Roberta Flack, one of the top recording artists of the late 20th Century, has passed away at the age of 88.
A simply glorious singer and musician, Flack helped to define music in the 1970s and beyond.
During her illustrious career, Flack produced 20 studio albums, won four Grammy Awards and was the first artist to win consecutive Grammy Record of the Year trophies for 'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face' (1972) and 'Killing Me Softly With His Song' (1973). She was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020.
She was born Roberta Cleopatra Flack on 10 February 1937, in Black Mountain, North Carolina. According to DNA analysis, Flack was of Cameroonian descent.
She grew up in a large, musical family, sang in various church choirs and loved gospel music. Early influences included Sam Cooke and Mahalia Jackson.
A musical prodigy, Flack took up classical piano at the age of nine. She initially played on a piano that her father rescued from the dump and came second in a statewide competition for black students when she was 13. She won a scholarship to Howard University in Washington, DC, where she entered university at 15, making her one of the youngest students there. She studied voice in addition to piano.
Although her musical studies were going extremely well, the sudden death of her father when she was 19 forced Flack to abandon them and take up teaching to “bring a bit in” for her family. She spent the next seven years in the Washington school system while moonlighting as a singer and pianist in local bars. In 1968, she was discovered by jazz pianist Les McCann.
McCann says of their first meeting, 'I laughed, cried and screamed for more'.
He set up a meeting for Flack with Atlantic Records and she had some moderate success with her folky, jazzy early records.
Movie star Clint Eastwood was an early fan, paying Flack $2,000 in 1971 to use 'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face' in a movie he was directing and starring in called Play Misty For Me. The song from Flack’s 1969 debut album First Take was not initially released as a single but due to the success of the film, it rocketed to the top of the charts, spending six weeks at number one.
The friendship between Flack and Eastwood endured and in 1983, Flack recorded the end music for Dirty Harry: Sudden Impact at Eastwood’s request.
Flack continued to hone her craft and came up with a unique blend of musical ideas. According to British music magazine NME, Flack could not be categorised neatly as jazz, R&B or the easy listening/adult adult-orientated rock (AOR) genre that was starting to monopolise the 1970s. Nor could she be considered gospel, although that was how she first got into music. Flack apparently 'created a middle ground between genteel promiscuity and stronger codes of heartbreak – always with the lamps down low'.
Poet Harmony Holiday reportedly wrote that Flack possessed:
'... the voice of the idyllic afterlife you’d want to arrive in after the end of a dysfunctional world'.
The Guardian also reported:
'Her career was founded on her ability to sell a song using reticence and reserve.'
Vogue magazine said:
Like a healing blanket to wrap yourself up in, Roberta Flack’s rich and sensuous blue-blue sound is currently cresting the peak that began in 1969 when she recorded "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face". The woman behind the powerful piano and the warm, supple voice has a strong, warm, down-home presence which is uniquely American. Her music soars beyond age barriers to appeal to teenagers and dowagers.
Flack’s biggest and most enduring hit, 'Killing Me Softly', was released in 1973. She discovered the song, originally released by Lori Lieberman, on a plane from LA to New York and made it the title track of her next album.
The song attracted mixed reviews. Billboard called ita 'delicate, introspective work' and said that Flack was a 'masterful interpreter of clean lyrics fusing a sophisticated pop sound with that dark side of the blues'.
American music journalist Robert Christgau of Creem, on the other hand, thought the song was a bore:
'Because she always makes you wonder whether she’s going to fall asleep before you do.'
Undaunted, Flack continued to pump out the singles and scored another hit in 1974 with 'Feel Like Makin’ Love'.
In 1972, Flack recorded a successful album of duets with a deeply troubled soul singer called Donny Hathaway, who had also attended Howard University. The chemistry between the two musicians and soulmates was insane — reflected in singles such as 'Where Is The Love', which led to suggestions that the pair were enjoying a “friends with benefits” relationship.
Flack was deeply shaken when Hathaway died in 1979; his death was ruled as suicide after being found below his 15th-floor room in New York’s Essex House before they could complete another album of duets. He was 33.
Although Flack’s career started slowing down a bit in the 1980s, she had a big hit in 1983 with 'Tonight I Celebrate My Love', a duet with Peabo Bryson.
In her personal life, Flack was a vocal advocate for gay rights, explaining that, in her shows, she would talk about how:
"... love is love. Between a man and a woman, between two men, between two women. Love is universal, like music.”
She was also a spokesperson for the American Society For The Prevention of Cruelty To Animals and performed 'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face' in the organisation’s commercials. In addition, she founded the Roberta Flack School of Music in the Bronx to provide free music education to underprivileged students.
In the mid 2000s, Flack started feeling poorly and in 2018, was rushed off the stage of the legendary Apollo Theatre in Harlem to the nearest hospital. She had reportedly suffered a stroke several years prior but had rallied and continued performing.
Flack revealed in November 2022 that she had been diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. This is a progressive illness that affects the nerves and causes paralysis, making it impossible for Flack to continue singing.
Her passing prompted a flood of tributes.
Flack’s official representatives stated:
'We are heartbroken that the glorious Roberta Flack passed away this morning, 24 February 2025... Roberta broke boundaries and records. She was also a proud educator.'
Singer and actress Kelly Rowland wrote:
'My heart just sank! Our dear Ms Roberta Flack has ascended beyond, but what beauty she has left us with! Thank you for your effortless, most beautiful gift. Thank you for being apart [sic] of the soundtrack to the most tender moments in my life! So grateful for you!'
Arguably the best and most heartfelt tribute came from musician Lauryn Hill, who wrote:
'Whitney Houston once said to me that Roberta Flack's voice was one of the purest voices she'd ever heard. I grew up scouring the records my parents collected. Mrs Flack was one of their favourites and quite instantly became one of mine as soon as I was exposed to her.'
Hill continued:
She looked cool and intelligent, gentle and yet militant. The songs she recorded from ‘Compared To What' to ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face' to her version of ‘Ballad Of The Sad Young Men' fascinated me with their beauty and sophistication.
Mrs Flack was an artist, a singer-songwriter, a pianist and composer who moved me and showed me through her own creative choices and standards what else was possible within the idiom of Soul.
Flack herself once wrote:
'I didn’t try to be a soul singer, a jazz singer or a blues singer... My music is my expression of what I feel and believe in a moment.'
Jenny LeComte is a Canberra-based journalist and freelance writer.
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