Roberta Flack Dies: Legendary 'Killing Me Softly' Singer Was 88

Roberta Flack, whose intimate vocals made her one of the top recording artists of the 1970s, died on Monday at age 88.

The legendary singer died at home surrounded by her family, her publicist Elaine Schock said in a statement to the Associated Press.

In 2022, Flack announced she had ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and could no longer sing.

Roberta Cleopatra Flack, the daughter of musicians, was born in Black Mountain, North Carolina, and raised in Arlington, Virginia.

She rose to stardom after Clint Eastwood used “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” as the soundtrack for a love scene between he and Donna Mills in his 1971 film, Play Misty for Me. The ballad, with Flack’s prayerful vocals resting on a bed of soft strings and piano, topped the Billboard 100 singles chart in 1972. The song later won a Grammy for record of the year.

“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.”

She followed that triumph in 1973, as her single “Killing Me Softly With His Song” made her the first artist to win consecutive Grammys for best record.

Flack was a classically trained pianist, receiving a full scholarship at age 15 to Howard University. Her entertainment career began in the late 1960s when jazz musician Les McCann discovered her, describing her music as kicking “every emotion I’ve ever known.”

Beyond entertainment, she was active in the social and civil rights movements, counting the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Angela Davis among her friends.

Flack sang at the funeral of Jackie Robinson, major league baseball’s first Black player, and she was among the guest performers on the feminist children’s entertainment project created by Marlo Thomas, “Free to Be … You and Me.”

The singer also had hits with “Feel Like Makin’ Love” and two duets with her close friend and former Howard classmate, Donny Hathaway — “Where Is the Love” and ”The Closer I Get to You.” That partnership ended when Hathaway suffered a breakdown during recording and later that night fell to his death from his hotel room in Manhattan.

“We were deeply connected creatively,” Flack told Vibe in 2022, upon the 50th anniversary of the million-selling “Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway” album. “He could play anything, sing anything. Our musical synergy was unlike (anything) I’d had before or since.”

Flack continued her string of hits with the Peabo Bryson duet “Tonight, I Celebrate My Love” in the 1980s and in the 1990s with the Maxi Priest duet “Set the Night to Music.” She also had a brief revival of attention after the Fugees recorded a Grammy-winning cover of “Killing Me Softly,” which she later performed on stage with the hip-hop group.

In 2022, Beyoncé named Flack, Aretha Franklin and Diana Ross her heroines in the Grammy-nominated “Queens Remix” of “Break My Soul.”

Flack’s lifetime achievements include four Grammy Awards, according to Grammy.com. She was nominated a total of 14 times and additionally received a lifetime achievement Grammy in 2020, with John Legend and Ariana Grande among those praising her.

The singer was briefly married to Stephen Novosel, and had a son, singer and keyboardist Bernard Wright.