Jerry, you can count me in ~ way in! Real R&B is probably my single favorite musical genre, dating back to before I ever heard of folk music. I was a little kid during the early days of rock 'n' roll, and my favorites among all the tunes coming out of jukesboxes and radios were almost invariably the real original (i.e., African-American) recordings.

Over the years, my loyalties wavered and were temporarily claimed by "hootenanny"-style folk, and then hard-core folk blues, but when my interests turned (along with those of so many others) to Chicago-style electric blues and to Dylanesque folk-rock, I finally felt free to reclaim my first love, R&B or "roots" rock.

The group-vocal pieces commonly called "doo-wop" had obvious roots in older styles, including gospel (obviously) as well as 1930s-40s showbiz stuff like the Inkspots, Mills Brothers, etc.

The 1950s was a golden age for R&B session musicians in my adopted hometown of New Orleans, where local singers as well as out-of-town artists like Little Richard and Ray Charles came to record with the legendary session players at Cosimo Matassa's studio.

To my mind, the most sublime and joyous music of all is the work of Professor Longhair, "The Bach of Rock" and probably the greatest innovator in the R&B pantheon (although he remains virtually unknown to far too many people in the world outside New Orleans). For the best introduction to his music, I would recommend either of the the two CDs resulting from his final recording session, for Alligator Records. "Crawfish Fiesta" was released (coincidentally) on the very day that Fess passed away in January of 1980, and one more album was released later featuring the rest of the tracks recorded at that final session. (Sorry, can't remember the title off the top of my head.)

It's a shame that the term "R&B" no longer seems to mean the same thing that it meant for a good half-century; the term is now applied to any and all popular music marketed to black people that does not fall into the categories of rap or hip-hop. As such, it is generally applied to lovesongs and ballads featuring overdone pseudo-soulful vocalizing backed with a lot of synthesized strings ~ a pretty far cry from the Inkspots, the Coasters, the Platters, "I Only Have Eyes for You" by the Flamingos, Little Richard, the Isley Brothers, etc. etc.