Arlene Smith, Lead Singer of the Chantels, Dies at 84

Arlene Smith, one of the first "girl group" stars, who as a teenager co-founded the Chantels and sang lead on the 1958 doo-wop classic "Maybe," has died at 84.

Smith's manager and close friend, Paul Errante, told The Associated Press that she died of a heart attack Wednesday at a New York City hospital.

Male harmony groups, from the Drifters to Dion and the Belmonts, were common in the early years of rock 'n' roll, but female acts — especially Black female acts — were rare until the late 1950s. The Chantels and the Bobbettes broke through and helped make possible the wave of girl groups that followed in the next decade, including the Shirelles, the Ronettes and the Crystals.

"My thing was, 'The guys are not the only ones that can do this,'" Smith told the authors of the 2023 oral history "But Will You Love Me Tomorrow?"

"Maybe," recorded in a makeshift studio inside a Manhattan church, was a spare, pleading ballad that Smith sang with weary force — in part because the group ran through it more than 50 times. The record was a Top 20 hit that eventually sold more than 1 million copies and was covered by Janis Joplin and the Three Degrees, among others. Smith and the Chantels were voted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2002, and Rolling Stone ranked "Maybe" No. 199 on its list of the 500 best songs a year later.

Smith attended the St. Anthony of Padua School in the Bronx and began singing in the early 1950s with fellow choir members Sonia Goring, Renée Minus, Jackie Landry and Lois Harris, all in their early teens or younger. They took their name from a nearby school and basketball rival, St. Frances de Chantal, and sharpened their harmonies partly by mastering Gregorian chants. Producer Richard Barrett recommended them to End Records owner George Goldner in 1957.

The group had other hits, including "Every Night (I Pray)" and "Look In My Eyes," but never matched "Maybe." Smith's name was initially left off the song's credits, and the cover of the first album was changed from a group photograph to an image of two young white people at a jukebox. "Things were going on in the country," she told The New York Times in 1995. "There was a lot to transcend."

She left the group in 1959, worked briefly with producer Phil Spector, later earned a master's degree in education and taught music to elementary school students in New York City before retiring in the 2000s. She never married or had children, Errante said.