing along to it.
On his 1981 Live/Indian Summer album, Al Stewart introduced his song \"Year of the Cat\" with an odd anecdote about a mistaken-identity encounter involving Henry, Audrey Hepburn, and G. Gordon Liddy wearing an Elvis Presley mask.[5]
Henry\'s original song was later featured on the soundtrack of the 1982 film Diner. It also may be heard in a scene; Shrevie (Daniel Stern) is listening to it on his car radio and singing along.
Rod Stewart uses the chorus of \"Ain\'t Got No Home\" in his 1984 single \"Some Guys Have All the Luck\". It achieved fresh notoriety in the 1990s through its use as the \"Homeless Update\" theme music on The Rush Limbaugh Show, and was used as recently as December 7, 2017. Henry credited Limbaugh with boosting his royalties and performed on a Caribbean cruise with him.[6]
This song is also in the 1995 movie Casino playing in the background as Joe Pesci asks Robert De Niro for a 50K chip marker. Jimmy Buffett referenced Henry in his song \"Saxophones\".[7] Henry made a cameo appearance on the third season opening episode of the HBO series Treme.
His 1961 hit, \"(I Don\'t Know Why) But I Do\", was covered by Bobby Vinton in 1972 in a pop version. It was also used in a 2019 commercial for Expedia, showcasing its ability to provide dog-friendly hotel Album Record Label1961 You Always Hurt the One You Love Argo1962 Bourbon St. New Orleans CFH1970 Clarence (Frogman) Henry is Alive and Well Living in New Orleans and Still Doin\' His Thing... RouletteSinglesYear Single (A-side, B-side) Chart PositionsUS Pop[9] USR&B[3] UK[10]1956 \"Ain\'t Got No Home\"b/w \"Troubles, Troubles\" 20 3 -1957 \"Lonely Tramp\"b/w \"I\'m A Country Boy\" - - -\"It Won\'t Be Long\"b/w \"I Found A Home\" - - -1958 \"I\'m In Love\"b/w \"Baby, Baby Please\" - - -1961 \"(I Don\'t Know Why) But I Do\"b/w \"Just My Baby and Me\" 4 9 3\"You Always Hurt the One You Love\"b/w \"Little Suzy\" 12 11 6\"Lonely Street\"b/w \"Why Can\'t You\" 57 19 42\"On Bended Knees\"b/w \"Standing In The Need Of Love\" 64 - -1962 \"A Little Too Much\"b/w \"I Wish I Could Say The Same\" 77 - -\"Dream Myself A Sweetheart\"b/w \"Lost Without You\" - - -\"The Jealous Kind\"b/w \"Come On and Dance\" - - -1963 \"It Takes Two To Tango\"b/w \"If I Didn\'t Care\" - - -1964 \"Looking Back\"b/w \"Long Lost and Worried\" - - -\"Have You Ever Been Lonely\"b/w \"Little Green Frog\" - - -1965 \"You Can\'t Hide A Tear\"b/w \"I Told My Pillow\" - - -\"Tore Up Over You\"b/w \"I Might As Well\" - - -1966 \"Ain\'t Got No Home\" (re-recorded version)b/w \"Baby Ain\'t That Love\" - - -\"Cajun Honey\"b/w \"Think It Over\" - - -1967 \"Hummin\' A Heartache\"b/w \"This Time\" - - -1968 \"That\'s When I Guessed\"b/w \"Shake Your Moneymaker\" - - -1983 \"That Old Piano\"b/w \"Keep Your Hands Off Her\" - - -1993 \"(I Don\'t Know Why) But I Do\"b/w \"Ain\'t Got No Home\"A-side chart reentry - - 65Clarence \"Frogman\" Henry Biography by Bill DahlHe could sing like a girl, and he could sing like a frog. That latter trademark croak, utilized to the max on his 1956 debut smash \"Ain\'t Got No Home,\" earned good-natured Clarence Henry his nickname and jump-started a rewarding career that endured for over 40 years around the Crescent City.
Naturally, Fats Domino and Professor Longhair were young Clarence Henry\'s main influences while growing up in the Big Easy. He played piano and trombone with Bobby Mitchell & the Toppers from 1952 to 1955 before catching on with saxist Eddie Smith\'s band. Henry improvised the basic idea behind \"Ain\'t Got No Home\" on the bandstand one morning in the wee hours; when the crowd responded favorably, he honed it into something unique. Paul Gayten (New Orleans A&R man for Chess Records) concurred, hustling Henry into Cosimo Matassa\'s studio in September of 1956. Local DJ Poppa Stoppa laid the \"Frogman\" handle on the youngster when he spun the 45 (issued on the Chess subsidiary Argo), and it stuck.
Despite some fine follow-ups -- \"It Won\'t Be Long,\" \"I\'m in Love,\" the inevitable sequel \"I Found a Home\" -- Frog sank back into the marsh sales-wise until 1960, when Allen Toussaint\'s updated arrangement melded beautifully with a country-tinged Bobby Charles composition called \"(I Don\'t Know Why) But I Do.\" Henry\'s rendition of the tune proved a huge pop smash in early 1961, as did a Domino-tinged \"You Always Hurt the One You Love\" later that year.
Frogman continued to record a variety of New Orleans-styled old standards and catchy originals for Argo (Chess assembled a Henry album that boasted what may be the worst cover art in the history of rock & roll), even recording at one point with Nashville saxist Boots Randolph and pianist Floyd Cramer. But the hits dried up for good after 1961. Henry opened 18 concerts for the Beatles across the U.S. and Canada in 1964, but his main source of income came from the Bourbon Street strip, where he played for 19 years. You might still find him joyously reviving his classics at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival -- with his croak remaining as deep and melodious as ever.
