Remembering Roberta Flack
Early this morning, news broke that R & B legend Roberta Flack had died. She was 88 years old. No cause of death was given. In 2022, it was reported that Flack was battling ALS.
It was 1974 or so when I first heard Flack’s voice. I’ve remained haunted by it ever since. Her tone, diction, and musicality were virtually untouchable.
I’d missed Flack’s breakout hit, “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” but quickly caught up with that and other masterpieces. Her voice, much like that of contemporaries Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, and Dionne Warwick, was immediately identifiable. You didn’t hear Flack and forget about it.
Few singers covered Flack and succeeded, like Fugees did in 1996 with “Killing Me Softly With His Song.” Luther Vandross had all but desecrated that song a couple of years before. Ross and Johnny Mathis each covered “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” in the mid-1970s, as did Celine Dion and George Michael, decades later.
As lovely as those versions are, they aren’t Flack.
The first radio hit I recall by Flack was “Feel Like Makin’ Love.” I had to listen to it in secret, as my mother thought the lyrics were a bit much for a nine year old. She was probably right, although the song is tame by today’s standards. I didn’t know what “makin’ love” was, but when I listened to that record, I knew I wanted to do it with Roberta Flack. I was absolutely in love with her voice, and my admiration for her only grew over the ensuing decades.
Upon hearing of the legend’s death, I reached back for a feature I published 11 years ago, an exclusive with the equally legendary Peabo Bryson, who told me that he learned everything he knew about singing a duet from Roberta Flack. Coming from the artist who had recorded “Beauty And The Beast” with Celine Dion, and “A Whole New World” with Regina Belle, that was quite a statement.
“My affection for Roberta goes back to when she would seek me out to do anything with me,” Bryson told me for that 2014 feature for the Sac Cultural Hub. “I was no one, and she was adamant about seeking me out. She’s a nurturer, a teacher by nature. After twenty minutes with Roberta in a room, you feel like you can conquer the world.”
In just the last decade, we’ve had to bid farewell to so many musical legends from my childhood. I typically don’t buy into the popular refrain about a choir in heaven welcoming a singer who’s passed away.
But with Roberta Flack, I know she’s up there somewhere, giving the rest of them singing lessons.
RIP, Roberta Flack.
