Charlottesville
September 9, 2022
I have had fun over the past couple of weeks listening to 1950s R&B. I have a whole new appreciation for how "beach music" came to be. A reasonable portion of the songs are "scandalous" -- singing about alcohol and sex (but never explicitly!). I understand how this music would not have been played on radio stations in the South. But it was popular enough elsewhere that Billboard had its Top 100 R&B lists -- one for retail sales and one for jukebox plays!
The above link takes you to a YouTube playlist of nearly 800 R&B tunes that were played at the beaches in the Carolinas in the 1950s. Nothing fancy about the music -- mostly blues with a danceable beat. You can appreciate how rock & roll grew out of this music.