Sometimes the best new R&B can be hard to find, but there are plenty of great rhythm-and-blues tunes to get into if you have the time to sift through the hundreds of newly released songs every week.

The foundations of funk were laid down in the mid-1960s, when James Brown began to emphasize the first beat of each measure in his stage-tested and frenzy-inducing R&B songs. Before the decade's end, ...