Singer with the conquest of Grammy Roberta Flak, known for hitting me quietly, dead in 88

Roberta Flak, singer and pianist Grammy, whose intimate vocal and musical style has made one of the best artists for recording the 1970s and an influential performer long after that, died on Monday. She was 88 years old.

She died at home surrounded by her family, told Elaine Schock’s publicist in a statement. FLAK announced in 2022 that she had ALS, usually known as Lou Gehriga’s disease, and could no longer sing,

Little known before her early 30s, Flack became overnight star after Clint Eastwood used The first time I saw your face As a sound record for one of more unforgettable and explicit love scenes in the cinema, between actor and Donne Mills in his 1971 movie Play Misty for me.

She was silent, ballads like a anthem, with Flack’s graceful soprano on ice on a bed of soft wires and piano, at the top of the Billboard Billboard in 1972 and got Grammy for Record of the Year.

“The record label wanted to recapture with a faster pace, but said he wanted it exactly the way it was,” Flak told Associated Press 2018. “With a song as a thematic song for his movie, gained a lot of popularity and then took off.”

In 1973, she coincided with both achievements with Killing me quietly with his songbecoming the first artist to win the consecutive Grammys for the best record.

WATCH | Flak’s Killing me quietly Won three Grammy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrudt410tai

She was a classically dressed pianist discovered by jazz musician Les McCann in the late sixties, who later wrote that “her voice touched, touched, captured and struck every emotion I ever knew.”

Holdshed enough to call the passion of Aretha Franklin, Flack has often favored the more reflective and measured approach.

For FLAK, many fans have been sophisticated and brave new presence in the world of music and in the time movements for social and civil rights, her friends, including Reverend Jesse Jackson and Angela Davis, who was visited in prison by Flak while Davis faced accusations – for which she was liberated – for murder and abduction.

Flak sang at Jackie Robinson’s funeral, the first black player Major League Baseball, and was among many visiting performers on a feminist project for children’s entertainment created by Marlo Thomas, Free to be … you and I.

Ilible Life and Career

Roberta Cleopatra Flak, the daughter of a musician, was born in Black Mountain, NC, and grew up in Arlington, Va. As a child as a child, she was so talented piano that at the age of 15 she had received a full scholarship to Howard, a historic black university.

Fllak’s second hits from the 1970s included pleasant Feel like love and two duets with your close friend and former class of Howard Donny Hathaway University, Where love is and The closer I get closer to you – A partnership that ended with a tragedy. In 1979, she and Hathaway worked on the duet album when he had a breakdown during the recording, and later that night he fell to death from his hotel room in Manhattan.

“We were deeply connected creatively,” Flack told Vibe 2022, on the 50th anniversary of the sale of millions of sales Roberta Flak and Donny Hathaway album. “He could play anything, singing anything. Our musical synergy was unlike [anything] I had before or since then. “

Never coincided with her first success, though she had a hit with Peabo Bryson Duet in the 1980s I celebrate my love tonight And 1990 with Maxi a priestly duet Set the night on music. In the mid-90s, Flak attracted new attention after the Fugees recorded a cover of Grammy Killing me quietlywhich eventually performed on stage with a hip-hop group.

Overall, she won five Grammy (three for Killing me quietly), he was nominated eight times and received Grammy for a lifetime work in 2020, and among those who praised her were John Legend and Ariana Grande.

“I love that connection with other artists because we understand music, live music, it’s our language,” Flak told Songwrituniverse.com in 2020. “We understand music what we think and feel. No matter what life is the challenge, I, I am at home with my piano, on stage, with my band, in the studio, listening to music.

2022 Beyonce set up Flak, Franklin and Diana Ross in a special pantheon of heroin checked in Remix Queens nominated Grammy of Break my soul.

Flack was briefly married to Stephen Novosel, a inter -scare -sided relationship that he led to her family, and had previously had a son, singer and keyboardist Bernard Wright.

For years, she lived in the Manhattan Station Building of Dakota, on the same floor as John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who became close friend and provided notes for the FLACK Abum of Beatles Covers album, Let it be Robert. She also dedicated the extensive time of Robert Flak School of Music, headquartered in New York, mostly attended by students between the ages of six and 14.

For several years, Flak taught music in DC high schools in his 20s, while performing after hours at clubs. Sometimes she supported other singers, but her own shows in the famous Mr. Henry attracted such famous patrons as Burt Bacharach, Ramsey Lewis and Johnny Mathis. The club owner, Henry Yaffe, turned the apartment directly above the private studio, Roberta Flak Room.

“I wanted to be a successful, serious versatile musician,” she told Telegraph 2015. “I listened to a lot of Arethe, Drifters, trying to do something of it, playing, teaching.”

Flak was signed to Atlantic Records and her debut album, Take it firstThe compound of the gospel, soul, flamenco and jazz came out in 1969. One song was the love song of English folk artist Ewana MacColl: The first time I saw your faceWritten in 1957 for her future wife, singer Peggy Seeger. Not only did Flack know about the ballad, but he used it as she worked with the Glee club over the years as a educator.

“I taught at Banneker Junior High, Washington, DC was a part of the city where the children were not privileged, but they were privileged enough to have music education. I really wanted to read music.” So she would attract their attention “Singing hit Suprames, Stop! In the name of love.

“Then I could teach them!” Said Tampa Bay Times in 2012.

“You have to do all sorts of things when you do children in the inner city,” she said. “I knew they would like the part where [The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face] goes “the first time I kissed your mouth.” Ooh, ‘kissed your mouth!’ Once the kids went through the giggling, we were good. “