GRAMMY Award-winning singer Roberta Flack has died at age 88.
Flack, who was best known for her 1973 smash hit Killing Me Softly with His Song, died on Monday, her representative said in a statement.
The representative said Flack died peacefully at her home surrounded by her family.
“Roberta broke boundaries and records. She was also a proud educator,” the statement added.
A cause of death was not immediately disclosed.
In the years leading up to her death, Flack suffered several health challenges, including an amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) diagnosis in late 2022.
The neurological disease made it “impossible” for Flack to “sing and not easy to speak,” her manager, Suzanne Koga, revealed at the time.
In 2018, in the middle of her performance at the renowned Apollo Theater in Harlem, Flack was forced to leave the stage early due to an illness.
At the time, her management team revealed the singer had suffered a stroke years before her recital at the Apollo Theater.
ICON GONE
Flack, who was born on February 10, 1937, was raised in a large, musical family in Black Mountain, North Carolina, about 15 miles east of Asheville.
Her mother, Irene Flack, was a church organist who taught her daughter how to play classical piano at a young age.
Considered a young musical prodigy, Roberta Flack began studying piano at age 9.
She excelled during her early teens and earned a full scholarship at Howard University in Washington DC.
Flack began her music career by working as a nightclub performer at the Mr. Henry’s bar in Washington DC.
She was discovered in the late 1960s by jazz songwriter Les McCann, who described Flack’s performance as “the soulful and central quality of Black Music.”
McCann acknowledged how Flack’s powerful voice “touched, tapped, trapped and kicked every emotion I’ve ever known.
“I laughed, cried and screamed for more.”
FIRST TAKE
McCann helped the young singer sign with Atlantic Records Group, where Flack recorded her first breakout single, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.
In June 1969, Flack released her debut album, First Take, which is highly regarded as one of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, according to Rolling Stone.
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face skyrocketed to number one on the Billboard Charts in 1971 after being featured in the Clint Eastwood film Play Misty For Me.
The song’s popularity led to First Take reaching number one on the Billboard album charts years after its 1969 release.
The single made Flack an international star.
In 1972, she won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and Song of the Year.
Flack followed up her newfound global status with the 1973 award-winning single, Killing Me Softly with His Song.
The song won Flack the 1974 Grammy Award for Record of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Female.
Flack’s eight-track album, Killing Me Softly, went double platinum, sold over two million copies in the United States, and was nominated for the Album of the Year Grammy Award.
Killing Me Softly with His Song was introduced to a new generation in the 1990s after The Fugees released a cover.
The renowned hip hop trio, which featured Wyclef Jean, Pras Michel, and Lauryn Hill, released their version of the song in 1996, topping the charts worldwide.
‘RIP QUEEN’
Fans took to social media to remember Flack for her decades of work and beautiful voice.
“Roberta, thank you for the music. I heard her songs on the radio in the 1970s and a few years later enjoyed playing them myself on the radio as a deejay,” radio announcer Stew Berger wrote on X.
“Remember ‘Set the Night to Music,’ which she sang with Maxi Priest, a great song and her last big hit in 1971.”
A second fan shared, “Roberta Flack had such heart-achingly beautiful songs. I listened and danced to a LOT of her music in my ballroom days. RIP legend.”
“Years ago… When I worked as a tour guide at Radio City Music Hall, I sat in audience while Ms. Flack did her sound check. She sang Killing Me Softly and it was one of the best moments of my life. RIP Queen,” a third said.
