Billy Paul

Jubilee Records was a record label specializing in rhythm and blues along with novelty records. It was founded in New York City in 1946 by Herb Abramson. Jerry Blaine became Abramson's partner. Blaine bought out Abramson's half of the company in 1947. The company name was Jay-Gee Recording Company,... a subsidiary of the Cosnat Corporation. Cosnat was a wholesale record distributor. Jubilee was the first to reach the white market with a black vocal group when The Orioles recording of "Crying in the Chapel" reached the Top Twenty on the Pop charts in 1953. The Four Tunes started recording for Jubilee in 1953. The biggest early hit for Jubilee was "Crying In The Chapel" by The Orioles. A subsidiary label Josie Records was formed in 1954 which issued uptempo material. Hits on Josie include "Speedoo" by The Cadillacs and "Do You Wanna Dance" by Bobby Freeman. The label's last rock and roll hit was the rhythm and blues instrumental "Poor Boy"/"Wail!" by the Royaltones. On the novelty side, successful artists include blooper compiler Kermit Schaefer and comedian Rusty Warren. Jubilee/Josie also had a custom label, Gross Records, whose only artist was Doug Clark and the Hot Nuts.
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Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B and RnB, is a genre of popular African-American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was... originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a heavy, insistent beat" was becoming more popular. The term has subsequently had a number of shifts in meaning. In the early 1950s, the term rhythm and blues was frequently applied to blues records. Starting in the mid-1950s, after this style of music contributed to the development of rock and roll, the term "R&B" became used to refer to music styles that developed from and incorporated electric blues, as well as gospel and soul music. By the 1970s, rhythm and blues was used as a blanket term for soul and funk. In the 1980s, a newer style of R&B developed, becoming known as "Contemporary R&B". Jerry Wexler of Billboard magazine coined the term "rhythm and blues" in 1948 as a musical marketing term in the United States. It replaced the term "race music", which originally came from within the black community, but was deemed offensive in the postwar world.
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