Arlene Smith, 1941 – 2026
- missevegolden
- 10 minutes ago
- 1 min read
Singer and lyricist Arlene Smith, of the Chantels, died on July 29. She was 84. Smith was the group’s lead singer, backed by Sonia Goring Wilson, Renée Minus White, Jackie Landry Jackson, and Lois Harris. Smith was a classically-trained singer and performer by the time the girls got together in high school to form the group; they were signed in 1957 and had their first hits (“Maybe” and “He’s Gone”) that same year. Smith left the group to perform solo by 1959; eventually she left the music business to become an elementary-school teacher in the Bronx. Smith told interviewer Gary James of being one of the first of the Girl Groups, “We were the first ones. They didn't know what to do with us. The lesson to be learned from that is, to have a successful product out, you have to be unique. And the uniqueness of our group was that we were young women who had a pop sound and a strong lead singer and she sang ballads and I sang high, with pretty harmonies around me. So, that's what they went with. You couldn't record anything slow. The companies didn't want to deal with it. They wanted you to sing something up-tempo 'cause that was an easier shot, easier to sell.”
