For most of the past week, I've been immersing myself in new-to-me music, notably three current hip-hop albums, one superb single (which I somehow missed last year) from the current king of R&B, and as much as I can get my hands on from arguably the original king of R&B. I'll address the rhythm-and-bluesmen here.

That single from the current king - and is he made of Teflon, or what? - is R. Kelly's "Step in the Name of Love (Remix)," from Chocolate Factory. This is why I fell in love with him in the first place, nearly 12 years ago, hearing "Dedicated" et.al. (whither Public Announcement?). His best suit isn't the sex stuff, which by and large comes off immeasurably smarmy (even without considering the whole peeing-on-young-girls thing). It's the loverman, celebratory stuff, the stuff with which he larded '95's R. Kelly album, like "Step in My Room" and "Religious Love," where Robert is nearly without (current) peer. "Step" is a loving ode to steppers - for the unfamiliar, stepping is a distinctly African-American dance form, for everyone from black college fraternities (cf. Spike Lee's School Daze) to 60-something couples at weddings - which comes off like the finest blend of Chicago and Philly soul you've ever heard. Backdate the production ever so slightly, and this could've come out in 1973. Damned right that's a compliment. When R. starts wailing "tell 'em that - [we] did it for love!," I totally believe him. I'm not being funny, or smirking, or ironic, either.

Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five owned R&B in the 1940s, accruing a jaw-dropping 113 weeks atop the Billboard - that's still the record by furlongs - with 18 charttoppers (only Aretha and Stevie have had more). Of the 57 singles Jordan charted, 54 of them made the top 10. No one else has ever come close to that kind of strike rate. How'd he do it? By marrying the bandleading brilliance of Louis Armstrong with a pop sensibility and a sense of humor just thisside of novelty, while cutting a series of oh-so-clever songs with titles like "The Chicks I Pick Are Slender And Tender And Tall" and "What's the Use of Getting Sober (When You Gonna Get Drunk Again)" (those are actually both sides of a 1942 #1 single) (and Matos has some thoughts on the latter). But while much of Jordan's stock-in-trade was funny jump-up tunes designed for the boogie-woogie, he could just as ably pull off smooth stuff like "Baby, It's Cold Outside" in a duet with Ella Fitzgerald (for the 1949 Esther Williams film Neptune's Daughter). I recently made a mix for a friend which opens with Jordan's "Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens" back-to-back with Beyonce's "Crazy In Love," and you know what? It works like blazes, 'cause the energy in both songs is, amazingly, equivalent (the comparable horns don't hurt none, neither). That's how exciting the best of Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five is.

[A slightly different version of this post was originally published at Oh, Manchester, So Much to Answer For.]