‘Killing Me Softly” Roberta Flack dies at 88 after ALS battle
A cause of death was not revealed, but Flack was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in August 2022 and announced months later she was unable to sing.
Roberta Flack, singer of classic love ballads “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” and “Killing Me Softly With His Song,” has died. She was 88.
The four-time Grammy winning artist’s rep confirmed her death in a statement sent to Variety: “We are heartbroken that the glorious Roberta Flack passed away this morning, February 24, 2025. She died peacefully surrounded by her family.”
The statement continued: “Roberta broke boundaries and records. She was also a proud educator.”
Singer Roberta Flack poses for a portrait in New York on Oct. 10, 2018. (Photo by Matt Licari/Invision/AP, File)A cause of death was not revealed, but Flack was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in August 2022 and announced months later she was unable to sing. She suffered a stroke in 2016 that has kept her from performing in public.
Born Roberta Cleopatra Flack on Feb. 10, 1937 in Black Mountain, North Carolina, the classically trained singer, songwriter and pianist became 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” in 1973 and “Killing Me Softly with His Song” in 1974.
In this March 4, 1974 file photo, Roberta Flack holds the Grammy award for her record, “Killing Me Softly With His Song” as singer Isaac Hayes, right, looks on at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Harold Filan, File)The woman Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun referred to as “one of the finest singers in American pop history” also won Grammys for best pop vocal performance in both 1973 and 1974 for those songs, which were No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100.
“The First Time…,” originally recorded in 1969 for her “First Take” debut, took on a new life when Clint Eastwood used it in the closing credits for his feature film directorial debut, 1971’s “Play Misty for Me.”
“Killing Me Softly” is the song that introduced Flack to the MTV generation when The Fugees released their chart-topping, hip-hop-styled version in 1996.
Roberta Flack at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York. (Photo by James Devaney/WireImage)was like, ‘Oh, she’s doing this key right here. Let me go back and do that.’ And she’d go back and do it. That’s how she stacked the harmonies. Yo, it was like poetry in motion.” Flack has also joined the Fugees to perform the triple platinum-selling song, originally recorded by Lori Lieberman in 1972, on several occasions — including their performance at the 1996 MTV Movie Awards. Three years later, it was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame.”]
A piano prodigy as a child, Flack was 15 years old when she was awarded a music scholarship to enroll at Howard University. Although she aspiried to be an opera singer, her first profession would be as a teacher at junior high schools in and around Washington, D.C. She also taught music in a segregated school in Farmville, North Carolina in 1968.
Heavily influenced by the artistry of Nina Simone, Flack took up moonlighting at local night clubs singing and playing jazz standards.
Roberta Flack performs onstage at the Park West Auditorium, Chicago, Illinois, March 30, 1981. (Photo by Paul Natkin/Getty Images)A wood-paneled pub called Mr. Henry’s in D.C. is where she became a major draw — and where jazz great Les McCann was wowed by her talents. The jazz singer and pianist introduced her to Atlantic Records, where she scored major success.
Like Simone, another piano playing North Carolina native who made strides in pop music, the Buncombe County native was raised in the church and took the gospel music foundation and wove into her own style with a blend of jazz, R&B, folk and pop.
Other notable songs from Flack’s catalog include the chart-topper “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” the self-penned “Only Heaven Can Wait (For Love)” and the Donny Hathaway duets “Where Is the Love” and “The Closer I Get to You.”
Roberta Flack with Donny Hathaway circa 1970. (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)Her 1982 “Making Love” song served as the love theme to the film of the same title, which starred Harry Hamlin, Michael Ontkean and Kate Jackson, about a married Los Angeles doctor who falls in love with another man.”What is now more widely accepted, for the most part, was at the time the movie came out, a radical theme — that two men could have a deep and complex love,” she shared about the Top 20 song in 2020.
Flack scored another Top 10 Billboard Hot 100 single with a 1991 cover of Starship’s “Set the Night to Music,” with dancehall superstar Maxi Priest.
In 1999, Flack was honored with a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. She also received a GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020. Berklee College of Music presented her with an honorary Doctor of Music degree in 2023.
In 2018, Flack fell ill at the Apollo Theater during a Jazz Foundation of America benefit gala where she was set to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award. Her manager later revealed that she had suffered a stroke years prior and still was not feeling well, but was “doing fine” and being kept overnight at Harlem Hospital for observation.
Maxwell presents Honoree Roberta Flack with her award onstage during Black Girls Rock! 2017 at New Jersey Performing Arts Center on Aug. 5, 2017 in Newark, N.J. (Photo by Gilbert Carrasquillo/FilmMagic)For much of the last decade, Flack has often made public appearances in a wheelchair.
For nearly 40 years, Flack resided at the tony Upper West Side building The Dakota and once counted John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Leonard Bernstein and Lauren Bacall among her neighbors.
In 1970, Flack joined a group of prominent Black New Yorkers who became shareholders of the Inner City Broadcasting Corporation, which was founded by Harlem-born business leader Percy Sutton. The New York City-headquartered media company, which owned WLIB and WBLS radio stations, was recognized as one of the first broadcasting companies wholly owned by African-Americans.
In 2008, Flack founded the Roberta Flack School of Music at the Hyde Leadership Charter School in the Bronx, providing an innovative and inspiring music education program to underprivileged students free of charge. “The school gives these young people who think they don’t have many options a chance to see that they do,” she said at the time.
Flack’s final album was an acclaimed collection of Beatles covers, “Let It Be Roberta: Roberta Flacks Sings the Beatles” in 2012. Her life story served as the subject of a PBS “American Master documentary, “Roberta,” in 2021.
Originally Published: February 24, 2025 at 10:41 AM EST
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