ROBERTA FLACK

Roberta Cleopatra Flack was born in 1973 in America. Almost everybody in the world knows her for her number one Hit “Killing Me Softly With His Song”.

She was the first artist to win the Grammy Awards for record of the year two times in a row.

1973 with “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” and 1074 with “Killing Me Softly With His Song”.

Only U2 and Billie Eilish have repeated this.

Roberta started as a young child to play piano and got the opportunity to get a full music scholarship at Howard University. Before becoming a professional singer she moved back to Washington DC where she was hired to perform regularly at Mr. Henry's Restaurant, on Capitol Hill in 1968

(frequent visitors included Woody Allen, Bill Cosby, Ramsey Lewis and others).

Around the same time she was discovered by Les McCann who arranged an audition for her at Atlantic Records. In November 1968, she recorded 39 song demos in less than 10 hours. Three months later, Atlantic reportedly recorded Flack's debut album, First Take, in a mere 10 hours.

In 1971, Flack participated in the legendary Soul to Soul concert film by Denis Sanders, which was headlined by Wilson Pickett, along with Ike & Tina Turner, The Staple Singers and others. Her Atlantic recordings did not sell particularly well, until actor/director Clint Eastwood chose a song from First Take, "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" written by Ewan MacColl, for the soundtrack of his directorial debut Play Misty for Me; it became the biggest hit of the year for 1972, spending six consecutive weeks at #1 and earning Flack a million-selling Gold disc.

In 1972, Flack began recording regularly with Donny Hathaway, scoring hits such as the Grammy-winning "Where Is the Love" (1972) and later "The Closer I Get to You" (1978), both million-selling gold singles.

Flack and Hathaway recorded several duets together, including two LPs, until Hathaway's 1979 death.

Roberta Flack won the Grammy Award 5 times and the american music award one time.

On May 11, 2017, Roberta Flack received an honorary Doctorate degree in the Arts from LIU.

She was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2009.