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Ray Charles
Ray Charles, blind by age seven after childhood glaucoma, is widely credited with pioneering soul music by fusing gospel music's vocal intensity and call-and-response structure with secular rhythm and blues lyrics, a combination some religious listeners at the time considered controversial given gospel's sacred origins. His 1959 hit "What'd I Say," built around an improvised call-and-response section between Charles and his backing vocalists, became one of the most influential recordings in the development of soul music and was reportedly banned by some radio stations for its suggestive vocal delivery. Charles's 1962 album Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, which applied his soul vocal style to country songs, was a commercially and critically bold genre crossover that helped demonstrate soul music's compatibility with other American musical traditions, expanding his audience considerably beyond his existing R&B fan base. His combination of technical piano skill, gospel-rooted vocal power, and genre-crossing ambition across country, jazz, and traditional pop made Charles one of the most versatile major artists in American music history, and Frank Sinatra reportedly called him "the only true genius in the business," a widely repeated tribute to his broad musical range.
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Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder, blind since shortly after birth, signed to Motown Records at 11 and released his first number-one hit, "Fingertips, Pt. 2," at just 13, becoming one of the youngest artists ever to top the Billboard Hot 100 chart. His run of albums throughout the 1970s — Talking Book, Innervisions, Fulfillingness' First Finale, and Songs in the Key of Life — is widely regarded as one of the most sustained creative peaks in popular music history, and Wonder won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year three times during that decade alone. Wonder played most of the instruments on many of his own recordings himself, including keyboards, drums, and early synthesizers, and his pioneering use of the Moog synthesizer helped bring electronic instrumentation into mainstream soul and funk music years before it became standard across popular music generally. His advocacy helped establish Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday, including a multi-year campaign built around his 1980 song "Happy Birthday," written specifically to build public support for the holiday, reflecting Wonder's sustained activism alongside his recording career.
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