The History of Rhythm & Blues

Rhythm & Blues has become one of the most identifiable musical art-forms of the 20^th Century, with an enormous influence on the development of both the sound and attitude of modern music. The History of Rhythm and Blues series of CDs investigates the accidental synthesis of jazz, gospel, blues, ragtime, country, pop and latin into a definable form of black music, which in turn would influence pretty well all popular music from the 1950s to the present. The History of Rhythm and Blues 1925-1942 is a 4CD box set containing 97 of the most representative tracks and it is the first-ever attempt to chronicle from a historical perspective, the rise of Rhythm & Blues by showcasing the most important and influential records.

The end of the 19th century was a period of major social upheaval for the black population of the southern states. One of the initial by-products of the abolition of slavery was a huge number of itinerant workers. Musicians who had previously been maintained on plantations were no longer required. Furthermore, the restrictions brought about by the introduction of segregation in 1896 and the ensuing Jim Crow laws, indirectly led to a cultural revolution within Afro-American society. New forms of music all arose at this time, spirituals, ragtime, barrelhouse, jazz, black ballad form. Over the years, these distinctive sounds would come to merge into a recognisably new musical style. From its humble rural beginnings in the early 1900s as a method of self-expression in the southern states, the blues gradually became a form of public entertainment, initially for workers and drinkers, in lumber camps, informal picnics, barbeques and juke joints, picking up dance rhythms along the way. The blues, originally a slow dance, only evolved into the form we know today after the introduction of sound recording - the first blues record, Mamie Smith’s Crazy Blues, was released in 1921.

Between 1910 and 1970, nearly five million African-Americans left the South, looking for higher wages and a better life. The route they took was determined largely by the price of the cheapest rail ticket. Chicago was the favoured destination from Mississippi, while those from the Eastern Seaboard left for New York. Attracted by the expansion of industrial production during and after World War II, they moved to California from Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. It was the move to the city, which brought the increase in popularity for the blues, and it was the technology of sound recording, which helped to define its structure. Wider dissemination came with the development of radio and the jukebox, but also through touring bands playing the new network of dance halls and ballrooms that were springing up throughout the States in the 1930s. It was in these ‘territory bands’ that the first major fusion of jazz, blues and boogie-woogie is to be found.