African-American music
Stevie Wonder's first album The Jazz Soul of Little Stevie was released on Motown in 1962. Wonder was 12 years old. When he was 13 he had his first number one, "Fingertips". The soul singer Marvin Gaye helped to shape the sound of Motown Records with songs like "I Heard It Through the Grapevine". He became known as the "Prince of Motown". Ray Charles had crossover success on ABC Records. This meant that he was popular with both black and white people. While with ABC Records, Charles became one of the first African-American musicians to be given artistic control by a mainstream record company. In the 1960s a record label called Motown released lots of successful singles. An R&B group called The Miracles were their first successful act. Smokey Robinson had started the group in the 1950s. He became the vice president of Motown. The girl group The Supremes were Motown's most successful act.