We prove that the G-invariant orbital measures supported on adjoint orbits in the Lie algebra of a classical, compact, connected, simple Lie group satisfy a smoothness dichotomy: Either µ k is singular to Lebesgue measure or µ k ∈ L 2 . The minimum k for which µ k ∈ L 2 is specified and is also the minimum k such that the k-fold sum of the orbit has positive measure.