He\'s best known for his hit record \"Ain\'t Got No Home\", which earned him the nickname \"Frogman\". He followed that record up with two other hits, \"(I Don\'t Know Why) But I Do\" and \"You Always Hurt The One You Love\". In 1964 he opened 18 concerts for The Beatles throughout the U.S. and Canada.
It\'s a real honor to present this interview with Mr. Clarence \"Frogman\" Henry.
Q - I don\'t know if you realize it, but we\'re both in this new book The Last Photographs Of The Beatles by Larry Marion. (IT Books / Harper Collins Books) Are you aware of that book?
A - No.
Q - The book showcases the photos of The Beatles late road manager Bob Bonis.
A - I don\'t know him.
Q - He was The Beatles American road manager from 1964 to 1966.
A - I was with \'em in \'64, when they first came over.
Q - I know that, and there\'s a black and white photograph of you performing onstage. In this book there\'s also my interview with Bob Bonis. The world has never seen these photos before.
A - Right. Is Jackie De Shannon in there and Bill Black Combo?
Q - I saw Jackie De Shannon. I can\'t say off-hand about Bill Black.
A - We were on the tour together.
Q - How did you get that gig, opening for The Beatles in 1964? Did you have the same agent?
A - Right. GAC (General Artists Corporation). My manager, Bob Aster, brought The Beatles over. He put me on the show with The Beatles.
Q - Bob Aster was with GAC?
A - Right.
Q - Did you get to spend a lot of time with The Beatles?
A - Yeah. Mostly Paul. Paul and I and the singer with the Bill Black Combo. We was real good friends. We spent a lot of time together.
Q - The Beatles were touring at that point on a private plane. Did you ride on that plane?
A - Yeah. Right. We all flew together. It was a DC-3.
Q - How many opening acts were there on that tour?
A - There was me, Jackie De Shannon and Bill Black Combo.
Q - Did you travel with your own band?
A - No. Bill Black Combo backed us up, Jackie De Shannon and myself. We had three days off in Key West, Florida.
Q - What did you do in those three days?
A - We relaxed there. We had a jam session down there.
Q - What would you and Paul McCartney talk about, music?
A - Yeah. We talked music. Paul and I and the singer from Bill Black\'s Combo; Paul wanted to know different things about us. We hung out together, Paul, the singer and I. Ringo, he wanted to know different things about me.
Q - What did he want to know?
A - How I started singing. Whatever. I forgot through the years, but he questioned me.
Q - How about John and George?
A - Well, I take the Fifth on that one. I don\'t want to get involved with them two.
Q - You don\'t want to say anything about them?
A - No. I\'d rather not. I\'d rather not publicize anything about those two. John and George, we didn\'t have any association with those two. Paul was the friendly one. We hung out together and talked together. Ringo just asked me questions about myself and my career. But I had no dealing with John or George.
Q - I\'ve had other people tell me Paul was the P.R. guy in the group.
A - Paul was the greatest. I called him a Soul Brother. He was down home. He was friendly. We couldn\'t go to The Beatles\' room. We had to get Paul to bring us there. That\'s how tight the security was. We didn\'t hang out with Ringo and the others. The only one was Paul. If we wanted to go to their room, we would call Paul and he would bring us up to their room.
Q - Did you spend time with Brian Epstein?
A - We talked a little. But he was real nice. Brian was alright. In the airport he and I would talk. He was a gentleman.
Q - Did you ever approach Brian Epstein about managing you?
A - No. I didn\'t know The Beatles were gonna be as big as they were. I\'m a type of entertainer, I don\'t get excited over entertainers. The only one I got excited over, and I wasn\'t too excited, was Fats Domino. That was my idol. But The Beatles were just like another group. I didn\'t know they was gonna be as big as they were.
Q - You\'re talking about 1964?
A - Right. I didn\'t know they was gonna be real popular. Even I had a gift they had given me, like a money clip and pictures, different things that maybe I could have had that was real valuable. I think I even give the money clip to someone. You know what I\'m talking about?
Q - I hear you.
A - I didn\'t know that even the money clip would\'ve been a lot of money or whatever, you know.
Q - That\'s strange because you probably saw The Beatles on Ed Sullivan in February of 1964.
A - Right.
Q - When they started their American tour, I believe they were performing before big crowds.
A - Oh, they were tremendous crowds. I had never seen anything like it. Ambulances and nurses and doctors was at the performance. Security was so tight. I never had that done before then.
Q - You probably thought The Beatles would be a flash in the pan.
A - Truthfully, I didn\'t know they were gonna be as big as they were.
Q - When did you think they had some staying power, the following year, 1965?
A - No. Later on through the years.
Q - The guy who started you off on your recording career was Paul Gayten?
A - Yeah. That\'s the one that gave me my first recording with Chess. Paul Gayten was in New Orleans. He and Dave Bartholomew was A&R men for different companies in New Orleans. They was real big. His wife just died a couple of weeks ago.
Q - How did he hear about you?
A - What happened was his wife was teaching at the school I go to, in West New Orleans. I was relieving Paul on his off night, on a Monday night. I was playing the same club. I wrote \"Ain\'t Got No Home\" in Gretna, Louisiana at the old Joy Lounge. When I let Paul hear the song and he played it for Leonard Chess, Leonard came down and told Paul to take me in the studio and record \"Ain\'t Got No Home\".
Q - What inspired you to write that song?
A - Eddie Smith was the bandleader at the time. We were playing the old Joy Lounge and we had played about eight hours or so or more. I was getting tired. The place was packed. It was a little place, maybe twelve by twelve or so and the people didn\'t want to go home. So, I just hit a riff on the piano that You Ain\'t Got No Home. I kept it. It stayed in mind. I wrote the words to it and Chess told Paul to take me into the studio and break it down and record it. It was a sleeper.
Q - When you sang it the first time \'live\', was that the same way you recorded it?
A - Right. It was the same thing.
Q - You recorded that song in 1956.
