The below was taken from a posting to the Usenet Group rec.music.rock-pop-r+b.1950s about twenty years ago:

Paula,

If R&B is not Rock & Roll, can you explain how so many R&B artists have been inducted into The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame and why so many R&B songs are on the Hall's list of the "500 songs that have shaped Rock & Roll"?

Bill,

I have always considered R&B to be the forerunner of rock'n'roll, not necessarily a sub-category of it. If anything, it is the other way around. R&B is the 'roots' and 'influence' of r'n'r and that is why it's included in the HOF.

I am not quite as adamant in my stance as some of the other readers of this ng. I think there was a melding of the different musical styles into r'n'r, but there are still R&B songs, Doo Wop songs, Rock'n'Roll songs, etc.

When r'n'r first started, around 1955 (no flames please), the predominant musical styles were pop or country for white folks and gospel/blues for black folks. (Note: I am not saying these were the 'only' styles, just the predominant ones for this discussion).

White kids in the South, Elvis, Buddy Holly and others, who heard white gospel and country western most of their lives, merged in the 'black' gospel and blues 'rhythm' and got what we now call rockabilly. This was also a predecessor to r'n'r but is now considered it's own musical style. It had it's own particular 'rhythmic' sound that wasn't like anything else. I'm referring to their early records.

At the same time, black kids, mostly in the Southern and Central parts of the US, were adding 'rhythm' to their music - gospel and blues - and coming up with rhythm and blues. Also, urban blacks in the Eastern US were developing their own unique style of 'street corner harmony' that we now call doo wop, that was also a precursor of r'n'r.

White kids LOVED this new style of music but since it was unacceptable to their parents because of the 'black' sound, it had to be 'whitened' up by artists like Pat Boone, Elvis, Bill Haley, etc. (Note: I'm not saying that Pat Boone is a rock'n'roll artist, just that he was one of the early singers that made this 'new' music acceptable to our parents and therefore helped it become mainstream).

America in the mid 50s was extremely segregated and artists like Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley were the black counterparts of Elvis, Bill Haley, etc. They helped take this new style of music - Rock'n'Roll - to their respective audiences.

I think this was the actual beginning of what I call "Rock'n'Roll" music. It had a certain rhythm that was not R&B and was not vocal group music and was not rockabilly and was not pop.

At the same time you still had R&B singers, LaVerne Baker, Hank Ballard, Ray Charles, etc. Their sound remained R&B and didn't crossover into the new R'n'R sound.

And you had vocal group harmony, (an early predecessor of doo wop) that was not R&B and not Rock'n' Roll, but it's own unique sound. The musical style of the Cadillacs, Flamingos, Penguins, etc. were not easily classified back then (nor are they now) and so they got dumped into R'n'R, simply because there was not any other classification.

I still don't classify all their music as doo wop either so I'm still at a loss to pigeon hole them. But they were all at the root of Rock'n'Roll music.

Anyway, enough for now. Just my .02 

Paula

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