Okay, people—after three highly political reviews, it’s time to chill out! We can’t let Voldemort and his minions of crazy white supremacists, climate change deniers, LGBTQ-haters, gun-toting, violence-loving, anti-vaxxers, and Bible-twisting losers take up occupancy in our heads and rob us of our sleep! We need to be rested, in tip-top shape, and brimming with positivity if we are to win the battle against the selfish and the stupid!
Hence, as a public service from yours truly, the next few reviews are purely apolitical healing experiences, falling into the categories of mellow, joyful, witty, sensuous, reflective, soothing, and downright beautiful. Feel free to classify this mini-series as an antidote to the disgusting display of American Machismo on the White House lawn if you are so inclined—and that’s the last political comment you will hear from me for a while.
*****
Roberta Cleopatra Flack was a musical prodigy born to a musical family. Her father was a self-taught jazz pianist (his main gig was working at the V.A.), and her music-teacher mother served as organist and gospel choir director at the local church. “From the time she was a 4-year-old girl in Black Mountain, N.C., Roberta Flack dreamed of having her own piano. But her parents couldn’t afford one. When she was 9, and her family was living in Arlington, Va., her father spied a beat-up old upright piano in a junkyard. He brought it home and painted it green.” (National Urban League) After four years of piano lessons, she had mastered enough classical piano to place second in a statewide competition, earning herself a full scholarship to study music at Howard University. She accepted the scholarship two years later and entered college at the age of fifteen.
Roberta chose to major in piano but later switched to voice, becoming the assistant conductor of the university choir. She earned her B.A. and began attending graduate school, but when her father passed away, she had to drop out to support herself. For the next few years, she taught music in North Carolina and Maryland, offered private lessons, and eventually made her way back to D.C. with the intent of becoming an opera singer. After a stint providing piano accompaniment for opera singers at the Tivoli Theatre, she began playing contemporary music at local clubs. Sometime during that period, her vocal coach suggested that her future was not in opera but in popular music, and Roberta changed directions once again.
Her break came in the summer of 1968 when she performed at a benefit concert in Washington to raise funds for a children’s library in the city’s ghetto district, and jazzman Les McCann happened to be in the audience. In the liner notes to her debut album First Take, McCann shared his initial reaction: “Her voice touched, tapped, trapped, and kicked every emotion I’ve ever known. I laughed, cried, and screamed for more . . . she alone had the voice.” Roberta shared her memories of that experience with the Washingtonian: “He loved what he heard, and he arranged for me to audition with Atlantic Records. I played over 40 songs in three hours at that audition. Then, within a few months, I was in the studio recording my first album, First Take.” That album was recorded in a mere ten hours, wound up topping the Billboard charts, and Roberta Flack would become a frequent visitor on the pop and R&B charts throughout the 70s and 80s.
Les McCann got it, but several music critics had a hard time figuring out Roberta Flack. Her music melds multiple genres (classical, gospel, R&B, soul, folk, jazz), and both critics and record company moguls tend to prefer strict classification. Someone came up with “Quiet Storm,” which doesn’t come close to describing her eclectic offerings. Ann Powers of NPR captured the dilemma in the subtitle of her article on Roberta’s legacy: “Roberta Flack’s career demands a new way of thinking about the word ‘genius.'”
The values her music conveys — virtuosity’s attention to detail; the warm sensuality and tender eroticism shared by longtime friends and lovers; revelations reached slowly and thoughtfully instead of in a clattering crash — didn’t coalesce within a rock and roll-defined hierarchy that puts rebels and gritty individualists at the top. Within black communities and among artists of color, Flack’s music has always remained a central guiding force. But to fully acknowledge Roberta Flack’s importance is to rethink the presumptions that have haunted popular music for as long as she herself has been making music. Really listening to her seems like a good place to start.
Her classical training suited a character prone from childhood to be careful and self-reflective and made Flack an exceptionally sensitive and deeply inventive interpreter. “My music is inspired thought by thought, and feeling by feeling,” she wrote. “Not note by note. I tell my own story in each song as honestly as I can in the hope that each person can hear it and feel their own story within those feelings.”
I’ll allow The Village Idiot of Music Criticism to speak for the hierarchy. Take it away, Mr. Christgau!
