10 February: Roberta Flack

On this date in 1939 the singer Roberta Flack was born. 10 facts about her:

1. She was born in Black Mountain, North Carolina and music was in her blood. Her father was a jazz pianist and her mother a church organist. Hence her early exposure to music was in a church setting, where she accompanied the choir on Piano and also sang.

2. She was a child prodigy, learning to play the piano on her mother’s knee. At nine, she started formal piano lessons and at 13 came second in a state wide competition. She won a scholarship to Howard University when she was 15 and graduated with a BA in Music at 19.

3. She began postgraduate studies but had to leave and work to support herself after her father died. She became a teacher of music and English and also gave piano lessons at her home.

4. Her first love was classical music – she wanted to be a concert pianist.

5. She worked at the Tivoli Theatre, playing accompaniment for Opera singers. During the intermissions, she’d play and sing blues, folk and pop songs. At that time she had a voice coach called Frederick "Wilkie" Wilkerson, and it was he who advised her that she would do better in popular music than the classics. Flack took his suggestion on board and changed her repertoire.

6. In 1968 she performed at a benefit concert in Washington to raise funds for a children's library. In the audience was soul and jazz singer Les McCann, who loved her voice and got her an audition with Atlantic Records.

7. She had several hits with Donny Hathaway, who she met at university, including Where is the Love? Her song Killing Me Softly was a tribute to American Pie singer Don McLean.

8. She was an animal lover and spokeswoman for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Her song, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, was used in one of their commercials. Incidentally, when she sang that song, she was, in her mind, singing it to her pet cat.

9. Foe many years she lived next door to Yoko Ono and John Lennon. She was good friends with Yoko, and John and Yoko’s son Sean used to call her Aunt Roberta.

10. She performed up until her 80s until she was diagnosed with motor neurone disease, which made singing impossible. Flack died at the age of 88 of cardiac arrest on February 24, 2025 on her way to a hospital in Manhattan.

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