Singer Roberta Flack, whose signature voice and soulful interpretations of songs such as “Killing Me Softly with His Song” catapulted her to the top of the charts and influenced generations, has died. She was 88.
The legendary singer died “peacefully surrounded by her family” on Monday, according to a statement from her representative provided to ABC News.
No cause of death was given, but Flack was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, otherwise known as ALS, in 2022, which resulted in the loss of her singing voice.
Flack topped the charts in the 1970s with hits including “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” “Killing Me Softly with His Song,” “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” “Where is the Love” and “The Closer I Get to You.”
The songstress was nominated for 14 Grammy awards, winning five — including a lifetime achievement award. She was the first artist to win the Grammy Award for record of the year two years in a row, for “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” in 1973 and “Killing Me Softly with His Song” in 1974. The latter would go on to top the charts again three decades later with a cover by the Fugees.
Flack was born in Black Mountain, North Carolina, into a musical family; her mother was a church organist and her father a self-taught jazz pianist. A prodigy on the piano, she won a full music scholarship to Howard University, which she started attending at the age of 15. It was there that she would meet her close friend and collaborator, the late Donny Hathaway.
Flack taught in schools for several years before being discovered by Les McCann while performing jazz in a D.C. nightclub; he helped get her an audition with her first label, Atlantic Records.
Several years after signing with Atlantic, Clint Eastwood chose “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” from her 1969 debut album for the soundtrack to his 1971 film, Play Misty For Me, bringing Flack to a more mainstream audience. “Killing Me Softly” helped cement her as a star.
Flack regularly recorded duets with Hathaway during the 1970s, including the hits “Where is the Love” and “The Closer I Get to You,” until his death in 1979.
In the 1980s she began working with Peabo Bryson, including on the hit single “Tonight, I Celebrate My Love,” and also had a hit duet with Maxi Priest with “Set the Night to Music.” On TV, she sang “Together Through the Years,” the theme song to the show Valerie, later known as The Hogan Family, which ran for six seasons.
Her last album, Running, was released in 2018. She retired from touring that same year.
In 2020, she received a Grammy lifetime achievement award. Among her other accolades, Berklee College of Music awarded her an honorary Doctor of Music degree in May 2023.
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