A - Right. What happened, Shirley And Lee had a song, \"Let The Good Times Roll\", and we didn\'t have a female to sing in the band. That\'s why I switched my voice like Shirley. I\'d been doing the Frog in high school \'cause alligators are nothing but frogs. You know a lot of insects.
Q - Beatles were insects too.
A - We used to catch beetles and tie a string to \'em and let \'em fly around in the \'40s. We go lookin\' for \'em in trees when we were kids. It was fun. It was a hobby.
Q - It didn\'t hurt the beetles, did it?
A - No. It didn\'t hurt the beetles.
Q - How far up the charts did \"Ain\'t Got No Home\" go?
A - It went to number one. It stayed in the charts for six weeks or more.
Q - What happened when \"Ain\'t Got No Home\" became a hit?
A - That\'s when Bob Astor came down to New Orleans and he came down to the old Joy Lounge to get me and go on the road. The first place I played was The Apollo Theatre with Roy Hamilton and The Crickets.
Q - Buddy Holly And The Crickets?
A - Buddy Holly and them. And The Hearbeats, Shep And The Limelites. You know, that bunch and a bunch of other ones.
Q - Did you ever tour with Elvis?
A - No, I had never met Elvis. I went on tour with Dick Clark tour with Paul Anka and a bunch of other ones. The Shirelles.
Q - Did you go on the Ed Sullivan TV show?
A - No. I never been on The Ed Sullivan Show, but I\'ve done a lot of TV shows in England. I\'ve done the BBC show over there in England. Different places. New Zealand.
Q - Was there a follow-up to \"Ain\'t Got No Home\"?
A - Oh, yeah. Well, when you made a song, you had to get a back-up. \"Ain\'t Got No Home\", then \"I Found A Home\", but they was very small. \"I Found A Home\" and different ones. Then in 1960, Leonard Chess came to New Orleans. I was playin\' in the French Quarter down on Bourbon Street and he told \'em to take me in the studio. So, Bobby Charles and Paul Gayten and I got together and we came out with \"But I Do\", and it was a big hit. (#4)
Q - And so what did that do for your career?
A - That did pretty good for me. Then \"You Always Hurt The One You Love\". (#12) I was gettin\' ready to do a dub of \"I\'m A Fool To Care\" and Joe Berry came out with it. So, we had to hurry up and get another number. So, we picked out The Ink Spots number, \"You Always Hurt The One You Love\" and we recorded in Chicago. Allen Toussaint was the A&R man then.
Q - Besides the Dick Clark tours, did you also play the Supper Clubs?
A - I worked on Bourbon Street for twenty-one years, for a gentleman named Frank Geraci and Nick Conno. They had clubs on Bourbon Street; The 500 Club, The Backstage, La Strada, 544, Big Daddy, Opera House.
Q - Who else did you tour with?
A - Ray Charles. Brenda Lee. The Shirelles. The Clovers. The Drifters. Dale Hawkins. There\'s so many. A lot of big stars. Clyde McPhatter. Jimmy Reed. You name all the old ones, I\'ve been with them. But I never played with Elvis. I played with Dion.
Q - You did cross paths with the greats.
A - Ray Charles and I were good friends.
Q - Do you still perform today?
A - Well, I slowed down. I do special occasions. I\'ve been doing the New Orleans Jazz Fest for years. In Chicago I did a lot, the Howard Theatre. The Royal Theatre.
Q - You don\'t do those package tours any more, do you?
A - I did a package in New York with Jerry Butler and a group up there. Then I went back in New Jersey and I did another package there with Frankie Ford and some different guys.
Q - How do you feel about Rush Limbaugh using your song on his radio show?
A - Oh, I love him. I was here in New Orleans and a guy by the name of Steve told me, \"Hey man, did you know there\'s a guy playing your song and does a talk show?\" I had never heard of Rush. So he said \"I\'m gonna bring you and introduce you to him.\" So, Rush and I met each other at the New Orleans Fairgrounds where they race horses. So we talked and he asked me if I would do a video with him. And I told him \"yeah.\" But just like a lot of guys tell you to do things, it would go through one ear and out the other. I thought it was out the other one. So what happened is, Rush called and I wasn\'t home. He left his number and things and I called him back and he wasn\'t in, so I told him I\'d take the job. So he flew my band and I up to Sacramento, California. We had the best limousine. We had two limousines. The best hotel. I think it was a Hilton or something. He introduced us, and I couldn\'t even pronounce it at the time, to Dom Perigone. We had a nice time. We did a video with him in Sacramento. Then after that, he asked me if I would do a cruise with him. I told him yeah and we did an eight day cruise with him in the Caribbean. That\'s when they had that war in Saudi Arabia and he left the cruise and went back to his radio show. But I never forgot Rush. Rush helped me great with my career, \'cause my royalties were down and by him playing \"Ain\'t Got No Home\", everybody started knowing about Frogman with Rush. It brought my royalties back up. I tell you, he hasn\'t done me any harm. I have nothing against Rush. You know there\'s two sides to everybody. People don\'t know the story, but I heard the story of Rush. I have nothing against Rush. But Rush haven\'t done me anything. All he did was good for me and I respect him. I give him a lot of respect.
Q - Did Hurricane Katrina damage your home?
A - It did, about a third of my house. It was roof damage. It wasn\'t flood. It destroyed my twin bedroom tremendously. In my living room it did about a third. The piano I had since I was 15 years old, for over 57 years, it destroyed the piano. The water got inside of it. I was hoping maybe someday I would get it fixed for me, \'cause I still got it in the house. My Mama made me pay for it. $610. It did about a third to my music room.
Q - You were able to get your home repaired, weren\'t you?
A - Right.
Q - Did you lose any personal possessions, like photos?
A - Out of all the photos I had in my house, I lost two. I even forgot what they were. On the wall, I only lost two photos with the water damage. It didn\'t do anything to the Beatles picture.
