Roberta Flack
(born February 10, 1937) is an American singer, songwriter and musician who is notable for jazz, soul, R&B and folk music. Flack is best known for singles such as "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face", "Killing Me Softly with His Song", and "Feel Like Makin' Love", as well as "Where Is the Love" and "The Closer I Get to You", two of her many duets with Donny Hathaway. "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" won the 1973 Grammy Record of the Year and "Killing Me Softly with His Song" won the same award at the Grammy Awards of 1974. She and U2 are the only artists to win the award in back-to-back years.
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ROBERTA FLACK TICKETS
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Biography
Flack was born in
Black Mountain, North Carolina, and was raised in
Arlington, Virginia.
[1] She first discovered the work of
African American musical artists when she heard
Mahalia Jackson and
Sam Cooke sing in a predominantly African-American
Baptist church.
During her early teens, Flack so excelled at classical
piano that
Howard University awarded her a full music scholarship. She matriculated at Howard University 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 University faculty. Flack is a member of
Delta Sigma Theta sorority and was made an honorary member of
Tau Beta Sigma in 2009 for her outstanding work in promoting music education.
Flack became the first African-American
student teacher at an all-Caucasian school near
Chevy Chase, Maryland. She graduated from Howard University 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.
Flack then taught school for some years in Washington, DC at Browne Junior High and Rabaut Junior High;& Montgomery County, Maryland. She also taught private piano lessons out of her home on Euclid St. NW. During this period, her music career began to take shape on evenings and weekends in
Washington, D.C. area night spots. At the Tivoli Club, she accompanied
opera singers at the
piano. During intermissions, she would sing
blues,
folk, and
pop standards in a back room, accompanying herself on the piano. Later, she performed several nights a week at the 1520 Club, again providing her own piano accompaniment. Around this time, her voice teacher told her that he saw a brighter future for her in
pop music than in the classics. She modified her repertoire accordingly and her reputation spread. Subsequently, a
Capitol Hill night club called Mr. Henry's built a performance area especially for her.
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 on the liner notes of what would be her first album "First Take" noted below, "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 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 sessions 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 version of "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" hit number seventy-six on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1972.
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's ever since. In 1983, she recorded the end music to the
Dirty Harry film
Sudden Impact
.
Flack soon began recording regularly with
Donny Hathaway, scoring hits such as "
Where Is the Love" (1971) and "
The Closer I Get to You" (1978). On her own, Flack scored her second #1 hit, "
Killing Me Softly with His Song" (1973; see
1973 in music). Flack and Hathaway recorded several duets together, including two LPs, until Hathaway's 1979
suicide.
1980s-present
Flack had a 1982 hit single with "Making Love" (the title track of the 1982
film of the same name), which reached #13. She began working with
Peabo Bryson with more limited success, charting as high as #5 on the
R&B chart (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.
In 1986, Flack sang the theme song entitled "Together Through the Years" for the
NBC television series,
Valerie
later known as
The Hogan Family
. The song was used throughout the show's six seasons.
Oasis
was released in 1988 and failed to make an impact with Pop audiences, though the title track reached #1 on the
R&B chart and a remix of "
Uh-Uh Ooh-Ooh Look Out (Here It Comes)" topped the
dance chart in 1989. Flack found herself again in the US
Top 10 with the hit song "Set the Night to Music", a 1991 duet with Jamaican vocalist
Maxi Priest that 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.
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, to which the final performance 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.
Flack is the aunt of the professional ice skater
Rory Flack Burghart.
Her collaboration with Donnie Hathaway is mentioned in the song "What A Catch, Donnie" on Fall Out Boy's fifth studio album, Folie a Deux.
Discography
References
- allmusic Biography