Roberta Flack, Grammy-winning singer recognized for “Killing Me Softly with His Music” and different hits, dies at age 88

Roberta Flack, the Grammy-winning singer and pianist whose intimate vocal and musical model on “Killing Me Softly with His Music,” “The First Time Ever I Noticed Your Face” and different hits made her one of many high recording artists of the Nineteen Seventies and an influential performer lengthy after, died Monday, her publicist confirmed to CBS Information. She was 88.

She died at dwelling surrounded by her household, publicist Elaine Schock stated in an announcement. Flack introduced in 2022 she had ALS, generally often known as Lou Gehrig’s illness, and might not sing.

Little recognized earlier than her early 30s, Flack turned an in a single day star after Clint Eastwood used “The First Time I Ever Noticed Your Face” because the soundtrack for one in all cinema’s extra memorable and specific love scenes, between the actor and Donna Mills in his 1971 movie “Play Misty for Me.” The hushed, hymn-like ballad, with Flack’s sleek soprano afloat on a mattress of soppy strings and piano, topped the Billboard pop chart in 1972 and obtained a Grammy for report of the 12 months.

“The report label wished to have it re-recorded with a quicker tempo, however he stated he wished it precisely because it was,” Flack instructed The Related Press in 2018. “With the tune as a theme tune for his film, it gained a variety of reputation after which took off.”

In 1973, she matched each achievements with “Killing Me Softly With His Music,” changing into the primary artist to win consecutive Grammys for greatest report.

She was a classically skilled pianist found within the late Nineteen Sixties by jazz musician Les McCann, who later wrote that “her voice touched, tapped, trapped, and kicked each emotion I’ve ever recognized.” Versatile sufficient to summon the up-tempo gospel ardour of Aretha Franklin, Flack typically favored a extra reflective and measured strategy.

For Flack’s many admirers, she was a classy and daring new presence within the music world and within the social and civil rights actions of the time, her pals together with the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Angela Davis, whom Flack visited in jail whereas Davis confronted costs — for which she was acquitted — for homicide and kidnapping. Flack sang on the funeral of Jackie Robinson, Main League Baseball’s first Black participant, and was among the many many visitor performers on the feminist youngsters’s leisure mission created by Marlo Thomas, “Free to Be … You and Me.”

Roberta Cleopatra Flack, the daughter of musicians, was born in Black Mountain, North Carolina, and raised in Arlington, Virginia. A gospel fan as a baby, she was so gifted a piano participant that at age 15 she obtained a full scholarship to Howard, the traditionally Black college.

Flack’s different hits from the Nineteen Seventies included the comfortable “Really feel Like Makin’ Love” and two duets along with her shut good friend and former Howard College classmate Donny Hathaway, “The place Is the Love” and “The Nearer I Get to You” — a partnership that resulted in tragedy. In 1979, she and Hathaway have been engaged on an album of duets when he suffered a breakdown throughout recording and later that night time fell to his loss of life from his lodge room in Manhattan.

“We have been deeply related creatively,” Flack instructed Vibe in 2022, upon the fiftieth anniversary of the million-selling “Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway” album. “He might play something, sing something. Our musical synergy was in contrast to (something) I would had earlier than or since.”

She by no means matched her first run of success, though she did have successful within the Nineteen Eighties with the Peabo Bryson duet “Tonight, I Have a good time My Love” and within the Nineties with the Maxi Priest duet “Set the Evening to Music.” Within the mid-90s, Flack obtained new consideration after the Fugees recorded a Grammy-winning cowl of “Killing Me Softly,” which she finally carried out on stage with the hip-hop group.

Total, she received 5 Grammys (three for “Killing Me Softly”), was nominated eight different instances and was given a lifetime achievement Grammy in 2020, with John Legend and Ariana Grande amongst these praising her.

“I like that connection to different artists as a result of we perceive music, we reside music, it is our language,” Flack instructed songwriteruniverse.com in 2020. “By music we perceive what we’re pondering and feeling. It doesn’t matter what problem life presents, I’m at dwelling with my piano, on a stage, with my band, within the studio, listening to music. I can discover my approach after I hear music.”

In 2022, Beyoncé positioned Flack, Franklin and Diana Ross amongst others in a particular pantheon of heroines name-checked within the Grammy-nominated “Queens Remix” of “Break My Soul.”

Flack was briefly married to Stephen Novosel, an interracial relationship that led to stress with every of their households, and earlier had a son, the singer and keyboardist Bernard Wright. For years, she lived in Manhattan’s Dakota condo constructing, on the identical flooring as John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who turned an in depth good friend and offered liner notes for a Flack album of Beatles covers, “Let It Be Roberta.” She additionally devoted intensive time to the Roberta Flack College of Music, primarily based in New York and attended largely by college students between ages 6 to 14.

Flack had taught music in D.C.-area junior excessive faculties for a number of years in her 20s, whereas performing after hours in golf equipment. She generally backed different singers, however her personal exhibits at Washington’s famend Mr. Henry’s attracted such celeb patrons as Burt Bacharach, Ramsey Lewis and Johnny Mathis. The membership’s proprietor, Henry Yaffe, transformed an condo immediately above into a personal studio, the Roberta Flack Room.

“I wished to achieve success, a critical all-round musician,” she instructed The Telegraph in 2015. “I listened to a variety of Aretha, the Drifters, making an attempt to do a few of that myself, enjoying, instructing.”

Flack was signed to Atlantic Data and her debut album, “First Take,” a mix of gospel, soul, flamenco and jazz, got here out in 1969. One monitor was a love tune by the English folks artist Ewan MacColl: “The First Time Ever I Noticed Your Face,” written in 1957 for his future spouse, singer Peggy Seeger. Flack not solely knew of the ballad, however used it whereas working with a glee membership throughout her years as an educator.

“I used to be instructing at Banneker Junior Excessive in Washington, D.C. It was a part of town the place children weren’t that privileged, however they have been privileged sufficient to have music training. I actually wished them to learn music. First, I would get their consideration. (Flack begins singing a Supremes hit) ‘Cease, within the identify of affection.’ Then I might train them!” she instructed the Tampa Bay Instances in 2012.

“It’s important to do all kinds of issues while you’re coping with children within the inner-city,” she stated. “I knew they’d just like the half the place (‘The First Time Ever I Noticed Your Face’) goes ‘The primary time ever I kissed your mouth.’ Ooh, ‘Kissed your mouth!’ As soon as the children obtained previous the giggles, we have been good.”