Grammy-winning singer and musician Roberta Flack has died. She was 88.
Flack died at home surrounded by her family, publicist Elaine Schock said in a statement obtained by the Associated Press. The AP had reported in 2022 that Flack had ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and could no longer sing.
Roberta Flack’s Local Roots
Flack was born near Asheville, North Carolina, in 1937. She moved to Arlington when she was 5 years old, and began playing the organ and piano around age 9. She performed at Arlington churches including Macedonia Baptist Church and Lomax AME Zion.
Flack attended Hoffman-Boston High School, which at the time was the only school available for African American children living in Arlington. At age 15 she was awarded a full music scholarship to Howard University.
While pursuing a career in music, Flack also continued to work as a teacher at the Rabaut and Brown junior high schools in the DC public school system. She began performing in the evenings at DC’s now-closed Tivoli Theater and at DC’s Mr. Henry’s.
Flack’s Successful Career
Flack recorded her first album, First Take, with Atlantic Records in 1969. She continued to return to Mr. Henry’s during her career. She used it as a home base during her other performances in and around DC.
Flack’s singing career got a boost in 1973 when actor Clint Eastwood featured her song “The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face” in the film Play Misty for Me. “The record label wanted to have it re-recorded with a faster tempo, but he said he wanted it exactly as it was,” Flack told The Associated Press in 2018. “With the song as a theme song for his movie, it gained a lot of popularity and then took off.”
Flack eventually won five Grammys (three for the song “Killing Me Softly”) and was the recipient of the Grammy’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020.
Feature image courtesy zixia/Alamy Stock
