This blog takes a look at the early R&B scene, before the advent of rock’n’roll in the mid-1950s – R&B before rock’n’roll story.

COMPANION PODCAST
R&B Before Rock’n’Roll

R&B BEFORE ROCK’N’ROLL

ROOTS

Rock’n’Roll emerged in the mid-1950s as an amalgam of both black and white musical roots: gospel, blues, jazz, jump blues, R&B, Doo Wop, coupled with, country, hillbilly, rock-a-billy and bluegrass.

It all started with gospel music. After the American Civil War, in the mid-19th century, people moved north from the plantations to the cities, St Louis, Chicago and Memphis. By the end of the 19th century the syncopated rhythms of ragtime and the improvisational nature of jazz had arrived.

February 1928: James “Boodle It” Wiggins recorded Keep a Knockin’ An You Can’t Get In.
This was the original version and has since been covered numerous times.

VOCAL HARMONY GROUPS

December 1931: The Mills Brothers released Tiger Rag.
Released on Brunswick, the same label that The Who released their early singles on decades later. The song was categorised as jazz at the time, the term R&B was not coined until late 1940s.

4 January 1935: The Ink Spots’ first recording session.
At the RCA New York Studios they cut a number of songs including, Swingin’ On the Strings and Don’t ‘Low No Swingin’ In Here.
The latter became a firm favourite with British skiffle groups in the mid-1950s, usually titled, Mama Don’t Allow.

JUMP BLUES

Hard times in the great depression of the 1930s drove many swing-jazz big bands out of business. Jump blues filled the gap. Patrons of dance halls needed small groups who could match the volume and atmosphere of the departed big bands. Singers would shout and saxophonists would honk. This gave performers names like shouters and honkers.

Jump blues was an uptempo jazz-tinged style of blues. Usually characterised by a vocalist in front of a large horn-driven orchestra or medium sized combo with multiple horns. The style had a driving rhythm, intensely shouted vocal and honking tenor saxophone solos. There was also less reliance on the guitar as a lead instrument. It also had a hard, rhythmic drive and snare beat emphasis on the backbeat, 2 and 4. Very much a precursor of rock’n’roll. Jump blues provided a bridge between the older styles of blues and the big-band jazz sound of the 1930s. Innovators of the style included Joe Turner and Louis Jordan.

The term R&B wasn’t coined until the late 1940s. There is a considerable overlap between, blues, jazz, jump blues, R&B and Doo Wop. The crossover from one genre to another is very hazy. Therefore, this article will not try to pigeon-hole songs and artists into particular genres.

LOUIS JORDAN

April 1939: Rodney Sturgis released So Good.
The label credit gave it to “Rodney Sturgis with Louis Jordan’s Elks Rendezvous Band”. Louis Jordan then formed his own band, Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five. They had considerable success, with 57 R&B hits in the Billboard R&B Top-40 between 1942 and 1951. (The book of the Billboard R&B Top-40 starts in 1942 and so the actual number of hits will be greater than this.)

March 1939: Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five recorded Keep a Knockin’.
The information on the label includes “Blues Vocal, Foxtrot”.
Keep a Knockin’ An You Can’t Get In was originally released by James “Boodle It” Wiggins in 1928. It was also covered by Little Richard in 1957.

Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five have two songs chosen by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of their 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll.
12 May 1945: Caldonia entered the Billboard R&B Top-40, it was their 11th R&B hit and was a #1 for 7 weeks.
8 October 1949: Saturday Night Fish Fry (Parts 1 & 2) entered the Billboard R&B Top-40, this was their 50th R&B hit and spent 12 weeks at #1.

BIRTH OF R&B
mid-1940s: R&B was born in the clubs of St Louis and Memphis.
St Louis was large, wealthy city which could employ a larger number of jazz and blues musicians. R&B evolved out of the simpler blues music. It added more instruments, was more upbeat and designed for dancing.

17 March 1945: Big Joe Turner’s SK Blues Part 1 entered the Billboard R&B Top-40.
This gave Big Joe Turner his first R&B hit, peaking at #3.

ATLANTIC RECORDS

1947: Atlantic Records formed in New York.
Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson set up the label. To get an edge on other labels, they paid 3-5% royalties, whereas other labels tended to pay less than 2%.
August 1947: Boyd Raeburn recorded St Louis Blues.
This is the earliest single I can find that was released on the Atlantic label.

