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NEW YORK (AP) -- Arlene Smith, one of the first "girl group" stars who as a teenager and a founder of the Chantels co-wrote and sang lead on the 1950s 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, when performers such as the Chantels and the Bobbettes broke through and helped make possible a wave of girl groups 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 in a Manhattan church, was a spare, pleading ballad that Smith sang with weary force, in part because the group had to run through it more than 50 times. The 1958 release 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