Q - You had a photo taken with all four Beatles?
A - Right. All four Beatles.
Q - Must be Bob Bonis that took a picture of you and The Beatles?
A - I know someone took a picture of me and The Beatles and Brian Epstein in the airport. I got a picture of that one.
Q - Maybe it\'s time for you to write a book?
A - I had a guy call me and say his son writes books and so he wanted his son to write a book about me, Ain\'t Got No Home. That\'s the way he wanted to title it. So, I got to look up the name and get me a book. I can write ten books about my life. (laughs)
Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R\'n\'B, is a genre of popular music that originated in African-American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when \"urbane, rocking, jazz based music ... [with a] heavy, insistent beat\" was becoming more popular. In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, the bands usually consisted of a piano, one or two guitars, bass, drums, one or more saxophones, and sometimes background vocalists. R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy, as well as triumphs and failures in terms of relationships, economics, and aspirations.
The term \"rhythm and blues\" has undergone a number of shifts in meaning. In the early 1950s, it was frequently applied to blues records. Starting in the mid-1950s, after this style of music had contributed to the development of rock and roll, the term \"R&B\" became used in a wider context. It referred to music styles that developed from and incorporated electric blues, as well as gospel and soul music.
From 1960s to 1970s, several British bands and groups such as the Rolling Stones, the Who and the Animals were referred to and promoted as being R&B bands. By the 1970s, the term \"rhythm and blues\" had changed again and was used as a blanket term for soul and funk. In the late 1980s, a newer style of R&B developed, becoming known as \"contemporary R&B\". It combines rhythm and blues with elements of pop, soul, funk, disco, hip hop, and electronic music.
Etymology, definitions and descriptionAlthough Jerry Wexler of Billboard magazine is credited with coining the term \"rhythm and blues\" as a musical term in the United States in 1948,[3] the term was used in Billboard as early as 1943.[4][5] It replaced the term \"race music\", which originally came from within the black community, but was deemed offensive in the postwar world.[6][7] The term \"rhythm and blues\" was used by Billboard in its chart listings from June 1949 until August 1969, when its \"Hot Rhythm & Blues Singles\" chart was renamed as \"Best Selling Soul Singles\".[8] Before the \"Rhythm and Blues\" name was instated, various record companies had already begun replacing the term \"race music\" with \"sepia series\".[9] \"Rhythm and blues\" is often abbreviated as \"R&B\" or \"R\'n\'B\".[10]
In the early 1950s, the term \"rhythm & blues\" was frequently applied to blues records.[11] Writer and producer Robert Palmer defined rhythm & blues as \"a catchall term referring to any music that was made by and for black Americans\".[12] He has used the term \"R&B\" as a synonym for jump blues.[13] However, AllMusic separates it from jump blues because of R&B\'s stronger gospel influences.[14] 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.[6] Well into the 21st century, the term R&B continues in use (in some contexts) to categorize music made by black musicians, as distinct from styles of music made by other musicians.
In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, the bands usually consisted of piano, one or two guitars, bass, drums, and saxophone. Arrangements were rehearsed to the point of effortlessness and were sometimes accompanied by background vocalists. Simple repetitive parts mesh, creating momentum and rhythmic interplay producing mellow, lilting, and often hypnotic textures while calling attention to no individual sound. While singers are emotionally engaged with the lyrics, often intensely so, they remain cool, relaxed, and in control. The bands dressed in suits, and even uniforms, a practice associated with the modern popular music that rhythm and blues performers aspired to dominate. Lyrics often seemed fatalistic, and the music typically followed predictable patterns of chords and structure.[15] R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy,[16][page needed] as well as triumphs and failures in terms of relationships, economics, and aspirations.[citation needed]
One publication of the Smithsonian Institution provided this summary of the origins of the genre in 2016.
\"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\".[2]
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\". Other artists who were \"cornerstones of R&B and its transformation into rock & roll\" include Etta James, Fats Domino, Roy Brown, Little Richard and Ruth Brown. The \"doo wop\" groups were also noteworthy, including the Orioles, the Ravens and the Dominoes.[17]
The term \"rock and roll\" had a strong sexual connotation in jump blues and R&B, but when DJ Alan Freed referred to rock and roll on mainstream radio in the mid-1950s, \"the sexual component had been dialed down enough that it simply became an acceptable term for Jordan in New York City, c. July 1946The great migration of Black Americans to the urban industrial centers of Chicago, Detroit, New York City, Los Angeles and elsewhere in the 1920s and 1930s created a new market for jazz, blues, and related genres of music. These genres of music were often performed by full-time musicians, either working alone or in small groups. The precursors of rhythm and blues came from jazz and blues, which overlapped in the late-1920s and 1930s through the work of musicians such as the Harlem Hamfats, with their 1936 hit \"Oh Red\", as well as Lonnie Johnson, Leroy Carr, Cab Calloway, Count Basie, and T-Bone Walker. There was also increasing emphasis on the electric guitar as a lead instrument, as well as the piano and saxophone.[19]
