lit a candle 1d agoQuiet storm pioneer who understood that softness could shake the world. We needed her voice telling us love is love in every form.
Their story
Roberta Cleopatra Flack was the American singer and pianist whose intimate blend of soul, jazz, folk and pop helped define 1970s popular music and the quiet-storm radio format. She was born on 10 February 1937 in Black Mountain, North Carolina, to Laron Flack, a jazz pianist and U.S. Veterans Administration…
Roberta Cleopatra Flack was the American singer and pianist whose intimate blend of soul, jazz, folk and pop helped define 1970s popular music and the quiet-storm radio format. She was born on 10 February 1937 in Black Mountain, North Carolina, to Laron Flack, a jazz pianist and U.S. Veterans Administration draftsman, and Irene (née Council) Flack, a church organist, choir director and music teacher. The family moved through Richmond, Virginia, before settling in Arlington when she was five. She learned piano on her mother's lap, took formal lessons from age nine, and at thirteen finished second in a statewide competition for Black students with a Scarlatti sonata, winning a full music scholarship to Howard University. Her parents waited until she turned fifteen; she enrolled in 1952 as one of the youngest students ever accepted, later shifting from piano to voice and serving as assistant conductor of the university choir.
After graduating at nineteen she began graduate work at Howard, then left after her father's sudden death to support herself. She taught music and English at a segregated high school in Farmville, North Carolina, for about $2,800 a year, then returned to Washington to teach at Banneker, Browne and Rabaut junior highs while giving private piano lessons. Evenings she accompanied opera singers at the Tivoli Theatre and sang blues, folk and pop standards on piano at clubs including the 1520 Club. Voice teacher Frederick "Wilkie" Wilkerson steered her toward pop. In 1968 she took a residency at Mr. Henry's on Capitol Hill. That summer jazz musician Les McCann heard her at a children's-library benefit, arranged an Atlantic Records audition with producer Joel Dorn (she sang forty-two songs in three hours), and she was signed. Her debut album, First Take (1969), was cut in about ten hours and included her reading of Ewan MacColl's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face."
Commercial breakthrough came when Clint Eastwood used that track in his 1971 film Play Misty for Me. Atlantic rush-released the single; it spent six weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, finished as Billboard's top song of 1972, and helped First Take to No. 1. At the 1973 Grammys the song won Record of the Year and Song of the Year. Flack then became the first artist to win Record of the Year in consecutive years when "Killing Me Softly with His Song" (1973) took the same prize in 1974, plus Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female. She scored a third Hot 100 No. 1 with Gene McDaniels's "Feel Like Makin' Love" (1974), which she produced under the pseudonym Rubina Flake. Duets with Howard classmate Donny Hathaway, including Grammy-winning "Where Is the Love" (1972) and "The Closer I Get to You" (1978), became gold standards of romantic soul. After Hathaway's death in 1979 she completed their unfinished album as Roberta Flack Featuring Donny Hathaway (1980). Later hits included "Making Love" (theme to the 1982 film), "Tonight, I Celebrate My Love" with Peabo Bryson (1983), and "Set the Night to Music" with Maxi Priest (1991). The Fugees' 1996 hip-hop remake of "Killing Me Softly" introduced her to a new generation; she later joined them onstage.
Flack lived for decades in The Dakota in New York City, next door to John Lennon and Yoko Ono; Sean Lennon grew up calling her "Aunt Roberta." She married jazz bassist Steve Novosel (1966-1972); major biographical sources do not list biological children. She founded the Roberta Flack School of Music for free after-school instruction, advocated for artists' rights and gay rights, and served as an ASPCA spokeswoman. In 2018 she left the stage ill at the Apollo after an earlier stroke. In 2022 her representatives announced an ALS diagnosis (August 2022) that made singing impossible and speaking difficult. She remained creatively engaged, including the 2023 children's book The Green Piano with Tonya Bolden. On 24 February 2025 she died at age 88. Manager Suzanne Koga told the New York Times she died of cardiac arrest en route to a Manhattan hospital; publicist Elaine Schock said she died peacefully at home surrounded by family. A public Celebration of Life on 10 March 2025 at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem featured Stevie Wonder, a surprise tribute by Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean, and a eulogy by Rev. Al Sharpton. Donations were directed to the Roberta Flack Foundation.
Biography adapted from Giovanni Russonello, New York Times, "Roberta Flack, Virtuoso Singer-Pianist Behind 'Killing Me Softly,' Dies at 88" (2025-02-24); Hillel Italie / AP (2025-02-24); Elaine Schock publicist statement; S.
In their own words
“Love is love. Between a man and a woman, between two men, between two women. Love is universal, like music. I always say, 'Love is a song.'”
Hotspots Magazine interview on singing the theme to Making Love; widely cited in the New York Times and other obituaries.
“Music is everything. It's the language of emotion, expression and connection.”
Closer Weekly interview around her Grammy Lifetime Achievement period, on what sustained her through challenges.
“I arrange my songs, both musically and thought-by-thought, to tell stories that move people to love and learn about who they are at their deepest levels.”
Closer Weekly on why "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" endures.
“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.”
Les McCann liner notes for First Take, recalling discovering Flack.
“Baby, don't ever do that again live until you record it.”
Marvin Gaye to Flack after she debuted "Killing Me Softly" as an encore opening for him at the Greek Theatre (recounted by Flack in SongwriterUniverse, 2020).
“I hope that Lori knows that I am forever grateful for her part in the writing of the song.”
Flack email to the Washington Post (2020) affirming Lori Lieberman's role in "Killing Me Softly."
Photos
5Roberta Flack, 15 July 1973 publicity still
Jul 1973
by People Forever
Roberta Flack performing in Boston, 28 August 2013
Aug 2013
by People Forever
Roberta Flack, 1976 Atlantic Records publicity portrait
by People Forever
That must have been something special. She had that gift.