By Russ
This musician’s impact as a performer in the pop music scene in the 1970s was sudden and massive.
She is best known for majestic ballads like 1973’s “Killing Me Softly With His Song,” which laid the groundwork for the neo-soul sounds of R&B. Though she does occasionally co-write her material, Roberta Flack came to fame as an interpreter of song as bold and discerning as her role models Nina Simone and Frank Sinatra.
But it was classical music that first taught Flack that anything could be incorporated into her art. With her alter-ego, classical training suited a character prone from childhood to be careful and self-reflective and made Flack an exceptionally sensitive and deeply inventive interpreter.
Some of her block-buster hits:
- The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
- Killing Me Softly with His Song
- Feel Like Makin’ Love
- Where Is the Love
- The Closer I Get to You
Although she is best known for her soft, sensuous ballad singing, Flack also orchestrated many recording projects and produced albums, which were funky, sexy and political, blending jazz, Latin and rock and, always, classical elements in ways that defy the “adult contemporary” label often attached to her work.
Videos
Roberta Flack was a child piano prodigy | American Masters | PBS
1971 / Roberta Flack – Montreux Jazz Festival / Jamming the Blues
1971 / Roberta Flack Sing’s “Do What You Gotta Do” Live from Montreux Jazz Festival
1972 / Roberta Flack / Donny Hathaway – Where is the Love
1973 / (Live) Roberta Flack – Killing Me Softly With His Song
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow
Bio
The daughter of a draftsman and a church choir organist who learned to play music at her mother’s knee, young Roberta strove to understand both Chopin and Methodist church music and was precocious enough to gain admission to Howard University at 15. She was a shy, awkward, diligent girl with her nose always in a book and fingers tired from practicing piano scales.
Roberta was also known as Rubina Flake, a daydream twin she invented in early childhood to be a renowned concert artiste, effortlessly dazzling Carnegie Hall crowds with her performances. Rubina would help Roberta endure the indignities faced by gifted black children in the South, as when she’d sing “Carry Me Back To Old Virginny” for contest judges in hotels where she wasn’t allowed to stay the night. Her alter ego helped her feel glamorous and capable when others told her she was imperfect. Rubina had no need to respect others’ restrictions. She was a diva, surrounded by bouquets of backstage flowers and the approval of an elite who didn’t describe her as having “a chipmunk smile and a nut-brown face.”
Early career
Before becoming a professional singer-songwriter, Flack taught in Washington, D.C. at Banneker, Browne, and Rabaut Junior High Schools. She also taught private piano lessons out of her home on Euclid Street, NW in the city. During that time, her music career began to take shape on evenings and weekends in D.C. area night spots.
At the Tivoli Club, at the piano, she was the accompanist to opera singers. During intermissions, she would play piano and sing blues, folk, and pop standards in a back room. Later she performed several nights a week at the 1520 Club, again providing her own piano accompaniment.
About this time her voice teacher, Frederick “Wilkie” Wilkerson, told her that he saw a brighter future for her in pop music than in the classics. This advice caused Flack to modify her repertoire, and her reputation spread.
In 1968 she began singing professionally after being hired to perform regularly at Mr. Henry’s Restaurant which was on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.
1970s
It was jazz pianist Les McCann who discovered Flack singing and playing jazz in a D.C. nightclub. Without delay, he arranged an audition for her with Atlantic Records, during which she played 42 songs in 3 hours for producer Joel Dorn.
In November 1968, she recorded 39 song demos in less than 10 hours. Three months later, Atlantic reportedly recorded Flack’s debut album, First Take, in a mere 10 hours.
McCann later said on the liner notes of First Take, “Her voice touched, tapped, trapped, and kicked every emotion I’ve ever known. I laughed, cried, and screamed for more… she alone had the voice.”
In 1972, Flack’s cover version of “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” hit number 76 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1972. Her Atlantic recordings did not sell particularly well, until actor/director Clint Eastwood chose a song from First Take, “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” written by Ewan MacColl, for the sound track of his directorial debut Play Misty for Me; it became the biggest hit of the year for 1972, spending six consecutive weeks at No. 1 and earning Flack a million-selling Gold disc. It finished the year as Billboard’s top song of 1972.
