Roberta Flack’s Life and Music were celebrated March 10, 2025, at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, NYC. The Public Livestream is still available to view at: https://robertaflack.com/
Roberta Cleopatra Flack’s voice will live on in our memories through her music, her quiet activism, and her strength in establishing and speaking up for her musical and cultural beliefs. From the release of her debut studio album “First Take” in 1969, Flack was firm to stand up and speak up for her artistic visions.
Drawn to the piano and organ at a young age, Flack’s prodigious versatility allowed her as a young artist and throughout her career to cross musical genres: from classical to gospel, from opera to folk, from jazz to pop. Musical and racial categorization was the norm back when Flack embarked on her musical life journey. Yet through this melting pot of categories, it was her mesmerizing voice and vocal performances that were at once quickly recognizable, full of emotion without being over-emotional, captivating, and making the listener stop and listen.
While Flack was already established as musical force regionally in the D.C. area, it was jazz great Les McCann who introduced her to Atlantic Records in the late 1960s, and she subsequently worked with a team which included Joel Corn, Ahmet Ertegun, Jerry Wexler, and a host of legendary NY session musicians. This magical meeting of musical minds contributed to and allowed Flack to create a string of solo and duet hits (with Donny Hathaway, Peabo Bryson), and later projects that explored other artists, contemporary songwriters and genres. Flack’s cinematic work also includes collaborations with legends such as Clint Eastwood and Richard Pryor. She also moved into the producer’s chair, sometimes using the nom de plume Rubina Flake.
Robert Flack’s voice possessed a warm and calming effect in all of her songs. And though she did not write them all, she sang them as if she did; she made them her own. Her thoughtful and nuanced interpretations would shine through her voice and piano performances and arrangements. She created a space between her notes, and gave the listener time to really hear.
Flack was firmly established as a musical force from the early 1970’s and throughout the decades that followed. Then in 1996, The Fugees with Lauryn Hill on lead vocals, released a version of a revisit and reworking of “Killing Me Softly With His Song.” It was familiar to those who knew Flack’s version note for note, and also served as an introduction to a new generation of the enduring brilliance of the song and Roberta Flack, 23 years later. Its release was at a time of a musical and technological shift in the ever-changing landscape of music and the music industry, breaking down the category of what a hit song could be.
In 2020 Flack was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2023 an honorary doctorate by the Berklee College of Music.
Let’s celebrate her life, voice and musical legacy.
Roberta Cleopatra Flack
Memorial Celebration of Life
Public Livestream: https://robertaflack.com/