2 April 1949: Sticks McGhee and His Buddies entered the Billboard R&B Top-40 with Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee.
This record gave Atlantic its first big hit, peaking at #2.
Stick McGhee and His Buddy originally released Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee on the Harlem label in 1947.

GOOD ROCKING TONIGHT

November 1947: Roy Brown released Good Rocking Tonight.
Roy Brown wrote the song but it failed to find national success with this initial release.
That all changed afterWynonie Harris entered the Billboard R&B Top-40 on 1 May 1948, giving him his third R&B hit and a #1 single. A few weeks later Roy Browns version charted, giving him his first R&B hit, although that peaked at #11.
22 September 1954: Elvis Presley released Good Rocking Tonight as his second Sun single. This was before Elvis found fame at RCA, this Sun release failed to trouble any of the charts.

DOO WOP

Doo wop developed as a sub-genre of R&B. It was dominated by vocal harmonies, with an overall feel of R&B. The harmonies highlighted falsetto and tenor leads with the bass vocals given more prominence than just as background vocals. Doo Wop lyrics were less suggestive than R&B, less raunchy. They often featured up tempo, innocent love lyrics, incorporating nonsense syllables.
The term doo wop is often accredited to DJ Gus Gossert. In an interview he said that it was a phrase he’d heard in the 1955 song When You Dance, by The Turbans.

THE RAVENS

The big bang of doo wop is often attributed to the Ravens. Jimmy Ricks provided lead vocal bass and they introduced dance steps to their stage performances. This performance style proved very popular with later Motown artists such as the Temptations and Four Tops.

summer 1946: The Ravens released their first single Honey.
10 January 1948: They entered the Billboard R&B Top-40 with Write Me a Letter.
This provided them with their first R&B hit, peaking at #5.

THE ORIOLES

4 September 1948: The Orioles first single, It’s Too Soon to Know, was reviewed in Billboard magazine.
It was chosen as one of “The Billboard Picks”, a new release most likely to gain airplay and chart. They were right, the single made #1.
The Ravens and Orioles were not the first successful black vocal groups, they were preceded by the Ink Spots and the Mills Brothers in the 1930s. By the end of the 1940s a new era of more earthy black vocal groups began to emerge. The Orioles and the Ravens were amongst the first to sing in this new style, which became known as doo wop. They were followed by a multitude of street-corner vocal groups, some going on to international fame. Most of the hopefuls failed to find any sustained success and the genre generated a plethora of one-hit-wonders. As the 1950s became the 1960s, doo wop had run its course.
The last Orioles R&B hit, In the Mission of Saint Augustine, came long before this, in 1953.

“R&B” COINED

25 June 1949: The Billboard magazine changed the name of its charts from “Race Music” to “Rhythm & Blues”.
Jerry Wexler worked at Billboard and is accredited with coining the term “Rhythm & Blues”. America was a very segregated place in the 1940s, even the record charts differentiated between black and white artists. In 1948 record company RCA Victor started to market its “race music” as “blues and rhythm”. Billboard magazine followed suit in 1949: their Best Selling Retail Race Records chart, became the Best-Selling Retail Rhythm & Blues Records and the Most-Played Juke Box Race Records chart became Most-Played Juke Box Rhythm & Blues Records.
Jerry Wexler joined Atlantic in 1953. When Herb Abramson was drafted into the US Army, Wexler was brought in to produce R&B for black audiences and extend the record company’s appeal.

July 1949: Ruth Brown released So Long.
This was Ruth Brown’s first R&B hit, peaking at #4. She became one of Atlantic Records’ most successful artists, with Atlantic Records becoming known as, “The house that Ruth built.”

FATS DOMINO

10 December 1949: Fats Domino recorded The Fat Man.
Fats Domino and Dave Bartholomew wrote the song. It was one of the tracks recorded at Cosimo Matassa’s J&M Studios in New Orleans. The Fat Man gave him his first R&B hit, peaking at #2 and is also considered as a contender the title of “first rock’n’roll record”.
Sales of Fats Domino’s records are estimated at over 65 million. He has sold more records than any other 1950s rock’n’roller, with the exception of Elvis Presley.

around 1950: Doo Wop group The Royals formed with Levi Stubbs. He went on to form the Four Tops 1954, although they were originally called the Four Aims.

