Roberta Cleopatra Flack (February 10, 1937 – February 24, 2025)[3][4] was an American singer who topped the Billboard charts with the No. 1 singles "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face", "Killing Me Softly with His Song", and "Feel Like Makin' Love".

Flack was the first artist to win the Grammy Award for Record of the Year in two consecutive years: "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" won in 1973 and "Killing Me Softly with His Song" won in 1974.

From < theguardian.com >

Flack’s impressive range of influences and collaborators was testament to her multidisciplinary approach and idiosyncratic style. She duetted with Michael Jackson, toured with Miles Davis and covered Leonard Cohen and Laura Nyro. After her initial success, she became associated with the growth of quiet storm, a deep, mature and ruminative offshoot of R&B which later inspired the likes of Erykah Badu, D’Angelo and the Fugees (whose own take on Killing Me Softly would rival Flack’s to be the definitive version). More recently, in 2012, Flack released a string of Beatles covers in an album titled Let It Be Roberta.

She once told a journalist: “What I consider myself is a soulful singer, in that I try to sing with all the feeling that I have in my body and my mind. A person with true soul is one who can take anybody’s song and transcend all the flaws, the technique and just make you listen.”

Throughout her life, Ms. Flack maintained an interest in spirituality and the occult, an orientation she credited to the influence of her grandmother, who had been a healer.

Ms. Flack was honored in 2018 with a lifetime achievement award from the Jazz Foundation of America, and two years later with a Grammy for lifetime achievement.

Into her latest years, Ms. Flack savored the memory of school-teaching days and club nights in Washington. When asked in 2017 if she ever went back to Mr. Henry’s, which still hosts live music, she didn’t miss a beat: “I was there recently. I love the crab cakes.”

Illness and death

From < Wikipedia >

In 2018, Flack was appearing onstage at the Apollo Theater at a benefit for the Jazz Foundation of America. She became ill, left the stage, and was rushed to the Harlem Hospital Center.[37] In a statement, her manager announced that Flack had a stroke a few years prior and still was not feeling well, but was "doing fine" and being kept overnight for medical observation.[38]

In late 2022, it was announced by a spokesperson that Flack had been diagnosed with ALS and had retired from performing,[39] due to the disease making it "impossible to sing".[40]

Flack died on February 24, 2025, at the age of 88.[41][42] Initial reports stated that she died at home among her family. However, her manager, Suzanne Koga, stated she died from a cardiac arrest on her way to the hospital in Manhattan.[43][43]

Accolades

On May 11, 2017, Roberta Flack received an honorary Doctorate degree in the Arts from Long Island University.[44]

Flack was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2009.[45]

In 2021, Flack was one of the first inductees into the Women Songwriters Hall of Fame.[46]

On March 12, 2022, Flack was honored with the DAR Women in American History Award and a restored fire callbox in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington DC commemorating her early-career connection to nearby Mr. Henry's neighborhood bar.[47]

On January 24, 2023, the PBS series American Masters opened its 37th season with an hour-long look at her career.[48]

On May 13, 2023, Flack received an honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music.[49]

Among others paying tribute to Flack was Oscar-winning singer and actor Jennifer Hudson, who said she was “one of the great soul singers of all time. Rest well, Ms Flack. Your legacy lives on”.

Family

• Father: Laron Flack, draftsman in the Veterans Administration
• Mother: Irene Council, cook in high school; taught music and played organ at Arlington’s A.M.E. Zion Church.
• Siblings: 2nd oldest of five, including William Flack
• Spouse: Steve Novosel (m. 1966, div. 1972) ( jazz double bassist)
• Spouse: "a later marriage also ended in divorce"
• Aunt: professional ice skater Rory Flack
• "No immediate survivors"
• She was also the godmother of musician Bernard Wright, who died in an accident on May 19, 2022.
• For a time, Flack had an apartment in The Dakota building in New York City that was right next door to the apartment of Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon. Lennon referred to her as "Aunt" Roberta.[35]
• According to DNA analysis, she was of Cameroonian descent.[37]

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• Residence: 1940 - Asheville, Buncombe, North Carolina, United States
• Residence: Feb 1 1993 - New York City, New York, United States
• Residence: Between June 1 1996 and Dec 1 1997 - New York City, New York, United States
• Residence: Nov 2020 - New York City, New York, United States
  • Reference: FamilySearch Family Tree - SmartCopy: Feb 24 2025, 19:31:21 UTC

