As the song received national exposure, it was called a country song in trade publications, and few connected it with the relatively unknown rhythm-and-blues artist who had inspired Elvis.

Chris Rock, the night's host, gleefully belittled today's ascendant white hip-hop and rhythm-and-blues artists, and two such artists deferred to hip-hop pioneers during their acts.

"The girls are lovely and the crowd is diverse for Hollywood," said the rhythm-and-blues artist Raphael Saadiq, who was sipping a Cognac.

The program started off with an eclectic selection of videos from pop, rock, and rhythm-and-blues artists.

Save for gospel, which is not performed in nightclubs, the city's musical topography can be charted along a grid of neighborhood coordinates where many of the rhythm-and-blues artists who rose to prominence after World War II still perform.

Demps had a starring role in a recent music video for the rhythm-and-blues artist LeToya, whose album topped the Billboard charts last week.

For years, Southern colleges, fraternities and sororities featured black rhythm-and-blues artists as beer-bash-party entertainment, while keeping their memberships and student bodies neatly lily white.

The current crop of rhythm-and-blues artists on Epic doesn't fall prey to the Christmas-album fallacy, which is that one must sing war horses woodenly, as if in a 70's television special.

The friend said Mr. George was always on the lookout for new rap and rhythm-and-blues artists, sometimes flying to Florida in search of talent.

The real testament to the duo's ascendancy, though, is the pervasive influence they have had on other rhythm-and-blues artists, from TLC to Blackstreet.