Late 1940sR&B originated in African-American communities in the 1940s.[20] In 1948, RCA Victor was marketing black music under the name \"Blues and Rhythm\". 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.[21] 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.[22][23] Lawrence Cohn described the music as \"grittier than his boogie-era jazz-tinged blues\".[6]: 173 Robert Palmer described it as \"urbane, rocking, jazz-based music ... [with a] heavy, insistent beat\".[24] Jordan\'s music, along with that of Big Joe Turner, Roy Brown, Billy Wright, and Wynonie Harris, is now also referred to as jump blues. Already Paul Gayten, Roy Brown, and others had had hits in the style now referred to as rhythm and blues. In 1948, Wynonie Harris\'s remake of Brown\'s 1947 recording \"Good Rockin\' Tonight\" reached number two on the charts, following band leader Sonny Thompson\'s \"Long Gone\" at number one.[25][26]
In 1949, the term \"Rhythm and Blues\" (R&B) replaced the Billboard category Harlem Hit Parade.[6] 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 risque and raunchy.[27] 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\".[28][29] 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\".[30] Many of these hit records were issued on new independent record labels, such as Savoy (founded 1942), King (founded 1943), Imperial (founded 1945), Specialty (founded 1946), Chess (founded 1947), and Atlantic (founded 1948).[19]
Afro-Cuban rhythmic influenceAfrican American music began incorporating Afro-Cuban rhythmic motifs in the 1800s with the popularity of the Cuban contradanza (known outside of Cuba as the habanera).[31] The habanera rhythm can be thought of as a combination of tresillo and the backbeat.The habanera rhythm shown as tresillo (lower notes) with the backbeat (upper note).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.[32] Jazz pioneer Jelly Roll Morton considered the tresillo/habanera rhythm (which he called the Spanish tinge) to be an essential ingredient of jazz.[33] There are examples of tresillo-like rhythms in some African American folk music such as the hand-clapping and foot-stomping patterns in ring shout, post-Civil War drum and fife music, and New Orleans second line music.[34] Wynton Marsalis considers tresillo to be the New Orleans \"clave\" (although technically, the pattern is only half a clave).[35] Tresillo is the most basic duple-pulse rhythmic cell in Sub-Saharan African music traditions, and its use in African American music is one of the clearest examples of African rhythmic retention in the United States.[36] The use of tresillo was continuously reinforced by the consecutive waves of Cuban music, which were adopted into North American popular culture. In 1940 Bob Zurke released \"Rhumboogie\", a boogie-woogie with a tresillo bass line, and lyrics proudly declaring the adoption of Cuban rhythm:
Harlem\'s got a new rhythm, man it\'s burning up the dance floors because it\'s so hot! They took a little rhumba rhythm and added boogie-woogie and now look what they got! Rhumboogie, it\'s Harlem\'s new creation with the Cuban syncopation, it\'s the killer! Just plant your both feet on each side. Let both your hips and shoulder glide. Then throw your body back and ride. There\'s nothing like rhumbaoogie, rhumboogie, boogie-woogie. In Harlem or Havana, you can kiss the old Savannah. It\'s a killer![37]
Although originating in the metropolis at the mouth of the Mississippi River, New Orleans blues, with its Afro-Caribbean rhythmic traits, is distinct from the sound of the Mississippi Delta blues.[38] In the late 1940s, New Orleans musicians were especially receptive to Cuban influences precisely at the time when R&B was first forming.[39] The first use of tresillo in R&B occurred in New Orleans. Robert Palmer recalls:Fats Domino in 1956New 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. He recalls first hearing the figure – as a bass pattern on a Cuban disc.[40]
In a 1988 interview with Palmer, Bartholomew (who had the first R&B studio band),[41] revealed how he initially superimposed tresillo over swing rhythm:
I heard the bass playing that part on a \'rumba\' record. On \'Country Boy\' I had my bass and drums playing a straight swing rhythm and wrote out that \'rumba\' bass part for the saxes to play on top of the swing rhythm. Later, especially after rock \'n\' roll came along, I made the \'rumba\' bass part heavier and heavier. I\'d have the string bass, an electric guitar and a baritone all in unison.[42]
Bartholomew referred to the Cuban son by the misnomer rumba, a common practice of that time. Fats Domino\'s \"Blue Monday\", produced by Bartholomew, is another example of this now classic use of tresillo in R&B. Bartholomew\'s 1949 tresillo-based \"Oh Cubanas\" is an attempt to blend African American and Afro-Cuban music. The word mambo, larger than any of the other text, is placed prominently on the record label. In his composition \"Misery\", New Orleans pianist Professor Longhair plays a habanera-like figure in his left hand.[citation needed] The deft use of triplets is a characteristic of Longhair\'s style. { \ew PianoStaff << \ew Staff << \elative c\'\' { \\clef treble \\key f \\major \\time 4/4 \\tuplet 3/2 { r8 f f } \\tuplet 3/2 { f f f } \\tuplet 3/2 { f f f } \\tuplet 3/2 { f f f } r4 r8 <e g> <d f>4 \\acciaccatura { c16 d } <c e>8 <bes d> \\tuplet 3/2 { r8 f\' f } \\tuplet 3/2 { f f f } \\tuplet 3/2 { f d bes } \\tuplet 3/2 { f g gis } a } >> \ew Staff << \elative c, { \\clef bass \\key f \\major \\time 4/4 f4 d\'8 a c4 d8 a bes4. d8 f4 d8 a bes4. d8 f4 d8 e, f4 } >> >> }Gerhard Kubik notes that with the exception of New Orleans, early blues lacked complex polyrhythms, and there was a \"very specific absence of asymmetric time-line patterns (key patterns) in virtually all early-twentieth-century African American music ... only in some New Orleans genres does a hint of simple time line patterns occasionally appear in the form of transient so-called \'stomp\' patterns or stop-time chorus. These do not function in the same way as African timelines.\"[43] In the late 1940s, this changed somewhat when the two-celled timeline structure was brought into the blues. New Orleans musicians such as Bartholomew and Longhair incorporated Cuban instruments, as well as the clave pattern and related two-celled figures in songs such as \"Carnival Day\", (Bartholomew 1949) and \"Mardi Gras In New Orleans\" (Longhair 1949). While some of these early experiments were awkward fusions, the Afro-Cuban elements were eventually integrated fully into the New Orleans sound.
