Claydes Charles Smith was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 musician

Musician

A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....

 best known as co-founder and lead guitarist

Guitarist

A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...

 of the group Kool & the Gang

Kool & the Gang

Kool & the Gang are an American jazz, R&B, soul, and funk group, originally formed as the Jazziacs in Jersey City, New Jersey in 1964.They went through several musical phases during the course of their recording career, starting out with a purist jazz sound, then becoming practitioners of R&B and...

.

Born in Jersey City, New Jersey

Jersey City, New Jersey

Jersey City is the seat of Hudson County, New Jersey, United States.Part of the New York metropolitan area, Jersey City lies between the Hudson River and Upper New York Bay across from Lower Manhattan and the Hackensack River and Newark Bay...

, he was introduced to jazz guitar

Jazz guitar

The term jazz guitar may refer to either a type of guitar or to the variety of guitar playing styles used in the various genres which are commonly termed "jazz"...

 by his father in the early 1960s. In the late 1960s, he joined with Ronald Bell

Ronald Bell (musician)

Ronald Bell, also known by his Arabic name Khalis Bayyan is an American saxophonist, composer, songwriter, arranger, producer and singer, who was a founding member of the band, Kool & the Gang...

 (later Khalis Bayyan), Robert "Kool" Bell, George Brown, Dennis Thomas and Robert "Spike" Mickens to become Kool & the Gang.

Kool & the Gang blended jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

, funk

Funk

Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...

, R&B, and pop

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

. The group remained popular from the 1960s through the 1980s.

Smith stopped touring in January 2006 due to illness.

Smith's family included six children: Claydes A. Smith, Justin Smith, Aaron Corbin, August Williams, Uranus Smith-Garay, and Tyteen Humes. He died in Maplewood, New Jersey

Maplewood, New Jersey

Maplewood is a township in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township population was 23,867.-History:...

 and is buried in Westfield, New Jersey

Westfield, New Jersey

Westfield is a town in Union County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the town population was 30,316. The old village area, now the downtown district, was settled in 1720 as part of the Elizabethtown Tract....

's Fairview Cemetery.

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