Between Jazz and Rock 'n' Roll

In the beginning, there was Fats Waller, whose successful stride piano and whimsical vocals set the tone for regional blues bands. By the mid-1940s following the first recording ban by the American Federation of Musicians, Decca had cornered the market for boogie-woogie band artists like Lionel Hampton and Louis Jordan [pictured above]. In the late 1940s, the music became "jump blues" before becoming known in 1949 as rhythm and blues. By the 1955, when the music began to cross-over to white teens via independent radio and jukeboxes, the music industry renamed it rock 'n' roll. Here are seven early pioneers of what today is a multibillion-dollar industry...

Here's Fats Waller in 1941...

 

Here's Lucky Millinder with Sister Rosetta Tharpe, ca. 1941...

 

Here's Louis Jordan and G.I. Jive in 1944...

 

Here's Lionel Hamtpon in 1950...

 

Here's Big Jay McNeely in 1951...

 

Here's Paul "Huckle-Buck" Williams in 1954 with trumpeter Jimmy Brown...

 

And here's Fats Domino in 1956 from Shake Rattle and Roll...