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.\"[44] He was especially enamored with Afro-Cuban music. Michael Campbell states: \"Professor Longhair\'s influence was ... far-reaching. In several of his early recordings, Professor Longhair blended Afro-Cuban rhythms with rhythm and blues. The most explicit is \'Longhair\'s Blues Rhumba,\' where he overlays a straightforward blues with a clave rhythm.\"[45] Longhair\'s particular style was known locally as rumba-boogie.[46] In his \"Mardi Gras in New Orleans\", the pianist employs the 2–3 clave onbeat/offbeat motif in a rumba boogie \"guajeo\".[47]Piano excerpt from the rumba boogie \"Mardi Gras in New Orleans\" (1949) by Professor Longhair. 2–3 claves are written above for rhythmic reference.The syncopated, but straight subdivision feel of Cuban music (as opposed to swung subdivisions) took root in New Orleans R&B during this time. Alexander Stewart states that the popular feel was passed along from \"New Orleans—through James Brown\'s music, to the popular music of the 1970s,\" adding: \"The singular style of rhythm & blues that emerged from New Orleans in the years after World War II played an important role in the development of funk. 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.[48] Concerning the various funk motifs, Stewart states that this model \"... is different from a time line (such as clave and tresillo) in that it is not an exact pattern, but more of a loose organizing principle.\"[49]
Johnny Otis released the R&B mambo \"Mambo Boogie\" in January 1951, featuring congas, maracas, claves, and mambo saxophone guajeos in a blues progression.[50] Ike Turner recorded \"Cubano Jump\" (1954) an electric guitar instrumental, which is built around several 2–3 clave figures, adopted from the mambo. 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!\" in the break after the introduction.[51]
Ned Sublette states: \"The electric blues cats were very well aware of Latin music, and there was definitely such a thing as rhumba blues; you can hear Muddy Waters and Howlin\' Wolf playing it.\"[52] He also cites Otis Rush, Ike Turner and Ray Charles, as R&B artists who employed this feel.[52]
The use of clave in R&B coincided with the growing dominance of the backbeat, and the rising popularity of Cuban music in the U.S. In a sense, clave can be distilled down to tresillo (three-side) answered by the backbeat (two-side).[53]3–2 clave written in two measures in cut-time
Tresillo answered by the backbeat, the essence of clave in African American musicThe \"Bo Diddley beat\" (1955) is perhaps the first true fusion of 3–2 clave and R&B/rock \'n\' roll. Bo Diddley has given different accounts of the riff\'s origins. Sublette asserts: \"In the context of the time, and especially those maracas [heard on the record], \'Bo Diddley\' has to be understood as a Latin-tinged record. A rejected cut recorded at the same session was titled only \'Rhumba\' on the track sheets.\"[52] Johnny Otis\'s \"Willie and the Hand Jive\" (1958) is another example of this successful blend of 3–2 claves and R&B. Otis used the Cuban instruments claves and maracas on the song.Bo Diddley\'s \"Bo Diddley beat\" is a clave-based motif.Afro-Cuban music was the conduit by which African American music was \"re-Africanized\", through the adoption of two-celled figures like clave and Afro-Cuban instruments like the conga drum, bongos, maracas and claves. According to John Storm Roberts, R&B became the vehicle for the return of Cuban elements into mass popular music.[54] Ahmet Ertegun, producer for Atlantic Records, is reported to have said that \"Afro-Cuban rhythms added color and excitement to the basic drive of R&B.\"[55] 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. By the time people began to talk about rock and roll as having a history, Cuban music had vanished from North American consciousness.\"[56]
Early to mid-1950s
Little Richard in 1967At first, only African Americans were buying R&B discs. According to Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records, sales were localized in African-American markets; there were no white sales or white radio play. During the early 1950s, more white teenagers started to become aware of R&B and began purchasing the music. For example, 40% of 1952 sales at Dolphin\'s of Hollywood record shop, located in an African-American area of Los Angeles, were to whites. Eventually, white teens across the country turned their musical taste toward rhythm and blues.[57]
Johnny Otis, who had signed with the Newark, New Jersey-based Savoy Records, produced many R&B hits in 1951, including \"Double Crossing Blues\", \"Mistrustin\' Blues\" and \"Cupid\'s Boogie\", all of which hit number one that year. Otis scored ten top ten hits that year. Other hits include \"Gee Baby\", \"Mambo Boogie\" and \"All Nite Long\".[58] The Clovers, a quintet consisting of a vocal quartet with accompanying guitarist, sang a distinctive-sounding combination of blues and gospel,[59] had the number five hit of the year with \"Don\'t You Know I Love You\" on Atlantic.[58][60][61] 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).[62][63] Freed\'s show was sponsored by Fred Mintz, whose R&B record store had a primarily African American clientele. Freed began referring to the rhythm and blues music he played as \"rock and roll\".
