Roberta Flack, an award-winning R&B vocalist, and songwriter who topped the charts in her time, died on Monday (Feb. 24). Roberta Flack earned her first big break after actor and director Clint Eastwood used one of her songs in his films.
Roberta Flack was born on Feb. 10, 1937, in Black Mountain, N.C., and grew up in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Arlington, Va. As a child, Flack was inspired by the gospel singers of her local church and took an interest in learning the piano as an instrument. Flack’s skills as a pianist led to her earning a scholarship to attend Howard University at the age of 15. Upon graduating, the classically trained Flack worked as a student educator before returning to North Carolina to teach ahead of returning to the D.C. area to teach at several schools.
In 1968, at the urging of her vocal coach at the time, Flack became a professional singer and she became a regular performer at Mr. Henry’s restaurant, which still stands today in Washington’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. In the 1970s, jazz legend Les McCann discovered Flack singing at a D.C. nightclub leading to an audition and wrote inside the liner notes of her 1969 debut album, First Take for Atlantic Records.
Things took a turn for the better for Flack when the aforementioned Eastwood used the Grammy Award-winning song “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” from First Take in his 1971 film, Play Misty For Me, helping the album soar to the top of the Billboard charts and cementing Flack’s status as a star.
Other hits for Flack include “Where Is The Love” alongside Donny Hathaway, “Feel Like Making Love,” and perhaps Flack’s biggest hit, “Killing Me Softly With His Song,” another Grammy winner, which was remixed by The Fugees in 1996 en route to becoming a global smash.
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[h/t: The Guardian]
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Photo: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin / Getty
Robert Flack, Award-Winning R&B Vocalist, Dies At 88
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