Five New York school friends led by 15-year-old Arlene Smith made the Top 20 in 1958 with Maybe, produced by disc jockey Alan Freed for George Goldner’s Rama group of labels.
Their first release, He’s Gone, failed to make an impact on the charts in 1957, but established their style – a blend of four-part harmony topped by Arlene’s impassioned lead vocals.
Considered by many to have been the best of the early girl groups, The Chantels – who took their name from a rival school – met in their school choir, and by 1957 had been singing together for several years.
Their early experience of singing Gregorian chants stood them in good stead for the close harmonies and switching vocal parts of doo-wop.
The Chantels were discovered after auditioning for producer Richard Barrett, lead singer of The Valentines, and manager of Frankie Lymon.
Barrett introduced them to Goldner, on whose label their first records would appear: He’s Gone, written by Smith, and then Maybe, credited to Barrett and Goldner, which sold more than a million copies.
On the strength of their hit, the group went on a nationwide tour. In the deep south, they found themselves playing a show to a white audience in the main auditorium followed by a second show for their black fans in the basement.
Barrett, who travelled with them, did not allow them to mingle with older fellow artists, locking the doors to their dressing rooms and hotel bedrooms.
Each member was given a $20-a-week allowance, but at the end of 1959 they were told the record company was going out of business and that the earnings supposedly put aside for them did not exist. Goldner had actually gambled it away. “If you want to see the Chantels’ money,” Smith said, “go to the racetrack.”
Their hits began to dry up when their record label became preoccupied with promoting their latest sensations, Little Anthony and The Imperials.
Although The Chantels were one of the first female vocal groups of the era to release an album under their own name, their label dropped them in 1959.
Arlene Smith died on 29 July 2026. She was 84.
Arlene Smith
Vocals Sonia Goring Wilson
Vocals Renee Minus White
Vocals Lois Harris Powell
Vocals Jackie Landry Jackson
Vocals
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On the strength of their hit, the group went on a nationwide tour. In the deep south, they found themselves playing a show to a white audience in the main auditorium followed by a second show for their black fans in the basement.
