{"id":18022,"date":"2025-02-24T16:23:26","date_gmt":"2025-02-24T16:23:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/torontotribune.ca\/index.php\/2025\/02\/24\/roberta-flack-grammy-winning-singer-of-killing-me-softly-dies-at-88-national\/"},"modified":"2025-02-24T16:23:26","modified_gmt":"2025-02-24T16:23:26","slug":"roberta-flack-grammy-winning-singer-of-killing-me-softly-dies-at-88-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/torontotribune.ca\/index.php\/2025\/02\/24\/roberta-flack-grammy-winning-singer-of-killing-me-softly-dies-at-88-national\/","title":{"rendered":"Roberta Flack, Grammy-winning singer of \u2018Killing Me Softly,\u2019 dies at 88 – National"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Roberta Flack<\/a>, the Grammy-winning singer and pianist whose intimate vocal and musical style on Killing Me Softly with His Song<\/em>, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face<\/em> and other hits made her one of the top recordings artists of the 1970s and an influential performer long after, died Monday. She was 88.<\/p>\n

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She died at home surrounded by her family, publicist Elaine Schock said in a statement. Flack announced in 2022 she had ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig\u2019s disease<\/a>, and could no longer sing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Little known before her early 30s, Flack became an overnight star after Clint Eastwood used The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face<\/em> as the soundtrack for one of cinema\u2019s more memorable and explicit love scenes, between the actor and Donna Mills in his 1971 film Play Misty for Me<\/em>. The hushed, hymn-like ballad, with Flack\u2019s graceful soprano afloat on a bed of soft strings and piano, topped the Billboard pop chart in 1972 and received a Grammy for record of the year. In 1973, she matched both achievements with Killing Me Softly<\/em>, becoming the first artist to win consecutive Grammys for best record.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\tFILE \u2013 Roberta Flack attends the 62nd Annual GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center on January 26, 2020 in Los Angeles, California.\t\t\t\t<\/span>
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\n\t\t\t\t\tSteve Granitz\/WireImage\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/cite>
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She was a classically trained pianist discovered in the late 1960s by jazz musician Les McCann, who later wrote that \u201cher voice touched, tapped, trapped, and kicked every emotion I\u2019ve ever known.\u201d Versatile enough to summon the up-tempo gospel passion of Aretha Franklin, Flack often favored a more reflective and measured approach.<\/p>\n

For Flack\u2019s many admirers, she was a sophisticated and bold new presence in the music world and in the social and civil rights movements of the time, her friends including the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Angela Davis, whom Flack visited in prison while Davis faced charges \u2014 for which she was acquitted \u2014 for murder and kidnapping. Flack sang at the funeral of Jackie Robinson, major league baseball\u2019s first Black player, and was among the many guest performers on the feminist children\u2019s entertainment project created by Marlo Thomas, Free to Be \u2026 You and Me<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Roberta Cleopatra Flack, the daughter of musicians, was born in Black Mountain, North Carolina, and raised in Arlington, Virginia. A gospel fan as a child, she was so talented a piano player that at age 15 she received a full scholarship to Howard, the historically Black university.<\/p>\n

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Flack\u2019s other hits from the 1970s included the cozy Feel Like Makin\u2019 Love<\/em> and two duets with her close friend and former Howard University classmate Donny Hathaway, Where Is the Love<\/em> and The Closer I Get to You<\/em> \u2014 a partnership that ended in tragedy. In 1979, she and Hathaway were working on an album of duets when he suffered a breakdown during recording and later that night fell to his death from his hotel room in Manhattan.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were deeply connected creatively,\u201d Flack told Vibe in 2022, upon the 50th anniversary of the million-selling Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway<\/em> album. \u201cHe could play anything, sing anything. Our musical synergy was unlike (anything) I\u2019d had before or since.\u201d<\/p>\n

She never matched her first run of success, although she did have a hit in the 1980s with the Peabo Bryson duet Tonight, I Celebrate My Love<\/em> and in the 1990s with the Maxi Priest duet Set the Night to Music<\/em>. In the mid-90s, Flack received new attention after the Fugees recorded a Grammy-winning cover of Killing Me Softly<\/em>, which she eventually performed on stage with the hip-hop group.<\/p>\n

Overall, she won five Grammys (three for Killing Me Softly<\/em>), was nominated eight other times and was given a lifetime achievement Grammy in 2020, with John Legend and Ariana Grande among those praising her.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\tFILE \u2013 In this March 4, 1974 file photo, Roberta Flack holds the Grammy award for her record, \u201cKilling Me Softly With His Song\u201d as singer Isaac Hayes, right, looks on at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles.\t\t\t\t<\/span>
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\n\t\t\t\t\tHarold Filan \/ The Associated Press\t\t\t\t<\/cite>
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