Roberta Flack, 1971. Picture by Anthony Barboza/Getty Pictures.
Roberta Flack will now shine her mild down from heaven because the legendary songstress joined the angels on Feb. 24, 2025. The Grammy-winning singer died peacefully surrounded by her household this morning on the age of 88.
Whereas her reason behind demise has not been disclosed but, in 2022, a rep for Flack introduced to PEOPLE she had been recognized with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), making it tough for her to talk and not possible to share what she herself described as a “blessed instrument”—her paradigmatically poignant singing voice.
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Roberta Flack performs on a tv present circa 1973. Picture by David Redfern/Redferns/Getty
Named Roberta Cleopatra Flack and appropriately born in Black Mountain, N.C., on Feb. 10, 1937, the rock of a girl who grew up singing within the church was additionally classically skilled in music all through her childhood, beginning piano classes at age 9. At simply 15, Flack acquired a scholarship to Howard College, the place she graduated from the HBCU in 1958 with a bachelor’s diploma in music schooling. She went on to work as a schoolteacher together with her consultant, noting in an announcement, “She was additionally a proud educator.”
But it surely was Flack’s profession within the studio, not the classroom, that propelled her to stardom in the course of the early Nineteen Seventies. Her highly effective efficiency on 1969’s “The First Time Ever I Noticed Your Face” compelled Clint Eastwood to function the track in his 1971 directorial debut, Play Misty for Me. The observe reached No. 1 on the Billboard charts and received Flack the Grammy for Report Of The Yr in 1973.
The next 12 months on the sixteenth Annual Grammy Awards she as soon as once more took house the extremely coveted Report Of The Yr medal for her stirring No. 1 heartbreak anthem “Killing Me Softly With His Track,” which additionally received Greatest Feminine Pop Vocal Efficiency that 12 months.
Greater than 20 years later, “Killing Me Softly With His Track” was recorded by the hip-hop trio Fugees, which launched a brand new era to the ability ballad. With Lauryn Hill on lead vocals and a extra uptempo twist, the Fugees’ model of the traditional observe additionally reached No. 1 in twenty nations worldwide, successful the 1997 Grammy for Greatest R&B Efficiency by a Duo or Group with Vocal.
Flack’s historic feat of successful the Grammy for Report of the Yr two years in a row—this might not occur once more till U2’s consecutive wins in 2001 and 2002—was just the start of a embellished decades-long musical profession. She went on to earn six High 10 pop hits, 10 High 10 R&B singles, 14 Grammy nominations, 4 Grammy wins, and returning to her music schooling roots, she launched the youngsters’s guide The Inexperienced Piano: How Little Me Discovered Music in 2023.
On the day of Flack’s passing her official Instagram shared a touching quote from the beloved musician: “Bear in mind: All the time stroll within the mild. In the event you really feel such as you’re not strolling in it, go discover it. Love the sunshine.” So, in honor of her lasting legacy hold swiping for 12 of Roberta Flack’s finest songs that remind us to at all times discover the sunshine, even within the darkest instances.
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