Singer Roberta Flack Dies, Aged 88

in Movie

Reading Time: 6 mins read

Roberta Flack in the documentary ‘Roberta’. Photo: Apple TV+.

Preview:

Roberta Flack has died aged 88.
She was a four-time Grammy winner.
Flack also founded the Roberta Flack School of Music in New York.

Roberta Flack, a soulful singer and respected talent in both the field of piano and educating, has died. She was 88.

Flack’s representatives broke the news of her death and released the following statement:

“We are heartbroken that the glorious Roberta Flack passed away this morning. She died peacefully surrounded by her family. Roberta broke boundaries and records. She was also a proud educator.”

Flack might be best remembered for the Grammy-winning tune “Killing Me Softly With His Song,” but her accomplishments spanned her long and successful career, even if her life was touched by tragedy.

Roberta Flack: Early Life and Career

Roberta Flack in ‘Roberta’ Flack in Concert: Killing Them Softly’.

Flack was born in Black Mountain, North Carolina, on February 10th, 1937. Her parents moved to Arlington, Virginia, when she was 5 and her mother played organ in church. Flack would be exposed to gospel music at an early age, with Mahalia Jackson singing at a church across the street from her house.

She began piano lessons at age 9 and won second prize in a piano competition for African American students at age 13, receiving a full scholarship to Howard University in Washington, D.C., after graduating from high school at 15. She would go to college to be a classical concert pianist, but later began studying the voice, hoping to be an opera singer. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in music education, Flack would teach music and English in public schools to help support her family following her father’s death in 1959.

At the same time, she continued to develop her music skills, working as an accompanist at vocal studios, including one run by Todd Duncan and Frederick Wilkerson. She began accompanying opera singers at the Tivoli Opera Restaurant in Georgetown in 1962 and would go on to start singing and playing popular blues, gospel and R&B songs there as well, which would turn into performances at clubs in Washington, including Mr. Henry’s, the Capitol Hill Club and the 1520 club.

This is what she told NPR about her piano playing in 2012:

“My real ambition was to be a concert pianist, and to play Schumann and Bach and Chopin –– the romantics. Those were my guys.”

Flack would quit teaching in order to focus on her musical career in 1967 and her breakthrough came a year later, when jazz pianist Les McCann heard her perform and sent a tape of her music to Atlantic Records, whom she signed with.

Roberta Flack: Movies and her Music

Roberta Flack in the documentary ‘Roberta’. Photo: Apple TV+.

Released in 1969, her Joel Dorn-produced debut “First Take” didn’t take off. However, “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” — a ballad composed by English folksinger Ewan MacColl and first recorded by the American folk-pop act the Kingston Trio in 1962 — supplied success for Flack after Clint Eastwood used it behind a love scene in his 1971 thriller ‘Play Misty for Me.’ Eastwood was a fan of Flack’s and remained even more after using her music.

The song became the biggest hit of the year of 1972, spending six consecutive weeks at No. 1 and earning Flack a million-selling Gold disc.

Flack had already garnered a No. 8 R&B hit with her version of James Taylor’s “You’ve Got a Friend,” but “The First Time” became a giant hit, entered the zeitgesit and went No. 1 for five weeks. In January 1973, it collected the record of the year Grammy.

Over the course of her career, she would be nominated for a total of 13 Grammy Awards, win a total of four between 1972 and 1974, was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1999. She famously became the first artist to win back-to-back Record of the Year Grammys, as “Killing Me Softly With His Song” followed “The First Time” in 1974.

In all, Flack’s slow-burning style brought her six top-10 pop hits and 10 top-10 R&B singles, some of them in partnership with vocalist Donny Hathaway, with whom she worked until his suicide in 1979.

Her adult contemporary-oriented sound waned in popularity in the late 1970s, as listeners increasingly gravitated to the harder edges of funk, rap and hip-hop. Her final top-10 album, “Blue Lights in the Basement” (No. 8), was issued in 1978. Her last major pop singles were the Burt Bacharach-penned movie theme “Making Love” (No. 13, 1982) and “Set the Night to Music,” a duet with reggae singer Maxi Priest (No. 6, 1991).

But she had also become a composer for movies, working on music for titles such as ‘Bustin’ Loose.’ Her performances grace the soundtracks of a wide variety of films including ‘The Pursuit of Happyness,’ ‘Boogie Nights’ and ‘Huckleberry Finn.’

Roberta Flack: Health and Tributes

Roberta Flack in ‘Roberta’ Flack in Concert’.

Building on her early educational background, Flack sought to do good in the wider world, founding the Roberta Flack School of Music at the Hyde Leadership Charter School in New York City in 2007 and being inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2009.

In 2022, Flack announced that she had ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The following year, she came out with ‘The Green Piano: How Little Me Found Music’, a children’s book about the time her father restored an old piano so that little Roberta could practice at home, co-written with Tonya Bolden.

Fellow R&B singer Darlene Love, who regularly performed Flack’s ‘Where Is The Love’ during her live performances, wrote the following on social media:

“I’m so heartbroken to hear of the passing of Roberta Flack. There will never be another voice like hers –– so full of soul, beauty, and emotion. ‘Killing Me Softly’ and so many of her songs will live on forever. Rest in power, Roberta. Your music will always be with us.”