Arlene Smith, an original member of The Chantels who wrote and sang the lead on the R&B girl group’s classic 1957 hit, “Maybe,” has died. She was 84.
Smith died Wednesday of natural causes in a hospital in her hometown of New York City, her friend Matt Beckoff told The Hollywood Reporter.
Born on Oct. 5, 1941, Smith had received classical training and performed at age 12 at Carnegie Hall when she and Lois Harris, Sonia Goring, Jackie Landry and Renée Minus auditioned for record producer Richard Barrett, a member of the doo-wop group The Valentines.
The teenagers had been singing together for years in the choir of Saint Anthony of Padua on Prospect Avenue and 166th Street in the Bronx.
They were signed in summer 1957 by End Records, and their first single, “He’s Gone” — written by Smith about a boyfriend while she was practicing piano — peaked at No. 71 on the Billboard Hot 100 that August.
From left: Sonia Goring, Renée Minus, Arlene Smith and Jackie Landry (seated) of The Chantels in 1957 in New York City.
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
However, the quintet’s second single, “Maybe,” recorded at a church in midtown Manhattan and released in December, hit it big, advancing all the way to No. 15 on the pop chart and No. 2 on the Billboard R&B chart.
The heartbreaking tune, about a woman trying to win back a lost love, made The Chantels one of the first female R&B vocal groups to enjoy nationwide success, and in 2003, Rolling Stone placed “Maybe” at No. 199 on its list of the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time.”
They group helped pave the way for acts like The Shirelles. “They were our inspiration,” Shirelles singer Shirley Alston Reeves once said. “The harmonies were outrageous. We thought it was angelic. Of course, it made us want to harmonize the same way.”
After appearing on TV’s American Bandstand, The Chantels in 1958 released songs including “Every Night (I Pray)” and “I Love You So,” which made it to Nos. 40 and 42 on the Hot 100, respectively, before they were dropped by End Records the next year.
After Smith embarked on a solo career, the reconstituted Chantels continued as a quartet as got back inside the Top 20 in 1961 with “Look in My Eyes.”
In the 1970s, Smith fronted a group called Chantels that featured Carol Douglas (who would have a disco hit with “Doctor’s Orders”) and Louise Bethune.
When her music days were over, she taught elementary school in the Bronx until her retirement. She was not married and had no children.
The Chantels were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2002 and made to the final ballot for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001 and 2009 without moving forward.