In 1949, the term “Rhythm and Blues” replaced the Billboard category Harlem Hit Parade. Also in that year, “The Huckle-Buck”, recorded by band leader and saxophonist Paul Williams, was the #1 R&B tune, remaining on top of the charts for nearly the entire year. Written by musician and arranger Andy Gibson, the song was described as a “dirty boogie” because it was risque and raunchy. Paul Williams and His Hucklebuckers’ concerts were sweaty riotous affairs that got shut down on more than one occasion. Their lyrics, by Roy Alfred (who later co-wrote the 1955 hit “(The) Rock and Roll Waltz”), were mildly sexually suggestive, and one teenager from Philadelphia said “That Hucklebuck was a very nasty dance”. Also in 1949, a new version of a 1920’s blues song, “Ain’t Nobody’s Business” was a #4 hit for Jimmy Witherspoon, and Louis Jordan and the Tympany Five once again made the top 5 with “Saturday Night Fish Fry”. Many of these hit records were issued on new independent record labels, such as Savoy (founded 1942), King (founded 1943), Imperial (founded 1945), Specialty (founded 1946), Chess (founded 1947), and Atlantic (founded 1948).
Afro-Cuban rhythmic influence
African American music began incorporating Afro-Cuban rhythmic motifs in the 1800’s with the popularity of the Cuban contradanza (known outside of Cuba as the habanera). The habanera rhythm can be thought of as a combination of tresillo and the backbeat.
The habanera rhythm shown as tresillo (lower notes) with the backbeat (upper note).
For the more than quarter-century in which the cakewalk, ragtime and proto-jazz were forming and developing, the Cuban genre habanera was a consistent part of African American popular music. Jazz pioneer Jelly Roll Morton considered the tresillo/habanera rhythm (which he called the Spanish tinge) to be an essential ingredient of jazz. There are examples of tresillo-like rhythms in some African American folk musics such as the hand clapping and foot stomping patterns in ring shout, post-Civil War drum and fife music, and New Orleans second line music. Wynton Marsalis considers tresillo to be the New Orleans “clave” (although technically, the pattern is only half a clave). Tresillo is the most basic duple-pulse rhythmic cell in Sub-Saharan African music traditions, and its use in African American music is one of the clearest examples of African rhythmic retention in the United States. The use of tresillo was continuously reinforced by the consecutive waves of Cuban music, which were adopted into North American popular culture. In 1940 Bob Zurke released “Rhumboogie,” a boogie woogie with a tresillo bass line, and lyrics proudly declaring the adoption of Cuban rhythm:
“Harlem’s got a new rhythm, man it’s burning up the dance floors because it’s so hot! They took a little rhumba rhythm and added boogie woogie and now look what they got! Rhumboogie, it’s Harlem’s new creation with the Cuban syncopation, it’s the killer! Just plant your both feet on each side. Let both your hips and shoulder glide. Then throw your body back and ride. There’s nothing like rhumbaoogie, rhumboogie, boogie woogie. In Harlem or Havana, you can kiss the old Savannah. It’s a killer!” Watch: The Andrews Sisters performing “Rhumboogie” (1940).
Although originating in the metropolis at the mouth of the Mississippi River, New Orleans blues, with its Afro-Caribbean rhythmic traits, is distinct from the sound of the Mississippi Delta blues. In the late 1940’s, New Orleans musicians were especially receptive to Cuban influences precisely at the time when R&B was first forming. The first use of tresillo in R&B occurred in New Orleans. Robert Palmer recalls:
