Roberta Flack

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Roberta Flack
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Roberta Flack

Roberta Flack (born February 10, 1937 in Asheville, North Carolina) is an American singer, notable in the areas of jazz, soul, and folk. Flack is best known for singles such as "Killing Me Softly With His Song", which won the 1974 Grammy for Record of the Year, and "Where Is the Love", the latter being one of her many duets with Donny Hathaway.

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[edit] Biography

Flack was raised in Arlington, Virginia. She discovered the African American musical heritage when she heard Mahalia Jackson and Sam Cooke sing in a black Baptist church to which her family did not belong

In her early teens, Flack so excelled at classical piano that Howard University awarded her a full music scholarship. She matriculated at Howard at the age of 15, making her one of the youngest students ever to enroll there. She eventually changed her major from piano to voice, and became an assistant conductor of the university choir. Her direction of a production of Aida received a standing ovation from the Howard faculty.

Flack became the first black student teacher at an all-white school near Chevy Chase, Maryland. She graduated from Howard at 19 and began graduate studies in music, but the sudden death of her father forced her to take a job teaching music and English for $2800 a year in Farmville North Carolina, a "very segregated, very backwards" town that was a far cry from Chevy Chase. The joys of exposing the school's 1,300 students to music barely outweighed the frustration of teaching them basic grammar when many were functionally illiterate.

Flack then taught school for some years in Montgomery County, Maryland. During this period, her music career began to take shape on evenings and weekends in Washington area night spots. At the Tivoli Club, she accompanied opera singers at the piano. During intermissions, she would sing blues and folk songs and pop standards in a back room, accompanying herself on the piano. Later she performed several nights a week at the 1520 Club, again accompanying herself on the piano. Around this time, her voice teacher told her that he saw a brighter future for her in pop music than the classics, she modified her repertoire accordingly and her reputation spread. A Capitol Hill night club, Mr. Henry's, built a performance area especially for her

In 1999, a star with Flack's name was placed on Hollywood's Walk of Fame. That same year, she gave a concert tour in South Africa, whose final concert was attended by President Nelson Mandela.

Flack is a member of the Artist Empowerment Coalition, which advocates the right of artists to control their creative properties.

[edit] Recording and performing

When Flack did a benefit concert for the Inner City Ghetto Children's Library Fund, Les McCann happened to be in the audience. He later said: "Her voice touched, tapped, trapped, and kicked every emotion I've ever known. I laughed, cried, and screamed for more...she alone had the voice!" Very quickly he arranged an audition for her with Atlantic Records, during which she played 42 songs in 3 hours for producer Joel Dorn. In November of 1968, she recorded 39 song demos in less than 10 hours. Three months later, Atlantic recorded her debut album, "First Take", in a mere 10 hours. Flack later spoke of those studio session as a "very naive and beautiful approach...I was comfortable with the music because I had worked on all these songs for all the years I had worked at Mr. Henry's."

Flack's Atlantic recordings did not sell particularly well until Clint Eastwood chose a song from First Take, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, for the sound track of his directorial debut Play Misty for Me; it became a #1 hit in 1972. Eastwood has remained an admirer and friend of Flack ever since. In 1983, she recorded the end music to the Dirty Harry film Sudden Impact.

Flack soon began recording regularly with Donny Hathaway, including her second #1 hit being "Killing Me Softly with His Song" (1973; see 1973 in music). She and Hathaway continued recording successfully together until Hathaway's 1979 suicide. She began working with Peabo Bryson with more limited success, charting as high as #5 on the Black Singles charts (plus #16 Pop and #4 Adult Contemporary) with "Tonight I Celebrate My Love" in 1983. Her next two singles with Bryson, "You're Looking Like Love To Me" and "I Just Came Here To Dance," fared better on adult contemporary (AC) radio than on pop or R&B radio. "Set the Night to Music", a 1991 duet with Jamaican vocalist Maxi Priest, peaked at #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts and #2 AC. Flack's smooth R&B sound lent itself easily to Easy Listening airplay during the 1970s, and she has had four #1 AC hits.

[edit] Trivia

When Flack played the gold record she won for "Killing Me Softly With His Song" on a turntable, what she heard was "Come Softly to Me" by The Fleetwoods.

In 1986, Flack sang the theme song entitled "Together Through the Years" for the NBC television series "The Hogan Family". The song was used for all of the show's six seasons.

In 1996, The Fugees famously covered Killing Me Softly with His Song.

Flack is the aunt of the professional ice skater Rory Flack Burghardt.

Flack resides at the famous "Dakota" apartment house (73rd Street and Central Park West) in New York City, which was also the residence of John Lennon and Yoko Ono at the time of the legendary ex-Beatle's death at the hands of Mark David Chapman.

[edit] Discography

[edit] Albums

Year Album U.S. Pop U.S. R&B UK
1969 First Take 1 1 -
1970 Chapter Two 33 4 -
1971 Quiet Fire 18 4 -
1972 Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway 3 2 -
1973 Killing Me Softly 3 2 40
1975 Feel Like Makin' Love 24 5 -
1977 Blue Lights in the Basement 8 5 -
1978 Roberta Flack 74 37 -
1980 Featuring Donny Hathaway 25 4 31
1980 Live & More (with Peabo Bryson) 52 10 -
1982 I'm The One 59 16 -
1983 Born to Love (with Peabo Bryson) 25 8 -
1988 Oasis 159 24 -
1991 Set the Night to Music 110 - -
1995 Roberta - - -
1997 The Christmas Album - - -
2001 Holiday - - -

[edit] Compilations

Year Album U.S. Pop U.S. R&B UK
1980 The Best of Roberta Flack - - -
1984 Greatest Hits - - 35
1993 Softly with These Songs: The Best of Roberta Flack - - 7
2006 The Very Best of Roberta Flack - - -

[edit] Singles

Year Single U.S. Hot 100 U.S. R&B U.S. A/C UK Singles Chart
1971 "You've Got a Friend" (with Donny Hathaway) 29 8 36 -
1971 "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" (with Donny Hathaway) 71 30 - -
1972 "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" 1 4 1 14
1972 "Where Is the Love" (with Donny Hathaway) 5 1 1 29
1972 "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" 76 38 15 -
1973 "Killing Me Softly with His Song" 1 2 2 6
1973 "Jesse" 30 19 3 -
1974 "Feel Like Makin' Love" 1 1 1 34
1975 "Feelin' That Glow" 76 25 38 -
1978 "25th of Last December" - 52 28 -
1978 "If Ever I See You Again" 24 37 1 -
1978 "When It's Over" - 82 - -
1978 "The Closer I Get to You" (with Donny Hathaway) 2 1 3 -
1979 "You Are Everything" - 98 - -
1980 "Back Together Again" (with Donny Hathaway) 56 18 - 3
1980 "Don't Make Me Wait Too Long" - 67 - -
1980 "You Are My Heaven" (with Donny Hathaway) 47 8 46 -
1981 "Love Is a Waiting Game" - 46 - -
1981 "Make the World Stand Still" - 13 - -
1982 "I'm the One" 42 - 10 -
1982 "In the Name of Love" - 80 24 -
1982 "Making Love" 13 29 7 -
1983 "Tonight I Celebrate My Love" (with Peabo Bryson) 16 5 4 -
1984 "I Just Came Here to Dance" (with Peabo Bryson) - - 15 -
1984 "If I'm Still Around Tomorrow" (vocals on single by Sadao Watanabe) - - 31 -
1984 "You're Looking Like Love to Me" (with Peabo Bryson) 58 - 5 -
1988 "Oasis" - 1 13 -
1989 "Uh-Uh Ooh-Ooh Look Out (Here It Comes)" - 37 - -
1991 "Set the Night to Music" (with Maxi Priest) 6 45 2 -
1992 "You Make Me Feel Brand New" - 50 - -

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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