A timeline of Roberta Flack’s career in 10 essential songs
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Roberta Flack used her upbringing as a classically trained pianist to redefine the textural and emotional terms of modern soul music. The singer, who died Monday at 88, was a master interpreter and an intuitive duet partner; she uncovered deep connections between folk, jazz and R&B and identified creative possibility where some saw only the limits of marketing. Her music was rooted in the intimacies of romance yet never felt closed off from the exertions (and sometimes the indignities) of the wider world. Here, in the order they were released, are 10 of her essential recordings.
‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’ (1969)
A spectral rendition of a ballad written in the late 1950s by the British folkie Ewan MacColl, Flack’s breakout hit might be the slowest song ever to see the top of Billboard’s Hot 100. The exquisite chamber-soul arrangement thrums inexorably yet with zero hurry; the vocal precisely elongates each phrase just a tick or two beyond where you expect. Flack cut “First Time” for her 1969 debut, “First Take,” which grew out of the reputation-making gig she held down at a Washington, D.C., nightclub while teaching school during the day. But the song didn’t blow up until Clint Eastwood used it in his 1971 movie “Play Misty for Me,” after which it reached No. 1 (and stayed there for six straight weeks) and won a Grammy for record of the year.
‘You’ve Got a Friend’ (1971)
Flack recruited Donny Hathaway, who like her had studied at Washington’s Howard University, to play piano and arrange vocals for 1970’s “Chapter Two” LP. At the suggestion of Atlantic Records’ Jerry Wexler, the two then teamed for a churchy duet on Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend” — the third version of the song to hit in 1971 after King’s and James Taylor’s.
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‘Be Real Black for Me’ (1972)
Flack and Hathaway’s full-length duo album spun off other hits in their take on “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” and in “Where Is the Love,” which peaked at No. 5 on the Hot 100. Yet this deep cut — co-written by the two with Charles Mann — is perhaps the LP’s emotional centerpiece. “Your hair, soft and crinkly / Your body, strong and stately,” Flack sings against a laidback groove, “You don’t have to search and roam / ’Cause I got your love at home.”
‘Killing Me Softly With His Song’ (1973)
Flack’s signature tune made a dramatic soul-music odyssey out of a slight folk ditty by Lori Lieberman, who’s said to have based the lyrics on her experience watching Don McLean perform one night at the Troubadour. (Flack discovered it on a plane while listening to the airline’s in-flight audio program.) “Killing Me Softly” topped the Hot 100 and made Flack the first artist to win record of the year twice in a row at the Grammys. Two decades later, Lauryn Hill and the Fugees gave the song yet another life with their smash hip-hop remake.
‘Feel Like Makin’ Love’ (1974)
After years of working with producer Joel Dorn, Flack took control in the studio (under the name Rubina Flake) for her sixth LP, whose title track helped usher in the smooth and jazzy R&B style known as quiet storm. “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” with one of Flack’s most delicate vocal performances, became her third No. 1 single and was later covered by D’Angelo on 2000’s “Voodoo.”
‘The Closer I Get to You’ (1977)
Written by Reggie Lucas and James Mtume — members of Flack’s road band who’d go on to form the group Mtume and create the widely sampled early-’80s hit “Juicy Fruit” — this romantic ballad reunited Flack and Hathaway five years after their joint album. A No. 2 hit on the Hot 100, “The Closer I Get to You” plays like an intimate conversation between two confidants — an achievement all the more impressive given that Hathaway’s fragile mental health at the time prevented him from traveling to record in person with his old friend.
‘You Are My Heaven’ (1979)
Propelled by the success of “Closer I Get,” Flack and Hathaway set to work on a second duets collection. Yet Hathaway tragically died at age 33 after the pair had recorded only two songs, including this rollicking uptempo number co-written by Stevie Wonder.
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‘You Stopped Loving Me’ (1981)
As part of her soundtrack to Richard Pryor’s “Bustin’ Loose,” Flack cut this handsome soul-funk jam written by the up-and-coming Luther Vandross, who’d toured in Flack’s band in the late ’70s (and who credited Flack with encouraging his epic reimagining of Dionne Warwick’s “A House Is Not a Home”).
‘Tonight, I Celebrate My Love’ (1983)
After Hathaway’s death, Flack developed a fruitful creative partnership with Peabo Bryson that climaxed with this plush lovers’ duet, a top 20 hit that laid the groundwork for Bryson’s early-’90s run as a polished Disney balladeer in collaborations with Celine Dion (“Beauty and the Beast”) and Regina Belle (“A Whole New World”).
‘Here, There and Everywhere’ (2012)
Flack’s final studio album, “Let It Be Roberta,” was in a sense a return to her roots: a sometimes-radical collection of her interpretations of a dozen Beatles tunes. Indeed, after a bluesy “Oh! Darling” and a throbbing “We Can Work It Out,” the LP closes with a stunning live rendition of one of Paul McCartney’s prettiest songs that Flack recorded at Carnegie Hall back in 1972. It’s the sound of freedom and control in perfect balance — a state Flack lived in for something like half a century.
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