Killing Me Softly singer dies aged 88

The R&B singer Roberta Flack, finest identified for the hits The First Time Ever I Noticed Your Face and Killing Me Softly With His Tune, has died on the age of 88.

“We’re heartbroken that the fantastic Roberta Flack handed away this morning, February 24, 2025,” mentioned a press release from her representatives.

“She died peacefully surrounded by her household. Roberta broke boundaries and information. She was additionally a proud educator.”

Flack had beforehand introduced in 2022 that she had motor neurone illness, and will not sing.

Born in North Carolina and raised in Arlington, Virginia, the musician began out as a classical pianist. She gained a full faculty scholarship to Howard College aged simply 15. Her classical coaching led her into instructing, however at evening she’d accompany opera singers on piano, singing pop requirements through the breaks.

“The entire whereas I used to be finding out classical music, particularly in my youthful years, I used to be additionally doing lots of doo-ron-ron, shoo-doo-bee-doo, all of that stuff, with my friends, so I have been lucky sufficient to be surrounded by music all of my life, the Bach and the Chopin and the Schumann on one hand, and all of the rhythm and blues,” she defined.

Her recording profession began after she was found singing in a jazz membership by musician Les McCann, who later wrote that “her voice touched, tapped, trapped, and kicked each emotion I’ve ever identified”.

However she did not rating her first hit till she was in her 30s – when her recording of Ewan MacColl’s The First Time Ever I Noticed Your Face was used to soundtrack an express love scene in Clint Eastwood’s 1971 movie Play Misty For Me.

It was subsequently named music of the yr on the Grammys. Flack gained the award a second time the next yr, for Killing Me Softly With His Tune.

After topping the charts once more in 1974 with Really feel Like Makin’ Love, Flack took a break from performing to focus on recording and charitable causes.

She spent a lot of the Nineteen Eighties touring and over the course of her profession, labored with artists together with Donny Hathaway and Miles Davis.

In 1991 she returned to the charts with a duet with Maxi Priest referred to as Set the Night time to Music (from the album of the identical identify).

She additionally recorded an album of Beatles covers, referred to as Let It Be Roberta, in 2012.

In keeping with the Guardian, Flack as soon as instructed a journalist: “What I contemplate myself is a soulful singer, in that I attempt to sing with all the sensation that I’ve in my physique and my thoughts.

“An individual with true soul is one who can take anyone’s music and transcend all the failings, the approach and simply make you pay attention.”

As soon as married, to US jazz musician Stephen Novosel, the star devoted lots of her time to the Roberta Flack Faculty of Music in New York.

Reverend Jesse Jackson as soon as described her as “socially related and politically unafraid”.

In 2020, a yr after having a stroke, Flack was awarded a lifetime achievement award from the Grammys.

“It is a great and overwhelming honour,” she mentioned on the time.

“I’ve tried my complete profession to inform tales by way of my music. This award is a validation to me that my friends heard my ideas and took in what I’ve tried to offer.”

Flack’s most well-known music was launched to a brand new technology of music followers when Lauryn Hill’s hip-hop group The Fugees recorded a Grammy-winning cowl of Killing Me Softly, which they’d ultimately carry out on-stage alongside her.

It topped the charts all over the world in 1996.