CHESS RECORDS

mid-1950: Aristocrat became Chess Records, when Chess brothers, Leonard and Phil took complete control of the Aristocrat label and renamed it Chess Records.
The first Chess release, Bless You c/w My Foolish Heart by Gene Ammons, was given the number 1425. This was taken from the childhood address of the Chess family home at 1425 South Karlov Street in Chicago.
The second release, Chess 1426, was Muddy Waters’ self-penned Rollin’ Stone. Brian Jones’s inspiration for the name of his group’s new lineup, when he was joined by Mick Jagger and Keith Richard, was taken from this song title. The group debuted as the Rollin’ Stones at London’s Marquee club on 12 July 1962.

26 May 1951: The Dominoes Sixty Minute Man entered the Billboard R&B Top-40.
It was a their second R&B hit and spent 14 weeks at #1. The lineup included Billy Ward, with lead vocals from founder Clyde McPhatter, who went on to form the Drifters. The song is also another contender for the accolade of first rock’n’roll record.

THE FIRST ROCK’N’ROLL RECORD

5 March 1951: Jackie Brenston recorded Rocket 88.
This is the single which is most often cited as the first rock’n’roll record. It was written by Jackie Brenston and recorded by Sam Phillips at his Memphis Recording Service studio. The recording was made before Sam Phillips set up his own Sun Records. After recording at his own studio, he would release the single under licence on other record labels. Rocket 88 was released on the Chess label.
The session was arranged by Ike Turner to record his own Ike Turner and His Kings of Rhythm band. They cut four tracks that day. Piano player Turner took the lead vocal on Heartbroken and Worried and I’m Lonesome Baby. These were coupled as a single and released as Ike Turner and His Kings of Rhythm. Sax player Jackie Brenston took lead vocal on Rocket 88, this was coupled with Come Back Where You Belong and released as Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats. Willie Kizart played the fuzz guitar and delivered one of rock’n’roll’s first examples of deliberate distortion.
Bill Haley and His Saddle Men recorded Rocket 88 shortly afterwards, before they became Bill Haley and His Comets.
Origin of the song title – Rocket 88 was a motor car, an Oldsmobile Rocket Hydra-Matic 88.
12 May 1951: Rocket 88 entered the Billboard R&B Top-40. It was Jackie Brenston’s first and only R&B hit, a #1 for 5 weeks.

ALAN FREED

11 July 1951: Alan Freed started his R&B show on WJW in Cleveland, Ohio.
He called himself “Moondog” and was one of the first American DJs to popularise R&B. His show, The Moon Dog Rock’n’Roll House Party, introduced R&B to a young, white audience.
Alan Freed is accredited with coining the term “rock’n’roll”. It’s interesting to note that Richard Whiting wrote a song called Rock and Roll in 1934 but that had a very different context.
Throughout the 1940s Alan Freed appeared on radio and television as a sports presenter and DJ. Local record store owner Leo Mintz encouraged him to present the R&B radio show on WJW. As the popularity of rock’n’roll music increased, he became one of the most influential DJs on radio and television. His activities soon expanded to include concert promotions and movies.
Freed had to drop the name “Moondog” after a threatened lawsuit from Louis Thomas “Moondog” Hardin. The legendary street performer moved to New York in the early-1940s. He could be found, resplendent in Viking cape, helmet and complete with spear, performing at the corner of 54th Street and Sixth Avenue.

RAREST DOO WOP RECORD

1952: The Five Sharps released Stormy Weather on the Jubilee label.
Considered to be one of the rarest doo wop records, it sold in 2003 for $19,000.

1952: Sonny Wilson released The Rainy Day Blues on Dee Gee Records.
This particular single failed to bother the charts. Dizzy Gillespie owned the Dee Gee label.
Sonny Williams became better known as Jackie Wilson. He had his first R&B hit in 1958 with, To Be Loved, which peaked at #7.

