
Rhythm & Blues, the 1950s name for the "race music" of the 1940s: a jumped-up, often orchestrated, dance-worthy kind of blues, with a heavy backbeat later picked up by rock and roll. Notable Southern-bred R&B artists included bluesmen like John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters, blues shouters like Big Joe Turner and Wynonie Harris, and band singers like Ruth Brown and Big Mama Thornton as well as vocal groups like the Drifters (with Clyde McPhatter and, later, Ben E. King.) Originally segregated in the "chitlin circuit" of black nightclubs and juke joints, R&B mesmerized white teenagers across the South who tuned it in on black-oriented radio stations like Nashville's WLAC. Early black rock and rollers like Little Richard, Fats Domino, Chuck Willis, and Bo Didley came directly out of this tradition. Our selection comes from The Kidds 1955 recording "Are You Forgetting Me?" from Imprerial Records. The song is available on Imperial's anthology album, Rhythm 'n' Blues: The End of an Era. (AU Format) (Real Audio Format)