In 1951 Little Richard Penniman began recording for RCA Records in the jump blues style of late 1940s stars Roy Brown and Billy Wright. However, it was not until he recorded a demo in 1954 that caught the attention of Specialty Records that the world would start to hear his new uptempo funky rhythm and blues that would catapult him to fame in 1955 and help define the sound of rock \'n\' roll. A rapid succession of rhythm and blues hits followed, beginning with \"Tutti Frutti\"[64] and \"Long Tall Sally\", which would influence performers such as James Brown,[65] Elvis Presley,[66] and Otis Redding.[65]
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. This song is often cited as a precursor to rock and roll or as one of the first records in that genre.[67] In a later interview, however, Ike Turner offered this comment: \"I don\'t think that \'Rocket 88\' is rock \'n\' roll. I think that \'Rocket 88\' is R&B, but I think \'Rocket 88\' is the cause of rock and roll existing\".[68]Ruth Brown was known as the \"Queen of R&B\".[69]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\".[59] Faye Adams\'s \"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 Leiber and Stoller\'s \"Hound Dog\"[70] the year\'s number three hit. Ruth Brown was very prominent among female R&B stars; her popularity most likely came from \"her deeply rooted vocal delivery in African American tradition\"[71] [72] That same year The Orioles, a doo-wop group, had the number four hit of the year with \"Crying in the Chapel\".[73]
Fats Domino made the top 30 of the pop charts in 1952 and 1953, then the top 10 with \"Ain\'t That a Shame\".[74][75] Ray Charles came to national prominence in 1955 with \"I Got a Woman\".[76] Big Bill Broonzy said of Charles\'s music: \"He\'s mixing the blues with the spirituals ... I know that\'s wrong.\"[6]: 173
In 1954 the Chords\' \"Sh-Boom\"[77] became the first hit to cross over from the R&B chart to hit the top 10 early in the year. Late in the year, and into 1955, \"Hearts of Stone\" by the Charms made the top 20.[78]
At Chess Records in the spring of 1955, Bo Diddley\'s debut record \"Bo Diddley\"/\"I\'m a Man\" climbed to number two on the R&B charts and popularized Bo Diddley\'s own original rhythm and blues clave-based vamp that would become a mainstay in rock and roll.[79]
At the urging of Leonard Chess at Chess Records, Chuck Berry reworked a country fiddle tune with a long history, entitled \"Ida Red\".[80] The resulting \"Maybellene\" was not only a number three hit on the R&B charts in 1955, but also reached into the top 30 on the pop charts. Alan Freed, who had moved to the much larger market of New York City in 1954, helped the record become popular with white teenagers. Freed had been given part of the writing credit by Chess in return for his promotional activities, a common practice at the time.[81]
R&B was also a strong influence on rock and roll.[82] A 1985 article in the Wall Street Journal titled, \"Rock! It\'s Still Rhythm and Blues\"[full citation needed] said that the \"two terms were used interchangeably\" until about 1957. The other sources quoted in the article said that rock and roll combined R&B with pop and country music.[83]
Fats Domino was not convinced that there was any new genre. In 1957, he said, \"What they call rock \'n\' roll now is rhythm and blues. I\'ve been playing it for 15 years in New Orleans\".[84] According to Rolling Stone, \"this is a valid statement ... all Fifties rockers, black and white, country born and city bred, were fundamentally influenced by R&B, the black popular music of the late Forties and early Fifties\".[85]
Late 1950s
Della ReeseIn 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.[86] 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.[87] Cities visited by the tour included Columbia, South Carolina; Annapolis, Maryland; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo, New York; and other cities.[citation needed] 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\". 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.[88] Filmmakers took advantage of the popularity of \"rhythm and blues\" musicians as \"rock n roll\" musicians beginning in 1956. Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Big Joe Turner, the Treniers, the Platters, and the Flamingos all made it onto the big screen.[89]
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.[90] Nat King Cole, also a jazz pianist who had 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\".[91]
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.[92] Brook Benton was at the top of the R&B charts in 1959 and 1960 with one number one and two number two hits.[93] 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.[94] Lloyd Price, who in 1952 had a number one hit with \"Lawdy Miss Clawdy\", regained predominance with a version of \"Stagger Lee\" at number one and \"Personality\" at number five in 1959.[95][96]
The white bandleader of the Bill Black Combo, Bill Black, who had helped start Elvis Presley\'s career and was Elvis\'s bassist in the 1950s, was popular with black listeners.[citation needed] Ninety percent of his record sales were from black people, and his \"Smokie, Part 2\" (1959) rose to the number one position on black music charts.[citation needed] He was once told that \"a lot of those stations still think you\'re a black group because the sound feels funky and black.\"[citation needed] Hi Records did not feature pictures of the Combo on early records.[97]
1960s–1970s
Sam CookeSam Cooke\'s number five hit \"Chain Gang\" is indicative of R&B in 1960, as is pop rocker Chubby Checker\'s number five hit \"The Twist\".[96][98] By the early 1960s, the music industry category previously known as rhythm and blues was being called soul music, and similar music by white artists was labeled blue-eyed soul.[99][92] Motown Records had its first million-selling single in 1960 with the Miracles\' \"Shop Around\",[100] and in 1961, Stax Records had its first hit with Carla Thomas\'s \"Gee Whiz (Look at His Eyes)\".[101][102] Stax\'s next major hit, The Mar-Keys\' instrumental \"Last Night\" (also released in 1961), introduced the rawer Memphis soul sound for which Stax became known.[103] In Jamaica, R&B influenced the development of ska.[104][105] In 1969, black culture and rhythm and blues reached another great achievement when the Grammys added the Rhythm and Blues category, giving academic recognition to the category.[citation needed]
By the 1970s, the term \"rhythm and blues\" was being used as a blanket term for soul, funk, and disco.[106]
