On Monday, February 24, the world sat with bated breath to get the latest news on Pope Francis, who was in critical condition battling double pneumonia. The 88-year-old Catholic Pontiff had had a ‘restful night’ in hospital at the weekend and so everybody was waiting to hear something on him. However, the world was shocked to hear of Roberta Flack’s demise.

The news of her death at the age of 88 represents another sad loss for the music world, which in a decade, has bid farewell to so many musical legends from 60s and 70s. Roberta Flack was highly talented, humble, passionate, hard-working and highly impactful to the younger generations with her sonorous, gently penetrating voice that inspired her multiple accolades, including four Grammy Awards and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020. Her numerous number one hits, including Killing Me Softly With His Song, and Tonight, I Celebrate My Love continued for many years to be replicated by many renowned artists.

“We are heartbroken that the glorious Roberta Flack passed away this morning, February 24, 2025,” a statement from her spokesperson read. “She died peacefully surrounded by her family. Roberta broke boundaries and records. She was also a proud educator.” No cause of death was given. However, in 2022, it was reported that Flack was battling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Born Roberta Cleopatra Flack on February 10, 1937, in Black Mountain, North Carolina, to musical parents; her father, Laron LeRoy, was a draftsman who played piano, and Irene, her mother, was a church choir organist. She started playing piano by ear when she was four and before long was studying the work of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin and Schumann.

She attended the only high school available to Black children in Arlington, Virginia, where the family had moved. At 15, Flack was awarded a full music scholarship to Howard in Washington, D.C., where she studied piano before changing her major to music education.

At 19, the new Howard graduate aspired to be an opera singer, before taking up a teaching post in North Carolina. Alongside this work, Flack started performing in nightclubs during evenings and weekends, weaving elements of classical, blues, folk, Motown and pop. Her virtuosity landed her regular spots at venues across Washington DC and in 1968, a residency at Mr. Henry’s Restaurant led Flack to give up teaching for good.

Flack said she had to muster her courage to leave the safety of the classroom for the stage. For a Black artist in those days, she said, “you had to have a lot of heart and a strong desire to do that.”

She was one of the essential voices of the 70s, with her smooth, soft-spoken, slow-burning soul style. She specialised in hypnotic ballads like Killing Me Softly With His Song, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, and Feel Like Makin’ Love, all number one hits.

Flack ushered in an enduring style of rhythm and blues with her early classics that she often described as ‘scientific soul’— a blend of talent, taste and endless practice. Her recording career included nearly two dozen albums, eight Billboard-charting songs, among numerous nominations. She called herself “just a little country girl” who worked hard at being a musician, without relying on glamour.

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. Her voice will linger for a very long time to come. She is said to possess one of the loveliest voices pop music has ever heard.

She was first spotted by soul-jazz icon Les McCann, who saw her at a benefit concert in the summer of 1968 and was so impressed he sent a tape to an associate at Atlantic Records, where she recorded her debut album, First Take, in just 10 hours. It included First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.

The album documented those years at Henry’s, immortalising the cross-genre collection of tracks she had spent so long practising there. Roberta was a stubborn perfectionist and was given to self-reflection. She invented a fantasy alter ego as a child — Rubina Flake — to overcome her timid nature. She performed at local churches and won second place in a statewide contest with a Scarlatti sonata at age 13. Flack had her own unique sound—understated but commanding, full of serene intensity, scoring chart hits into the 90s.

It took until 1971, however, and a placement on the soundtrack to Clint Eastwood’s Play Misty for Me, before her cover of Ewan MacColl’s folk, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, became her first major US hit. It spent six weeks at No 1 in 1972, earning a Grammy award for record of the year in 1973.

Killing Me Softly With His Song earned her the same award in 1974, making Flack the first artist to win in two consecutive years (a feat since repeated by U2 and Billie Eilish). That year she scored another US No 1 with Feel Like Makin’ Love.

Around this time, the star began collaborating with the soul legend Donny Hathaway; the pair went on to have two US Top 5 hits with Where Is the Love and The Closer I Get to You.

In 1980, a year after Hathaway’s death, the pair had a posthumous hit in the UK with Back Together Again, which reached No 3, though she had her biggest UK hit with new duet partner, Peabo Bryson: the ballad Tonight, I Celebrate My Love reached No 2 in 1983. Bryson was to later say in his tribute to Flack: “iconic and divinely gifted artiste and friend … She was my greatest inspiration.”

With a career that spanned several decades, she became a defining voice in R&B, influencing generations of artists. She founded the Roberta Flack School of Music at the Hyde Leadership Charter School in the Bronx to provide a free music education programme to underprivileged students. In 2010, she founded the Roberta Flack Foundation to support animal welfare and music education.

Flack was married to bassist Steve Novosel from 1966 until their divorce in 1972. She never remarried and did not have children, though she was a significant figure in the lives of others.

Although Flack is no longer around, her legacy endures. Her music remains timeless, and her influence continues to be felt in the world of R&B and beyond.
[AD]