In its first manifestation in the late 1940s, rhythm and blues was played by small combos of four or five musicians; usually a bass, drums, one or two saxophones, and possibly a rhythm guitar or piano. In 1951 it was also being called rock and roll. It was strongly influenced by jazz, jump blues and black gospel music. It also influenced jazz in return. Rhythm and blues, blues, and gospel combined with bebop to create hard bop.
Several musicians recorded both jazz and R&B, such as the swing bands of Jay McShann, Tiny Bradshaw and Johnny Otis. Count Basie had a weekly live rhythm and blues broadcast from Harlem. Bebop icon Tadd Dameron arranged music for Bull Moose Jackson and spent two years as Jackson's pianist after establishing himself in bebop. Most of the R&B studio musicians were jazz musicians, and many of the musicians on Charlie Mingus' breakthrough jazz recordings were R&B veterans. Lionel Hampton's big band of the early 1940s — which produced the classic recording Flying Home (tenor sax solo by Bum Bum Jacquet) — was the breeding ground for many of the bebop legends of the 1950s. Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson was a bebop saxophonist and a blues shouter.
In the 1950s, overlapping with other genres such as jazz and rock and roll, R&B developed regional variations. A strong, distinct style straddling the border with blues came out of New Orleans, and was based on a rolling piano style first made famous by Professor Longhair. In the late 1950s, Fats Domino hit the national charts with the songs "Blueberry Hill" and "Ain't That a Shame". Other artists who popularized this Louisiana flavor of R&B included Clarence "Frogman" Henry, Frankie Ford, Irma Thomas, The Neville Brothers and Dr. John. The first rock and roll hits consisted of R&B songs such as "Rocket 88" and "Shake, Rattle and Roll", which appeared on popular music charts as well as R&B charts. The song "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin On", the first hit by Jerry Lee Lewis, was an R&B cover song that reached number one on the pop, R&B and country and western charts.

 

By the early 1960s, rhythm and blues had taken on more gospel-influenced elements, as pioneered by artists such as Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, James Brown and Aretha Franklin. This newer style was given the name soul music. A little more than a decade later, however, rhythm and blues made a comeback." The early and mid 1960s saw the rise of young white bands whose music was labelled R&B or blue-eyed soul; such as The Yardbirds, The Rolling Stones, The Pretty Things, The Small Faces, The Animals, Dr. Feelgood, Deep Purple, The Spencer Davis Group and The Who. Those bands all played covers of songs by of established black performers, in addition to their own material. The Who were once considered Maximum R&B by their mod fans. Around the same time in Jamaica, a local variation of R&B was emerging, called ska. Like soul music, it was also popular with mods and their ofshoots: the skinheads, suedeheads, casuals and scooterboys.