In 1971, The Village Voice critic Robert Christgau reported that “Flack is generally regarded as the most significant new black woman singer since Aretha Franklin, and at moments she sounds kind, intelligent, and very likable. But she often exhibits the gratuitous gentility you’d expect of someone who says ‘between you and I’.” Reviewing her body of work from the 1970s, he argued later that the singer “has nothing whatsoever to do with rock and roll or rhythm and blues and almost nothing to do with soul”, comparing her middle-of-the-road aesthetic to Barry Manilow but with better taste, which he believed does not necessarily guarantee more enduring music: “In the long run, pop lies are improved by vulgarity.” Wikipedia.
Barry Manilow? Oh, for fuck’s sake.
Roberta Flack was one of the greatest song interpreters of them all. She covered an astonishingly wide range of music genres during her career, choosing songs from a diverse set of songwriters: Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Ewan MacColl, Janis Ian, Lerner & Lowe, Cahn & Van Heusen, Jimmy Webb, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Curtis Mayfield, Paul Simon, Goffin-King, the Gibb brothers, Lieber-Stoller, Phil Spector, and Stevie Wonder . . . etc. “Flack just as powerfully established a route beyond the pigeonholes that many other artists struggled to transcend. Accomplishing this, she also did what (as the scholar Robin D.G. Kelley has pointed out) jazz players like Johnny Hodges and Thelonious Monk managed: she reinvented the art song. ‘My main interest is in telling my story through a song — whether mine or someone else’s,’ Flack told me. ‘Tell the truth with clarity and honesty so that the listener can feel their story.” (Powers, ibid).
Through her beautiful voice, Roberta Flack touched many hearts and reconnected them to their emotional centers. When Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs gave birth to her first child, she sent this message to her fanbase: “Shortly after we brought him home, I held him in my arms and listened to Roberta Flack singing this tune. I felt my heart exploding in my chest with a love I couldn’t begin to put into words, so Roberta’s will have to do for now.” She continued by quoting the lyrics of Flack’s classic love song, ‘First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.'” (E Online)
This 1981 compilation contains many of her biggest hits during her commercial peak years. I usually complain about compilation albums that fail to organize the songs in chronological order to make it easy to perceive an artist’s developmental arc, but Roberta Flack arrived on the scene fully developed, and the songs are undeniably timeless. As promised, the album is completely apolitical, but during her long career, Roberta covered several political songs and donated time and money to several worthy causes. She served as a spokesperson for the ASPCA, joined the fight for an artist’s rights to own their creative output, and founded The Roberta Flack School of Music in the Bronx to provide free music education to underprivileged students. She was also an advocate for gay rights, quoted in the New York Times as believing that “Love is love. Between a man and a woman, between two men, between two women. Love is universal, like music.”
Really listening to her does seem like a good place to start.
*****
Duets with Donny Hathaway are marked with an asterisk.
“Killing Me Softly With His Song” (Charles Fox, Norman Gimbel, Lori Lieberman) From Killing Me Softly, 1973: Fifteen seconds. That’s all it takes for my tears to flow. Don’t worry, they are happy tears responding to the layers of Roberta’s beautiful voice.
Roberta first heard the original Lori Lieberman version on an airplane’s in-flight radio program. “The title, of course, smacked me in the face. I immediately pulled out some scratch paper, made musical staves, then played the song at least eight to ten times, jotting down the melody that I heard. When I landed, I immediately called Quincy [Jones] at his house and asked him how to meet Charles Fox. Two days later, I had the music.” (Wikipedia) As she recalled in a video on American Masters, she made several changes to the original, inserting the iconic wordless vocal, changing the chord pattern, and giving the arrangement a subtle backbeat. Roberta recorded the song with her band in Jamaica, but she wasn’t happy with the mix and refused to release the song despite pressure from Atlantic. Not good enough was never good enough for Roberta Flack.
Sometime later, she went on tour with Quincy Jones. “We did our date at the Greek Theatre in L.A., and when it was over, they wanted an encore, and Quincy said, ‘Ro, do something!’ And I said, ‘Well, I have this new song I’d been working on.’ So I started to sing ‘Strummin’ my pain with his fingers . . . ‘ After I finished, the audience would not stop screaming. And Quincy said, ‘Ro, don’t sing that daggone song no more until you record it.'”
The Lieberman version was a folk number she wrote with her two partners after attending a Don McLean concert (see postscript below). To each his own, I guess, but I doubt that Roberta was thinking about Don McLean when she recorded the song. Having no attachment to a specific event, she made the song an ode to the emotional power of music itself and how the combination of great music and lyrics can be personally meaningful and transformative for the listener.
