The Beatles were still relative unknowns playing stale-smelling dives in Liverpool, and Bob Dylan was staring hopefully into the spotlights at Greenwich Village folk clubs. The vogue back in 1960 was something known as "uptown rhythm and blues"—the first attempt to make R. and B. more palatable to the white audience. Uptown R. and B, was so named not because any downtown brand existed, but because in the offices of what had once been New York's Tin Pan Alley, some of the best young white producers and writers were turning out new song material...
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