Roberta Flack of 'Killing Me Softly' fame dies at 88

by Maggy DONALDSON

Roberta Flack, the Grammy-winning singer behind the classic "Killing Me Softly With His Song" and one of the most recognizable voices of the 1970s, died Monday at age 88.

Flack's publicist announced her death without citing a cause.

The influential pop and R&B star in recent years had lost her ability to sing because of ALS, known as Lou Gehrig's disease, which she was diagnosed with in 2022.

"She died peacefully surrounded by her family," the statement from the publicist said.

The classically trained musician with a tender voice produced a number of early classics of rhythm and blues that she frequently described as "scientific soul," timeless works that blended meticulous practice with impeccable taste.

Her work was key to the "quiet storm" radio form of smooth, sensuous, slow jams that popularized R&B and influenced its later aesthetics in the 1980s and 1990s.

- 'A lot of love' -

Born Roberta Cleopatra Flack in Black Mountain, North Carolina on February 10, 1937, the artist was raised in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington DC.

Her large, musical family had a penchant for gospel, and she took up the piano in her youth, which ultimately earned her a music scholarship to Washington's Howard University at the tender age of 15.

She told Forbes in 2021 that her father "found an old, smelly piano in a junkyard and restored it for me and painted it green."

"This was my first piano and was the instrument in which I found my expression and inspiration as a young person."

She was a regular playing clubs in Washington, where she was eventually discovered by jazz musician Les McCann.

Flack signed at Atlantic Records, launching a recording career at the relatively late age of 32.

But her magnetic star grew overnight after Clint Eastwood used her romantic ballad "The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face" on the soundtrack of his 1971 movie "Play Misty for Me."

The song earned her the Grammy for Record of the Year in 1972, a prize which she took home at the following ceremony as well for "Killing Me Softly With His Song," thus becoming the first artist ever to win the honor two years in a row.

A remixed rendition of "Killing Me Softly" was released in 1996 by the Fugees, with Lauryn Hill on lead vocals, bringing Flack a resurgence as it soared to top charts worldwide and scored another Grammy.

Flack also won a lifetime achievement honor from the Recording Academy in 2020.

Flack was a figure in the mid-20th century's social movements, and was friends with both Reverend Jesse Jackson and activist Angela Davis. She sang at the funeral of baseball icon Jackie Robinson, MLB's first Black player.

She has described growing up "at a time 'Black' was the most derogatory word you could use. I went through the civil rights movement. I learned, long after leaving Black Mountain, that being Black was a positive thing, as all of us did, the most positive thing we could be."

"I did a lot of songs that were considered protest songs, a lot of folk music," she said, "but I protested as a singer with a lot of love."

© Agence France-Presse