HOUND DOG

13 August 1952: Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton recorded Hound Dog.
This was to be her only R&B hit, although it stayed on the charts for seven weeks at #1.
The song is one of Leiber and Stoller’s earliest compositions. The backing is provided by the Johnny Otis Band. The original release gave the writing credit to, Leiber, Stoller and Johnny Otis. Leiber and Stoller disputed this and by the time that the Elvis version hit the streets in 1956, Otis’s name was no longer there.
4 August 1956: Elvis Presley entered the Billboard Top-40. It was #1 for 11 weeks and his seventh Top-40 hit.

1 August 1953: The Orioles’ Crying in the Chapel entered the Billboard R&B Top-40.
It was their tenth R&B hit and spent five weeks at #1. This doo wop classic was the group’s penultimate R&B hit.
The original recording of this song was by Darrell Glenn. It was released on 16 June 1953 but failed to find any chart success.
Elvis Presley scored a #3 with the song in 1965.

THE DRIFTERS

7 May 1953: Clyde McPhatter signed to Atlantic.
After leaving Billy Ward and the Dominoes, Atlantic Records gave him a mandate to put together a new group. The result was the first incarnation of the Drifters. This initial lineup recorded a number of songs, including the McPhatter penned Lucille. The executives at Atlantic were deeply unimpressed with the results of the recording session and that lineup was disbanded. The new lineup comprised, Bill Pinkney (who later ran his own version of The Drifters), Andrew “Bubba” Thrasher, his brother Gerhardt and Willie Ferbie. Their first single together, Money Honey, was a massive success.
31 October 1953: Money Honey entered the Billboard R&B Top 40 Hits.
It hit the top spot and stayed there for 11 weeks. The artist label credit gave “Clyde McPhatter and The Drifters”, rather than just “The Drifters”.
The Drifters has a fascinating history. More than 60 singers, including half-a-dozen lead vocalists, passed through its ranks. On 30 May 1958 the whole group was sacked and replaced by Ben E King’s group. They were re-named to “The Drifters” and the legend continued…

VEE-JAY RECORDS

5 May 1953: the Spaniels recorded Baby It’s You.
This reached #10 on the R&B charts for the newly-formed record label Vee-Jay.
Vee-Jay became famous as the American label which signed the Beatles after Capitol records turned them down.
1 May 1954: their second hit, Goodnite Sweetheart Goodnite, gave them an R&B #5 and delivered one of the all-time classic doo wop songs.

1954: Four Tops formed as the Four Aims in Detroit Michigan.
A year later they changed their name from the Four Aims in order to avoid confusion with the Ames Brothers.
The same four guys stayed together until 1997 when Lawrence Payton died.

1 February 1954: Johnny “Guitar” Watson recorded Space Guitar.
Johnny “Guitar” Watson wrote the song, which was released as Young John Watson. The track is an early example of deliberate guitar feedback and reverb, a decade before the Who and Jimi Hendrix. Frank Zappa was a big fan of Watson and he appeared on records and onstage with Zappa.

THE CHORDS

3 July 1954: The Chords entered the R&B charts with Sh-Boom.
Sh-Boom was originally released as the B-side of their cover version of Patti Page’s Cross Over the Bridge. DJs decided that they preferred the B-side and it became a big R&B hit, delivering a #2 for the Chords.
Sh-Boom is often cited as one of contenders for rock’n’roll’s first record. Sadly, Sh-Boom was their only hit and the Chords were destined for the annals of the one-hit wonders.

SANITISED COVER VERSIONS

June 1954: The Crew-Cuts released Sh-Boom.
The Crew Cuts version failed to chart in America on either the pop or R&B charts but it did give them a #12 in the UK at the end of 1954.
The Crew Cuts were clean-cut white guys from Canada. A trend at the time was for white groups and artist to cover R&B songs, Pat Boone successfully covered a number of R&B songs. Often scoring higher than the original or even keeping the original out of the charts. The white covers were usually watered down versions of the black originals, with sanitised rewriting of the much raunchier original lyrics.

BILL HALEY ARRIVED

10 July 1954: Bill Haley and His Comets released Shake Rattle and Roll
Shake Rattle and Roll gave Bill Haley and the Comets their first taste of chart success on both sides of the Atlantic, #7 in America and #4 in the UK.
Big Joe Turner recorded the original version and released it shortly before Haley’s cover, it gave him an R&B #1.
It’s interesting to note the different charts the two versions scored on. Big Joe Turner entered the Billboard R&B Top 40 Hits on 8 May 1954, it was #1 for 3 weeks but did not cross over into the pop charts. Whereas, Bill Haley’s version entered the Billboard Top-40 on 21 August 1954 and peaked at #7 but did not enter the R&B charts.

