Myrna Yvonne Smith (May 28, 1941 – December 24, 2010)
– accessed December 2010 was an American songwriter and singer. Smith became a high school English teacher in

South Brunswick, New Jersey South Brunswick is a township in Middlesex County, New Jersey, United States. The township is centrally located within the Raritan Valley region and is an outer-ring suburb of New York City in the New York metropolitan area. As of th2020 Unit ...

in the 1960s, while she also pursued her singing career. She became a member of the

Sweet Inspirations The Sweet Inspirations were an American R&B girl group mostly known for their work as backup singers on studio recordings for other R&B and rock artists. A founding member of the group was Dionne Warwick, who was later replaced by her aunt, Ciss ...

, which previously served as

Elvis Presley Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one ...

's backing group. When she joined, the lead singer of the Sweet Inspirations was

Cissy Houston Emily "Cissy" Houston ( ''née'' Drinkard; born September 30, 1933) is an American soul and gospel singer. After a successful career singing backup for such artists as Roy Hamilton, Dionne Warwick, Elvis Presley, and Aretha Franklin, Houston embar ...

, the mother of

Whitney Houston Whitney Elizabeth Houston (August 9, 1963 – February 11, 2012) was an American singer and actress. Nicknamed "The Voice", she is one of the bestselling music artists of all time, with sales of over 200 million records worldwide. Houston in ...

and dynamic soprano featured on Aretha Franklin's "Ain't No Way". Smith later married

Jerry Schilling Jerry Schilling (born February 6, 1942, in Memphis, Tennessee) is an American talent manager, best known for his association with Elvis Presley and as a member of Presley's Memphis Mafia from the latter part of the 1960s. His other clients h ...

, a friend and associate of Elvis who subsequently also managed the

Beach Boys A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc shell ...

at one point. In the early 1980s, she co-wrote all of the songs on

Carl Wilson Carl Dean Wilson (December 21, 1946 – February 6, 1998) was an American musician, singer, and songwriter who co-founded the Beach Boys. He was their lead guitarist, the youngest sibling of bandmates Brian and Dennis, and the group's ''de ...

's 1981 solo album ''

'', as well as a few of the songs on his 1983 solo album '' Youngblood'', and Wilson's contributions to The Beach Boys' self-titled 1985 album. While performing on the "Elvis: The Concert" European tour in March 2010, Smith developed pneumonia which eventually led to kidney failure and a stroke. She died on December 24, 2010, in

Canoga Park, California Canoga Park is a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley region of the City of Los Angeles, California. Before the Mexican–American War, the district was part of a rancho, and after the American victory it was converted into wheat farms and the ...

, after an illness, at the age of 69.

References

External links

Hitmakingteam.comMyrna Yvonne Smith
at

Findagrave Find a Grave is a website that allows the public to search and add to an online database of cemetery records. It is owned by Ancestry.com. Its stated mission is "to help people from all over the world work together to find, record and present fi ...

1941 births 2010 deaths American women singers American rhythm and blues singers American gospel singers American session musicians Songwriters from California Deaths from kidney failure 21st-century American women The Sweet Inspirations members {{US-songwriter-stub