In the late 1940s, the record industry began to promote these groups under the label “rhythm-and-blues,” a term invented by a white Billboard writer, Jerry Wexler—later a partner in Atlantic Records—to replace the derogatory trade name “race music.” (He later regretted he hadn’t called the music “R&G,” for rhythm and gospel, instead; such R&B staples as falsetto singing and hand claps derived from gospel music.) R&B was, as Stuart Goosman points out in his 2005 book Group Harmony, a marketing term that became a badge of black musical identity. By definition, a black group would always be
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