December 1954: The Penguins entered the R&B charts with Earth Angel.
It gave them an R&B #1 for 3 weeks and a crossover #8 on the pop charts.
In January 1955 it was given a UK released but failed to chart in Blighty.
Many of the American R&B and doo wop singles were released in the UK but very few made an impact on the UK charts. As a result of this, doo wop and R&B singles are now very collectible in the UK. Original copies of the Penguins’ Earth Angel can fetch in the region of £2,000.

THE PLATTERS

1954: The Platters released Only You (And You Alone) on Federal.
6 May 1955: Only You (And You Alone) was re-released on Mercury.
After gaining limited success on the Federal record label, the Platters moved to Mercury. This came about after their manager, Buck Ram, did a two-for-one deal with Mercury for the Platters and the Penguins. Mercury wanted the Penguins because of their recent success, Buck Ram managed both groups and negotiated a package deal for the two. Ironically, the Penguins failed to find major success at Mercury but the Platters became on of their best-selling artists. Only You (And You Alone) was a smash hit on both sides of the Atlantic and started a run of hits which lasted into the early-1960s.
The Platters were one of the most successful and durable of the doo wop vocal groups, with most of their singles scoring on both the R&B and pop charts. Buck Ram wrote and produced many of their hits.
One for record collectors…
Only You (And You Alone) was originally released by Mercury with a purple label, to denote it as an R&B release. Mercury used different label colours for different genres, for instance, country and western releases sported a green label. Shortly after this Platters release, Mercury dropped the colour coding and standardised its releases onto black labels.

22 January 1955: Bill Haley and His Comets scored their first R&B hit with Dim Dim the Lights, #10.

2 March 1955: Bo Diddley recorded Bo Diddley and I’m a Man.
Bo Diddley wrote both sides under his pen-name E McDaniels. The two songs were coupled and released as his first single on Checker. Both sides entered Billboard R&B Top-40 and were listed as #1 for 2 weeks.
Bo Diddley had been around for a while. He formed his first group, The Hipsters, in 1946, they became the Langley Avenue Jive Cats.

ROCK’N’ROLL WAS BORN

25 March 1955: Rock’n’Roll burst onto the music scene…
The movie Blackboard Jungle was released in America.
It was based on a novel by Evan Hunter and set in an inner-city New York school, against a backdrop of teenage delinquency. The movie opened with a written preamble about the problems of “juvenile delinquency”, followed by the opening credits, rolling to the strains of Bill Haley and His Comets’ – Rock Around the Clock.
Reaction to the movie was immediate. It kick-started rock’n’roll around the world.
Rock Around the Clock was not a new song. It was originally released on 10 May 1954 as the B-side of Thirteen Women (And Only One Man in Town). Neither side troubled the charts with this initial release.
It was released again shortly after the movie’s premiere, as the same coupling but this time with Rock Around the Clock as the A-side. It was Haley’s fifth hit and spent 8 weeks at #1. It also gave him his second R&B hit, #3.

After the success of Rock Around the Clock and the birth of rock’n’roll, more R&B artists found wider success with crossover hits becoming much more common-place.

R&B ARTISTS ACHIEVED MAINSTREAM SUCCESS

April 1955: Fats Domino released Ain’t It a Shame.
Written by Fats Domino and Dave Bartholomew it was Fats Domino’s first crossover hit. Ain’t It a Shame was his 14th R&B hit, spending 11 weeks at #1. This first venture into the pop charts peaked at #10. It was also Domino’s third UK chart appearance, peaking at #23.

And, of course, the man of whom John Lennon said, “If you tried to give rock’n’roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry”.
21 May 1955: Chuck Berry recorded Maybellene.
Muddy Waters introduced Chuck Berry to the Chess brothers. Maybellene was based on Bob Wills’s 1938 recording of Ida Red. Early copies of the single listed the writing credit to, Chuck Berry, and DJs Russ Fratto and Alan Freed.

By now R&B hits were regularly crossing over into the pop charts. Maybellene was no exception: R&B #1 for 11 weeks and Top-40 #5

R&B Before Rock’n’Roll Story