The First Take album also went to No. 1 and eventually sold 1.9 million copies in the United States. Eastwood, who paid $2,000 for the use of the song in the film, has remained an admirer and friend of Flack’s ever since. It was awarded the Grammy Award for Record of the Year in 1973. (In 1983, she would also record the end music to the Dirty Harry film Sudden Impact at Eastwood’s request.)
In 1972, Flack began recording regularly with Donny Hathaway. Together they produced an album called Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway.
Track Listings
| 1 | I (Who Have Nothing) |
| 2 | You’ve Got a Friend |
| 3 | Baby I Love You |
| 4 | Be Real Black for Me |
| 5 | You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling |
| 6 | For All We Know |
| 7 | Where Is the Love |
| 8 | When Love Has Grown |
| 9 | Come Ye Disconsolate |
| 10 | Mood |
Track #7 “Where Is the Love” (written by Ralph MacDonald and William Salter) became a Grammy Award winner and it was put out on a single.
“It”Where Is The Love” peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and spent a week each at number one on the Billboard Easy Listening chart (July 1972) and R&B chart (August 1972). Billboard ranked it as the No. 58 song for 1972. The song won a Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals.
In case you overlooked the fact that Roberta was a very accomplished pianist, the “B” side of “Where Is The Love” was filled with an instrumental, featuring Roberta Flack on acoustic piano and Donny Hathaway on Electric piano. This beautiful piece was written be Roberta and she simply called “Mood” – Duration: 07:02 minutes.
Flack would go on later in 1978 with Hathaway to also record “The Closer I Get to You“, another million-selling gold single. Flack and Hathaway recorded several duets together, including two LPs, until Hathaway’s 1979 death.
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In 1973, aside from duets Flack scored her second No. 1 hit in 1973, “Killing Me Softly with His Song” (written by Charles Fox, Norman Gimbel and Lori Lieberman).
The recording was awarded both Record of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female at the 1974 Grammy Awards. Its parent album was Flack’s biggest-selling disc, eventually earning double platinum certification.
In 1974, Flack released “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” which became her third and final No. 1 hit to date on the Hot 100; she produced the single and her 1975 album of the same name under the pseudonym “Rubina Flake”.
In 1974, Flack sang the lead on a Sherman Brothers song called “Freedom“, which featured prominently at the opening and closing of the movie Huckleberry Finn. In the same year, she performed “When We Grow Up” with a teenage Michael Jackson on the 1974 television special, Free to Be… You and Me.
1980s
Flack had a 1982 hit single with “Making Love“, written by Burt Bacharach (the title track of the 1982 film of the same name), which reached No. 13.
She began working with Peabo Bryson with more limited success, charting as high as No. 5 on the R&B chart (plus No. 16 Pop and No. 4 Adult Contemporary) with “Tonight, I Celebrate My Love” in 1983.
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In 1986, Flack sang the theme song entitled “Together Through the Years” for the NBC television series Valerie, later known as The Hogan Family. The song was used throughout the show’s six seasons.
In 1988, Flack’s album Oasis was released
Although it failed to make a big impact with pop audiences, the title track reached No. 1 on the R&B chart
and a remix of “Uh-Uh Ooh-Ooh Look Out (Here It Comes)” topped the dance chart in 1989.
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In her 50+ years of recording, Flack has so often been ahead of the curve. For example, bringing the Brazilian arranger and composer Eumir Deodato out of the jazz world into her sessions in the 1970s,
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Flack helped many other artists in the early ’80s such as R&B stalwart and future Disney balladeer Peabo Bryson break through to the mainstream
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In 1991 Flack connected with new wave reggae star Maxi Priest for a Top 10 hit
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Long before “post-genre” was a cliché on a million pop aspirants’ lips, Roberta Flack has showed us how to build a legacy based on a quiet belief in limitlessness.
- In 2010, she founded The Roberta Flack Foundation, whose aim is to support animal welfare and music education.
- In 2018, she officially retired from touring, but continued to make special appearances.
- In 2022, she announced her retirement from singing, after confirming that she had been diagnosed with ALS.
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Russ & Gary's "The Best Years of Music" 