1980s to presentMain article: Contemporary R&BIn the late 1980s and early 1990s, hip-hop started to capture the imagination of America\'s youth. R&B started to become homogenized, with a group of high-profile producers responsible for most R&B hits. It was hard for R&B artists of the era to sell their music or even have their music heard because of the rise of hip-hop, but some adopted a \"hip-hop\" image, were marketed as such, and often featured rappers on their songs. In 1990, Billboard reintroduced R&B to categorize all of Black popular music other than hip-hop.[107] Newer artists such as Usher, R. Kelly, Janet Jackson, TLC, Aaliyah, Destiny\'s Child, Tevin Campbell and Mary J. Blige enjoyed success. L.A. Reid, the CEO of LaFace Records, was responsible for some of R&B\'s greatest successes in the 1990s in the form of Usher, TLC and Toni Braxton. Later, Reid successfully marketed Boyz II Men.[108] In 2004, 80% of the songs that topped the R&B charts were also at the top of the Hot 100. That period was the all-time peak for R&B and hip hop on the Billboard Hot 100 and on Top 40 Radio.[109] From about 2005 to 2013, R&B sales declined.[110] However, since 2010, hip-hop has started to take cues from the R&B sound, choosing to adopt a softer, smoother sound that incorporates traditional R&B with rappers such as Drake, who has opened an entire new door for the genre. This sound has gained in popularity and created great controversy for both hip-hop and R&B as to how to identify it.[111]
Jews in the business end of rhythm and bluesMain article: Jewish influence in rhythm and bluesAccording to the Jewish writer, music publishing executive, and songwriter Arnold Shaw, during the 1940s in the US, there was generally little opportunity for Jews in the WASP-controlled realm of mass communications, but the music business was \"wide open for Jews as it was for blacks\".[112] Jews played a key role in developing and popularizing African American music, including rhythm and blues, and the independent record business was dominated by young Jewish men who promoted the sounds of black music.[113]
British rhythm and bluesMain article: British rhythm and blues
Eric Burdon & the Animals (1964)British rhythm and blues and blues rock developed in the early 1960s, largely as a response to the recordings of American artists, often brought over by African American servicemen stationed in Britain or seamen visiting ports such as London, Liverpool, Newcastle and Belfast.[114][115] 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\".[116] During the 1960s, Geno Washington, the Foundations, and the Equals gained pop hits.[117] Many British black musicians helped form the British R&B scene. These included Geno Washington, an American singer stationed in England with the Air Force. He was invited to join what became Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band by guitarist Pete Gage in 1965 and enjoyed top 40 hit singles and two top 10 albums before the band split up in 1969.[118] 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. They released a live album and their studio debut, The New Religion, in 1966 and achieved moderate success with a few singles before the original Vagabonds broke up in 1970.[119] White blues rock musician Alexis Korner formed new jazz rock band CCS in 1970.[120] Interest in the blues would influence major British rock musicians, including Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor, Peter Green, and John Mayall, the groups Free and Cream adopted an interest in a wider range of rhythm and blues styles.[116]
The Rolling Stones became the second most popular UK band (after The Beatles)[121] and led the \"British Invasion\" of the US pop charts.[116] The Rolling Stones covered Bobby Womack & the Valentinos\'[122] song It\'s All Over Now\", giving them their first UK number one in 1964.[123] Under the influence of blues and R&B, bands such as the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, and the Animals, and more jazz-influenced bands like the Graham Bond Organisation and Zoot Money, had blue-eyed soul albums.[116] White R&B musicians popular in the UK included Steve Winwood, Frankie Miller, Scott Walker & the Walker Brothers, the Animals from Newcastle, [124] the Spencer Davis Group, and Van Morrison & Them from Belfast.[116] None of these bands exclusively played rhythm and blues, but it remained at the core of their early albums.[116]
Champion Jack Dupree was a New Orleans blues and boogie woogie pianist who toured Europe and settled there from 1960, living in Switzerland and Denmark, then in Halifax, England in the 1970s and 1980s, before finally settling in Germany.[125] From the \'70s to \'80s, Carl Douglas, Hot Chocolate, Delegation, Junior, Central Line, Princess, Jacki Graham, David Grant, the Loose Ends, the Pasadenas and Soul II Soul gained hits on pop or R&B chart.[126] 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.[127] In the late \'60s, The Who performed American R&B songs such as the Motown hit \"Heat Wave\", a song which reflected the young mod lifestyle.[127] Many of these bands enjoyed national success in the UK, but found it difficult to break into the American music market.[127] The British White R&B bands produced music which was very different in tone from that of African-American artists.[116]
See also
Wikiquote has quotations related to Rhythm and blues. Rhythm and blues portalList of R&B musiciansList of artists who reached number one on the Billboard R&B chartList of number-one rhythm and blues hits (United States)Music of the United States
Composer, Blues pianist, and singer Clarence “Frogman” Henry was born Clarence Henry II on March 19, 1937, in New Orleans, Louisiana, to Clarence Henry, an L&N railroad porter, and Ernestine Henry. They had six children and reared them in the Algiers neighborhood on the West Bank of the Mississippi River. As a child, Frogman began piano lessons with the legendary Blues pianists Antoine “Fats Domino” Dominique Domino Jr. and Henry Roeland “Professor Longhair” Byrd. Young Clarence Henry earned “Frogman” because of his interpreted frog-like falsetto sound.
From 1953 to 1955, Frogman played piano and trombone with his classmate’s band, Bobby Mitchell & the Toppers and then in saxophonist Eddie Smith’s band. His first hit would become his R&B classic, “Ain’t Got No Home,” recorded in the Cosimo Matassa studio in New Orleans in 1956. The song, sung partly in a baritone voice, a falsetto voice, and a frog’s voice, peaked at no. 3 on Billboard R&B chart and no. 20 on the Billboard Pop Chart. In 1957, Frogman toured outside the United States for the first time, playing concerts in England, Jamaica, Germany, New Zealand, Scotland.
Frogman scored three hits in 1961. They were “I Don’t Know Why I Love You but I Do” that peaked at no. 3 on the UK chart and no. 4 US chart. He followed with “You Always Hurt the One You Love” that reached no. 6 UK, no. 11 R&B, and no. 13 US Pop Chart. His “Lonely Streets” made it to no. 19 R&B and no. 57 on the US Pop chart. During that year, he was featured on Dick Clark’s American Band Stand and in 1962 he was invited to tour Great Britain with Bobby Vee and Michael Anthony Orlando Cassavitis who later became Tony Orlando.
In 1964, Frogman was the opening act for 21 days with the Beatles in Great Britain and then the opening act for 18 Beatles concerts in Canada and the United States. When he was not on tour, Frogman could be found performing in various night clubs in the French Quarters of New Orleans.
After an 18-year hiatus from recording music (although he still performed) Frogman returned to England in 1982 and recorded the album, The Legendary Frogman Henry for Silvertone Records. In 1994, his song “I Don’t Know Why But I Do” was included on the Forest Gump soundtrack. Following the release of the film and his rediscovery by the public, the song sold eight million copies.
In 2007, Clarence “Frogman” Henry was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.