The R&B singer Roberta Flack, best known for hits like The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face and Killing Me Softly With His Song, has died at the age of 88.
“We are heartbroken that the glorious Roberta Flack passed away this morning, February 24, 2025,” said a statement from her representatives. “She died peacefully, surrounded by her family. Roberta broke boundaries and records. She was also a proud educator.”
Flack had previously announced in 2022 that she had motor neurone disease, which prevented her from singing.
Born in North Carolina and raised in Arlington, Virginia, she started out as a classical pianist and earned a full scholarship to Howard University at just 15. Her classical training led her into teaching, but she also performed in jazz clubs, where musician Les McCann discovered her.
Flack’s breakthrough came in the 1970s when her recording of Ewan MacColl’s The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face was featured in Clint Eastwood’s film Play Misty for Me, winning Song of the Year at the Grammys. She won the award again the following year for Killing Me Softly With His Song.
She topped the charts again in 1974 with Feel Like Makin’ Love, after which she took a break from performing to focus on recording and charity work. Over the decades, she collaborated with artists like Donny Hathaway and Miles Davis.
In 1991, she returned to the charts with Maxi Priest for their duet Set the Night to Music, and in 2012, she recorded an album of Beatles covers, Let It Be Roberta.
Flack once described herself as a "soulful singer", saying, “A person with true soul is one who can take anybody’s song and transcend all the flaws, the technique, and just make you listen.”
She was once married to US jazz musician Stephen Novosel and dedicated much of her time to the Roberta Flack School of Music in New York.
In 2020, a year after suffering a stroke, she was honored with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, saying, “I’ve tried my entire career to tell stories through my music. This award is a validation that my peers heard my thoughts and took in what I have tried to give.”
Her legacy was reintroduced to a new generation in 1996 when Lauryn Hill and The Fugees released a Grammy-winning cover of Killing Me Softly, which became a worldwide hit.
