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.