In Brief:
rhythm and blues, also called rhythm & blues or R&B, term used for several types of postwar African-American popular music, as well as for some white rock music derived from it. The term was coined by Jerry Wexler in 1947, when he was editing the charts at the trade journal Billboard and found that the record companies issuing black popular music considered the chart names then in use (Harlem Hit Parade, Sepia, Race) to be demeaning. King Records in Cincinnati, Ohio, the Chess and Vee Jay labels in Chicago, and Duke/Peacock Records in Houston, Texas, also played pivotal roles in the spread of rhythm and blues, as did Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee-before Sam Phillips turned his attention to Elvis Presley and rockabilly music-and J&M Studio in New Orleans, Louisiana, where a number of the most important records released on the Los Angeles-based labels were recorded.. The division based on the age of the intended audience for black popular music also meant that, by the mid-1950s, much of the guitar-led electric blues music coming from Chicago and Memphis was now considered rhythm and blues, since it appealed to older buyers. When Turner married the former Anna Mae Bullock and rechristened her Tina Turner, the Ike and Tina Turner Revue became a significant force in the modernization of rhythm and blues, dispensing with the horn section but including a trio of female backing singers who were modeled on Ray Charles's Raelettes..
