Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a
genre of popular music that originated within the African-American community in the 1940s.
The term was originally used by record companies to describe
recordings marketed predominantly to African Americans, at a time when "rocking,
jazz based music ... [with a] heavy, insistent beat"
was becoming more popular. In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s
through the 1970s, the bands usually consisted of
a piano, one or two guitars, bass, drums, one or more saxophones, and sometimes background vocalists
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