Roberta Flack, ‘Killing Me Softly with His Song’ singer, dead at 88
The Grammy award-winning singer, who was known for hits such as “Killing Me Softly With His Song” and “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” passed away on Monday.
She died at home surrounded by family, according to Flack’s publicist Elaine Schock.
“Roberta broke boundaries and records,” an obituary shared by Schock read. “She was also a proud educator. She was unlike any other popular vocalist that preceded her. Indeed, Roberta Flack couldn’t be contained simply by categories. She sang reveries as much as exclamations, and yet her stillness electrified the soul. In time, the style she created became known as ‘quiet storm.’ It was a fitting term not just for her sensibility but also for her effect.”
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Roberta Flack has died at 88 years old. (Getty Images)
Flack became an overnight star in the early 1970s after Clint Eastwood used “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” in his film “Play Misty for Me.”
The musician’s song won record of the year at the Grammys and topped the Billboard chart in 1972.
“The record label wanted to have it re-recorded with a faster tempo, but he said he wanted it exactly as it was,” Flack told The Associated Press in a 2018 interview. “With the song as a theme song for his movie, it gained a lot of popularity and then took off.”
She became the first artist to win record of the year consecutively in 1973 with “Killing Me Softly.”
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Roberta Flack was known for songs such as “Killing Me Softly With His Song” and “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.” (Paul Natkin/Getty Image)
Flack went on to record a handful of other hits in the ’70s, including “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” “Where Is the Love” and “The Closer I Get to You.”
The musician released “Tonight, I Celebrate My Love” in 1983 and “Set the Night to Music” in 1991.
Flack was diagnosed with ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, in 2022.
The ALS diagnosis “made it impossible to sing and not easy to speak,” Flack’s manager, Suzanne Koga, said at the time. “But it will take a lot more than ALS to silence this icon.”
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From left to right, Nickolas Ashford, Roberta Flack, Valerie Simpson of Ashford and Simpson, and Whitney Houston attend the opening of Ashford and Simpsons 20/20 Club on June 16, 1986. (Getty Images)
Flack was born in North Carolina and raised in Arlington, Virginia. By the age of 15, she had received a full scholarship to Howard University due to her piano talents.
The R&B singer taught music to teenagers in middle schools around Washington, D.C., throughout her 20s. She signed with Atlantic Records in 1969 and released her debut album, “First Take,” that same year.
“I wanted to be successful, a serious all-round musician,” she told The Telegraph in 2015. “I listened to a lot of Aretha, the Drifters, trying to do some of that myself, playing, teaching.”
From left to right, Cher, Roberta Flack and host Andy Williams pose backstage at the 16th Annual Grammy Awards on March 2, 1974. (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
