It’s with a heavy heart that I announce Roberta Flack’s passing at the age of 88. While the North Carolina singer-songwriter was best known for songs like “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” and “Killing Me Softly with His Song”1 amongst many others, Roberta Flack’s virtuosity went transcended those hits as she performed in 6 different decades and collaborated with a variety of artists.
I’m not gonna lie, this one is hitting me hard. I wrote about Roberta’s influence on me as a child in 2018. She was a musical staple throughout my early years and I’ve carried that love with me ever since. She was one of those artists that was immensely talented and understated but so well respected. I think about her live performance of “More Than Everything” with Peabo Bryson and how the whole album was phenomenal but that particular song pulled at my heartstrings as a kid. It was pure magic in melodic form and I didn’t know how to describe it but it made me feel emotions I’d never felt before and wanted to feel over and over. I guess the tears I used to cry for them before will flow more and for different reasons now.
But rather than leave this as a personal ode to Roberta Flack, I want to showcase some articles and essays about her over the years. I hope more people can experience her music for the first time and dig deep into her discography, beyond her signature songs, or people can revisit where they’ve not heard her for a while.
Links
- Remembering Roberta Flack: The Virtuoso (NPR Music)
- Roberta Flack biography and career timeline (PBS)
- The Sound of Velvet Melting: The Power of “Vibe” in the Music of Roberta Flack (book chapter by Jason King, paid access only)
- Roberta Flack: ‘My music is my expression of what I feel in a moment’ (The Guardian, archived link)
- Roberta Flack: soundtrack of my life (The Guardian, archived link)
- Roberta Flack Burned Bright on ‘Quiet Fire’ (Vinyl Me, Please)
- Roberta Flack Looks Back on ‘Quiet Fire’ (Vinyl Me, Please)
- “The Song Found Me.” An Oral History of Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly” (Lithub)
- Roberta Flack Still Goes to the Capitol Hill Bar Where She Got Her Big Break (Washingtonian)
- Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway’s Eponymous Duet Album Turns 50 | Anniversary Retrospective (Albumism)
- Listening to Roberta Flack (The Monthly)
- Remembering Roberta Flack, 1937-2025 (Discogs)
- 10 Roberta Flack Deep Cuts You Need to Hear (Discogs)
- With these two songs, she won Song of the Year at the Grammy’s two years in a row (1973 and 1974) and remains the only artist to have done so ↩︎