Legendary singer-songwriter Roberta Flack, who sung hits including Killing Me Softly With His Song and The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, has died aged 88.
The Grammy award-winning artist died after suffering cardiac arrest en route to a hospital, according to her manager and friend, Suzanne Koga. In a statement on Monday, Koga and fellow representative Mikel Gilmore said in a statement they were “heartbroken” by her passing.
“She died peacefully surrounded by her family,” the statement read. “Roberta broke boundaries and records. She was also a proud educator.”
In November 2022, Flack announced through her representative that she had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and could no longer sing or perform. The progressive disease “has made it impossible to sing and not easy to speak,” Koga said in a news release.
The announcement of Flack’s death on Monday evoked an outpouring of tributes from artists, musicians and friends, including Kelly Rowland, Dionne Warwick, Jennifer Hudson, and Carol King.
“Rest In Peace Roberta Flack,” King posted on Bluesky, accompanied by a picture of the artist.
Singer and television host Warwick remembered her “dear friend” in a statement on Monday.
“We now say Rest In Peace and receive the loving award the Heavenly Father has for her,” she said, accompanying her statement with a video of her and Flack performing a duet of “Killing Me Softly with His Song.”
“I’ll miss our conversation about the journey through music we would have, as well as the love of the music we have been able to share.”
Singer and actor Hudson took to Instagram to remember Flack, sharing a black-and-white image of Flack at the piano.
“So sad to hear of Roberta Flack’s passing,” Hudson wrote. “One of the great soul singers of all time. Rest well, Ms. Flack. Your legacy lives on!!!”
In 2024, Flack praised Hudson’s cover of her song “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” which she had sang at at The Smith Center in Las Vegas.
Singer and actress Kelly Rowland reacted to Flack’s death, saying that her heart has “sank.”
“Our Dear Ms. Roberta Flack has ascended beyond but what beauty she has left us with!!” she wrote on Instagram.
“THANK YOU for your effortless, most beautiful gift! THANK YOU for being apart of the soundtrack to the most tender moments in my life! So Grateful for you!”
Flack was born Feb. 10, 1937, in North Carolina, the daughter of a mother who worked as cook and music teacher and a father who worked as a draftsman in the Veterans Administration. From her mother’s influence, Flack started playing classical piano at a young age, going on to earn a scholarship to Howard University at 15.
After graduating, she spent almost a decade teaching music and performing across various venues in downtown Washington DC. In 1968, when Flack was 31, she was performing at a nightclub when the soul-jazz pianist and vocalist Les McCann spotted her.
“Her voice touched, tapped, trapped and kicked over every emotion I’ve ever known,” he wrote in the liner notes to her debut album. “I laughed, cried and screamed for more.”
Flack signed with Atlantic Records Group, leading to the release of her first album, First Take, in 1969. Three years later, her version of The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face was featured in a Clint Eastwood’s 1971 directorial debut Play Misty for Me, shooting her to international fame.
Atlantic Records subsequently released a radio version of the song, which peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 a year later. In 1973, the song picked up two Grammys — Record of the Year and Song of the Year.
Flack also won an award with Howard University classmate Donny Hathaway in the pop duo, group or chorus vocal performance category for their ballad Where Is the Love.
The pair went on to record several other songs together, including Flack’s second and third No. 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100 — Killing Me Softly With His Song and Feel like Makin’ Love.
In early 1979, after the death of her friend and collaborator, aged 33, Flack described Hathaway as “very sensitive, reacting to the things around him, and whatever was inside of him.”
“He was a genius, so he wasn’t satisfied with his own performances, his own output,” Flack told The Washington Post shortly afterward his death by suicide. “Like many creative people, his good periods were very exuberant and his lows were extremely low.”
Flack would go on to collaborate with new partners, including Peabo Bryson in 1980 for their hit song, Tonight, I Celebrate My Love and Maxi Priest in 1991 with Set the Night to Music.
Her unique musical style was a blend of jazz, folk, soul, R&B, and pop, preferring to defy categorisation. “I don’t enjoy being labeled as a jazz musician,” she once said. “I think it’s limiting.”
In a 1970 interview with The New York Times, Flack said, “I’ve been told I sound like Nina Simone, Nancy Wilson, Odetta, Barbra Streisand, Dionne Warwick, even Mahalia Jackson. “If everybody said I sounded like one person, I’d worry. But when they say I sound like them all, I know I’ve got my own style.”
Her popular song, Killing Me Softly With His Song shot to worldwide fame for a new generation in 1996 when the Fugees, with Lauryn Hill on lead vocals, released their version of the song, Killing Me Softly — topping charts in multiple countries and becoming the most sold single of 1996.
The trio of young New Jerseyans opted for a more stripped-back version of the hit, which won a Grammy for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals, and an MTV Video Music Award for Best R&B Video.
In 1999, at the age of 62, Flack received a Star on Hollywood’s legendary Walk of Fame. Later that year, she toured in South Africa, performing for then-South African President Nelson Mandela.
As she performed around the world well into her 70s and 80s, working benefit concerts into her touring schedule, Flack continued to be involved in educational programs for disadvantaged youth.
In 2006, she founded the Roberta Flack School of Music at the Hyde Leadership Charter School in the Bronx, which offered “an innovative and inspiring music education program to underprivileged students free of charge.”
In 2016, Flack suffered a stroke. In 2018, as she was due to appear at Harlem’s Apollo Theater to receive a lifetime achievement award from The Jazz Foundation of America, she began to feel dizzy and was taken to hospital. A few months later, she returned to the stage to perform at charity concert.
Speaking to the Associated Press in that same month, Flack spoke about how decided on the songs she would sing at concerts.
“I could sing any number of songs that I’ve recorded through the years, easily, I could sing them, but I’m going to pick those songs that move me,” Flack said. “Now that’s hard to do. To be moved, to be moved constantly by your own songs.”
“You need it to be in tune with them, and I don’t mean in tune musically, but I mean in tune with the lyrics of the songs, with the words of the songs, and with the meaning. You need to be in tune with all of that, and that takes a little bit of doing.”
In 2020, she was awarded a Grammy for lifetime achievement, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame.
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