Farewell to Roberta Flack, the “Killing Me Softly” R&B icon

The R&B icon passed away today, February 24, Roberta Flack. The artist, known for songs such as “The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face”, “Killing Me Softly With His Song” and “Feel Like Makin ‘Love”, He went out at the age of 88.

“We are grieved in communicating that the wonderful Roberta Flack disappeared this morning on February 24, 2025,” said his representative in a statement: “She died serenely, surrounded by her family. Roberta has broken barriers and records. It was also an educator fair. “

At the moment the cause of the death has not been made known, but Flack fought against SLA since 2022.

Roberta Cleopatra Flack was born on February 10, 1937 in Black Mountainin the North Carolina, and grew to Arlington, Virginia. His mother was a church organist, and the young Roberta He began to sing in the churches of several denominations – including the historic Lomax African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church – Simply for the pleasure of listening to music. He started playing the piano at the age of nine and, during adolescence, became so good that the Howard University offered her a complete scholarship to study music.

Flack graduated from Howard University at 19 and started teaching music in the Washington area, DC. On the weekend and in the evening he sang in the clubs, accompanying opera singers on the piano and intoning alone, on the back of the clubs, blues, folk and pop songs during the breaks of the shows. On the advice of his singing teacher, Frederick “Wilkie” Wilkerson, Flack began to perform more pop music than the classic songs and, In 1968, he began to perform at Mr. Henry’s Restaurant in Capitol Hill.

Flack soon became the flagship artist of Mr. Henry’s: His spectators counted Woody Allen, Bill Cosby, Ramsey Lewis and many otherswho attended the restaurant to listen to it sing. The jazz pianist Les McCann, after having seen her perform, organized an audition with Atlantic Records for her. His debut album, “First Take”came out with the label in 1969. Thanks to his classical formation, Flack developed a minimalist style that had almost the same in common with the soft rock of the 70s as with contemporary soul.

In 1971, Flack joined Wilson Pipett, Ike & Tina Turner, Santana, The Staple Singers, Les McCann, Eddie Harris, The Voices of East Harlem and other artists in Concert for the independence of Ghanaimmortalized by “soul to soul”. The following year he achieved his first success in the standings with the cover of “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow“, which reached the number 76 of the Billboard Hot 100. In the same period, Clint Eastwood he chose his song “The first time I Ever Saw Your Face“For his debut for the direction,” Play Misty for me “.

The song became the first number 1 of the Flack and won the “Record of the Year” award.Grammy from 1973. The singer collaborated again with Eastwood in 1983, recording music for her film “Sudden Impact”.

In 1972, Flack began working with the legend of the soul Donny Hathaway. Together they recorded the single winner of a Grammy “Where is the love” and the gold disc “The closer I Get to you”, in addition to other songs, and collaborated until the death of Hathaway in 1979. With his own Album of 1973, “Killing Me Softly”Flack got his second number 1 with the title track, which won the Grammy for “Record of the Year” and “Best female pop performance” in 1974. Decades later, in 1996, the song returned to Fugees cover On their debut album, “The Score”. Flack’s third and last single to reach the top of the ranking was “Feel Like Makin ‘Love”, released in 1974.

While no longer getting another number 1, In the 80s Flack published several successful songsincluding “Making Love” and “Tonight, the celebrated My Love”. He sang the acronym of the Sitcom of the NBC “The Hogan Family” and lent the voice to Michael Jackson’s mother in the video clip of “Bad”, over ten years after having dueted with him in the song “When We Grow Up” for the “free television special” to be … you and me “. In 1991, his duet with the Jamaican artist Maxi Priest, “Set the night to music”, entered the top 10.

Flack He continued to publish music also in the 2000s. In 2012 he recorded A beatles cover album, “Let it be Roberta”and in 2018 he shared his latest studio album, “Running”. That year, while he was on the stage of the Apollo Theater in New York for a charity concert, he felt bad and had to leave the scene. He was urgently transported to the hospital and, later, his manager revealed that he had suffered a stroke a few years earlier.

In 2020, Flack received the “Lifetime Achievement Award” Ai Grammy. In 2022 he announced that he was suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (SLA), a neurodegenerative disease that affects the nerve cells of the spinal cord and brain. He declared that the disease made it difficult to speak and impossible to sing, but that he still had several projects in progress, including a children’s book, a documentary on his life and the reprint for the 50th anniversary of his album “Killing Me Softly”. The documentary, “Roberta”, made its debut in November 2022 at the Docnyc, while the children’s book “The Green Piano: How Little Me Found Music” and the reprint of the album were scheduled for 2023.