    ---

References

1. Wikipedia contributors, "Roberta Flack," < Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia > (accessed February 24, 2025).
   1. 36. "Growing Interest in DNA-Based Genetic Testing Among African American with Historic Election of President Elect Barack Obama". Prweb.com. Archived from the original on August 1, 2015. Retrieved November 11, 2012.
2. Swannanoa Valley Museum & History Center < swannanoavalleymuseum.org >
3. "Roberta Flack, soul and R&B icon behind Killing Me Softly, dies aged 88" < theguardian.com > (24 Feb 2025)
4. "Roberta Flack, Virtuoso Singer-Pianist Who Ruled the Charts, Dies at 88." With majestic anthems like “Killing Me Softly” and “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” Ms. Flack, a former schoolteacher, became one of the most widely heard artists of the 1970s. < nytimes sharing > (Feb. 24, 2025)
5. "Roberta Flack, Grammy-Winning ‘Killing Me Softly’ Singer, Dies at 88." < time.com > By Associated Press (February 24, 2025 12:57 PM EST). Little known before her early 30s, Flack became an overnight star after Clint Eastwood used "The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face" as the soundtrack for one of cinema's more memorable and explicit love scenes, between the actor and Donna Mills in his 1971 film "Play Misty for Me." The hushed, hymn-like ballad, with Flack's graceful soprano afloat on a bed of soft strings and piano, topped the Billboard pop chart in 1972 and received a Grammy for record of the year. .... and earlier had a son, the singer and keyboardist Bernard Wright. [He was her godson, not son. His mother was Lessie Wright. Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Wright.]
6. The Afro-American, Feb 20 1971 • Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland, United States. < oldnews.com > Q. Is Roberta Flack's husband white or black? Norman Topps. Brooklyn. N. Y. A. In 1966 Miss Flack married Steve Novosel, a white musician from Pennsylvania. Of the marriage she said: " It has been difficult some people are shocked. chagrined and mortified. His family disowned him. My brother refused to give me away. Why can't you marry a brother? " he kept asking, but he forgot we had a white 6 grandfather. We love each other, and that's important. " Novesel, a bass player, has toured with Roland Kirk.
7. Rome News-Tribune, Feb 1 1976 • Rome, Floyd, Georgia, United States. < OldNews.com > FOR ROBERTA FLACK, singer Are you married? -N.S., Cheyenne, Wyo. ● I was once - in 1966 to bass player Stephen Novesel. But it turned sour and we got divorced in 1972. It was great until it stopped being a marriage. While it lasted, Stephen was a wonderful husband. Other men handed their wives tulips, but Stephen brought me roses - and threw them at my feet. But we're still friends and always will be because he's one of those fantastic good - as - gold people.
8. FamilySearch ID:G1KZ-FCW cites
   1. "North Carolina, Birth Index, 1800-2000," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VHK8-HLS : 8 December 2014), Roberta Cleopatra Flack, 10 Feb 1937; from "North Carolina, Birth and Death Indexes, 1800-2000," database and images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : 2005); citing vol. 25, p. 119, Buncombe, North Carolina, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh.
   2. "United States, Census, 1940", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KW96-CGS : Thu Jan 23 06:22:15 UTC 2025), Entry for Aileen Council and Fred P Council, 1940.
   3. "United States, GenealogyBank Historical Newspaper Obituaries, 1815-2013", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QPBV-HKJR : Sat Jan 11 13:06:52 UTC 2025), Entry for Aileen E Council and Arleen E Council Of, 20 Apr 1976.
   4. "United States, Public Records, 1970-2009", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KJFG-H68 : 11 November 2019), Roberta Flack, 1993.
   5. "United States, Public Records, 1970-2009", , FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KVG4-5XH : 11 November 2019), Roberta Flack, 1996-1997.
   6. "United States, Residence Database, 1970-2024", database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6YJ6-5YK9 : 22 June 2024), Roberta Flack, 2020.
   7. "United States, Obituary Records, 2014-2023", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XMSQ-7ZMH : Sat Nov 16 03:06:46 UTC 2024), Entry for Ingrid Jeannine Flack Hunter and Bishop Louis Hunter, Sr, 31 January 2021. Obituary for Ingrid Jeannine Flack Hunter. Ingrid Jeannine Flack Hunter, born on August 4, 1948, peacefully transitioned on January 9, 2021. She was preceded in death by her beloved husband, Bishop Louis Hunter, Sr. her parents, Laron and Irene Flack, her brother, Leroy William Timothy Flack, her sisters, Nancy Flack and Della LaRene Flack. ...
9. Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: Feb 24 2025, 20:35:59 UTC
10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet_storm "Quiet storm" is a radio format and genre of R&B, performed in a smooth, romantic, jazz-influenced style.[1] It was named after the title song on Smokey Robinson's 1975 album A Quiet Storm.[2] The radio format was pioneered in 1976 by Melvin Lindsey, while he was an intern at the Washington, D.C. radio station WHUR-FM. It eventually became regarded as an identifiable subgenre of R&B.[3] Quiet storm was marketed to primarily upscale mature African-American audiences. It peaked in popularity during the 1980s, but fell out of favor with young listeners in the golden age of hip hop.[4]