Roberta Flack Biography

Roberta Flack was born in 1939 in North Carolina. She developed an interest in the piano when she was very young, and by the time she was a teenager she’d earned a full scholarship for classical performance at Howard University.  She entered the university at the age of fifteen and ultimately changed her major to voice. Upon graduation she taught in Maryland, but then after graduating from Howard at the age of nineteen, the sudden loss of her father caused her to return to North Carolina and take a job as a music teacher.

Eventually, Roberta Flack was discovered singing in a nightclub and signed to her first recording contract. When her song “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” was featured in the film Play Misty For Me, Flack found herself with a number one single that eventually became the most successful song of the year. “Where it the Love” followed, and then in 1973 Robert Flack released “Killing Me Softly With His Song,” again reaching number one on the charts. The song has become the single with which she is still associated most frequently today. In 1980, Roberta Flack toured with Peabo Bryson, and three years late as a duo they scored a hit with the song “Tonight, I Celebrate My Love.” Another duet with Maxi Priest in 1991, “Set the Night to Music” also charted, but for the remainder of the decade Robert Flack remained rather quiet.

Roberta Flack was given her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1999, and that same year she toured to South Africa, performing for President Nelson Mandella. She has recently resurfaced with Let it Be Roberta (2012), an album featuring covers of Beatles classics, including “Let it Be” and “Hey Jude.” In addition to her recent releases and performances, Roberta Flack is an active spokesperson and member of the ASPCA, a member of the Artist Empowerment Coalition, and a partner in the Roberta Flack School of Music in the Bronx, New York. The program seeks to provide after-school music education to underprivileged youth.