During their first meeting, in May 2022, Claudette Bailey Smith quickly discovered Ernie Smith was not just slick with lyrics as a songwriter, he also had the moves to match with the ladies.

“In less than one hour after his arrival [at her home in Miami], and amid small talk, he leaned over to me and said, ‘Will you marry me?’ And I said, ‘No,’ ” she recalled on May 16, during his thanksgiving service at Metropolitan Baptist Church in Davie, South Florida.

The singer-songwriter, who died on April 16 in Miami at age 80, persisted and they were married one year later. It was a match made in Heaven.

“After living the first 70 years of my life, to finally find a person that I could love in a proper way… It went beyond the physical, it went to a stratosphere I was not familiar with. But I loved him and he loved me,” said Bailey Smith.

Smith, best known for songs like Life is Just For Living, Pitta Patta, and Duppy Gunman, was remembered as a gifted songwriter who never lost the humility of his early years in St Ann. Tributes came from his brother Paul Smith, attorney and long-time friend Merrick Drummar, veteran tour manager Copeland Forbes, broadcaster Clinton Lindsay, Jamaica’s Consul General to Miami Oliver Mair, and George Raymond, an engineer who worked with Smith at Federal Records in the 1960s and 1970s.

There were performances from Ojay and Sahara, two of Smith’s children; saxophonist Dean Fraser, Carlene Davis, Charmaine Lemonious, and Ed Robinson.

Prior to performing her hit song, Like Old Friends Do, Davis recalled her friendship with Smith while they lived in Canada. She was his opening act and harmony singer.

The service was attended by Smith’s five children (Ojay, Sahara, Taasha, Peter, and Seychelle) and three of his four grandchildren. His five siblings (Paul, Peter, Yvonne, Kaye, Jean, and Patrick) also attended.

Freddie McGregor, Roger Lewis of the Inner Circle band, and impresario Tommy Cowan were also at the service.

Born Glenroy Anthony Michael Archangelo Smith in Kingston, Smith’s career thrived throughout the 1970s. Along with Pluto Shervington, he was a star at Federal Records, a company owned by the Khouri family.

Bend Down, Ride On Sammy, Sunday Morning Come Down, and I For Jesus were some of his other hits for Federal Records.

Smith migrated to Canada in the late 1970s and also lived in South Florida, before returning to Jamaica in the early 1990s.