Killing Me Softly singer Roberta Flack dead at 88

Legendary singer Roberta Flack, who shot to stardom in the early ’70s with the global hits The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face and Killing Me Softly With His Song, has died.

Roberta Flack, the Grammy-winning singer behind the classic Killing Me Softly With His Song, has died her publicist said in a statement, without citing a cause. She was 88 years old.

The influential pop and R&B star was one of the most recognisable voices of the 1970s, but in recent years she lost her ability to sing to ALS, known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, which she was diagnosed with in 2022.

US singer Roberta Flack pictured in Sydney. Picture: Supplied

“We are heartbroken that the glorious Roberta Flack passed away this morning, February 24, 2025,” the statement reads.

“She died peacefully surrounded by her family. Roberta broke boundaries and records. She was also a proud educator.”

The classically trained singer and pianist with a tender voice produced a number of early classics of rhythm and blues that she frequently described as “scientific soul,” timeless works that blended meticulous practice with impeccable taste. Indeed, she only sound fame only belatedly found fame when Clint Eastwood employed her two-year-old version of The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face in his 1971 directorial debut, now cinematic classic, Play Misty for Me.

Her work was key to the “quiet storm” radio form of smooth, sensuous, slow jams that popularised R&B and influenced its later aesthetics in the 1980s and 1990s.

‘A LOT OF LOVE’

Born Roberta Cleopatra Flack in Black Mountain, North Carolina on February 10, 1937, the artist was raised in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington DC.

Her large, musical family had a penchant for gospel, and she took up the piano in her youth, which ultimately earned her a music scholarship to Washington’s Howard University at the tender age of 15.

She told Forbes in 2021 that her father “found an old, smelly piano in a junkyard and restored it for me and painted it green.” “This was my first piano and was the instrument in which I found my expression and inspiration as a young person.” She was a regular playing clubs in Washington, where she was eventually discovered by jazz musician Les McCann.

US singer Roberta Flack performs in San Sebastian in 2005. The singer died at 88 on Monday local time. Picture: AFP

Flack signed at Atlantic Records, launching a recording career at the relatively late age of 32.

But her magnetic star grew overnight after Clint Eastwood used her romantic ballad The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face on the soundtrack of his 1971 movie Play Misty for Me.

The song earned her the Grammy for Record of the Year in 1972, a prize which she took home at the following ceremony as well for Killing Me Softly With His Song, thus becoming the first artist ever to win the honour two years in a row.

Roberta Flack became one of the sounds of the 1970s. Picture: Supplied

A remixed rendition of Killing Me Softly was released in 1996 by the Fugees, with Lauryn Hill on lead vocals, bringing Flack a resurgence as it soared to top charts worldwide and scored another Grammy.

Flack also won a lifetime achievement honour from the Recording Academy in 2020. Flack was a figure in the mid-20th century’s social movements, and was friends with both Reverend Jesse Jackson and activist Angela Davis. She sang at the funeral of baseball icon Jackie Robinson, MLB’s first Black player.

She has described growing up “at a time ‘Black’ was the most derogatory word you could use. I went through the civil rights movement. I learned, long after leaving Black Mountain, that being Black was a positive thing, as all of us did, the most positive thing we could be.” “I did a lot of songs that were considered protest songs, a lot of folk music,” she said, “but I protested as a singer with a lot of love.”

Originally published as Killing Me Softly singer Roberta Flack dead at 88