Strummin’ my pain with his fingers
Singin’ my life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Tellin’ my whole life with his words
Killing me softly with his songI felt all flushed with fever
Embarrassed by the crowd
I felt he found my letters
And read each one out loud
I prayed that he would finish
But he just kept right onHe sang as if he knew me
In all my dark despair
And then he looked right through me
As if I wasn’t there
And he just kept on singin’
Singin’ clear and strong
When you hear a song that moves you and touches your heart, it either hits you like a brick and inspires immediate change in your life or seeps into you and encourages self-reflection (usually the latter). Due to Roberta Flack’s amazing ability to make every song her own, I bet that she touched many hearts over the years.
In comparing the chord progressions of the two versions, I noticed that the Lieberman version stuck to basic major and minor chords familiar to guitarists. It makes for a nice song, but it’s hardly challenging enough for a classically trained pianist. Roberta replaced many of the simple chords with more complex versions: Am became Am7, the D chord became D7, the closing chord to the verses introduced additional tension with a shift to B7, G and F chords were replaced by major seventh versions, and some chords were replaced with “add” chords like A/C#. When I said Roberta Flack made every song her own, I wasn’t kidding!
Of course, the main attraction is Roberta’s layered vocals, featuring a strong but sensitive lead vocal with cascades of background vocals enhanced by echo and shifting placement in the soundscape. Whenever I listen to the song, I cry the whole way through, struck by the sheer beauty of Roberta’s voice.
Postscript: There was a big hoo-hah over who wrote the song, with Fox and Gimbel denying that Lori had anything to do with it except relaying her story. All I can say is I firmly believe Lori’s version of events, and she had enough class to praise Roberta’s version for its creativity.
*”The Closer I Get to You” (Reggie Lucas, James Mtume) From Blue Lights in the Basement, 1977: Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway were the proverbial match made in heaven. Both were Howard alumni, shared the common language of the classically trained musician, and most importantly, their warm vocal timbres were exceptionally complementary.
Lucas and Mtume were former members of Miles Davis’ early 70s band who had joined Roberta’s band in 1976. The song was initially written as a solo single, but was turned into a duet thanks to a suggestion from David Franklin (Roberta’s manager). The song is structured as a call-and-response piece, with the vocalists trading verses in sequence. The only time Roberta and Donny harmonize is on the song’s closing line.
Both singers are in fine form, with Roberta exploring the upper part of her range and Donny imbuing his vocal with genuine passion. The two voices meld so well that one might find it hard to believe that Donny was not in the studio when he recorded his vocal. Donny had been suffering from a combination of clinical depression and paranoid schizophrenia since 1973 and had been hospitalized several times. Feeling fragile at the time of the recording, he was unable to travel to New York to join Roberta in the studio and recorded his part in Chicago. I will be forever grateful that for one blessed moment, he was able to quiet the demons and express his true self through song.
Set to a leisurely tempo with a sweet mood enhanced by a shimmering synthesizer, the duet is a romantic masterpiece. Jason Elias of Allmusic wrote, “The track easily attains the grace and gorgeous sound that a lot of the like-minded songs here just miss.” Much to my surprise, the author of the Wikipedia entry saved me a lot of work by quoting the sheet music: “The Closer I Get to You” is set in common time and moves at a tempo of 90 beats per minute. The song is written in the key of A major and follows the chord progression Dmaj9–C♯m7–F♯m7–Amaj7. Flack sings in the vocal range of C♯4–F♯5.” Thanks, whoever you are!
*”You’ve Got a Friend”: (Carole King) From Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway, 1972: James Taylor released his version at about the same time as the Flack-Hathaway take and won the Hot 100 battle by a score of #1 to #29. The two pieces of good news were that “You’ve Got a Friend” was Roberta’s first single to make the Billboard charts, and it managed to reach #8 on the R&B charts.
I wasn’t surprised that James Taylor’s version was more popular. After the release of Sweet Baby James and “Fire and Rain,” American listeners couldn’t get enough of James Taylor. He also had an unusual connection to the song that gave him an interpretive edge: “Carole King and I were playing the Troubadour in Los Angeles together. She had just written ‘You’ve Got a Friend,’ which she later said was a response to ‘Fire and Rain.’ The chorus to ‘Fire and Rain’ is ‘I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend.’ Carole’s response was, ‘Here’s your friend.’ As soon as I heard it, I wanted to play it.”
In contrast to Taylor’s minimalist arrangement, which I think is a better fit for the song’s innate fragility, The Flack-Hathaway rendition employs a variety of instruments and a string arrangement written by Donny Hathaway. The song has more of a gospel feel (which I like), and while I heartily approve of the strings, the electric piano feels out of place.
As it turns out, the suits at Atlantic did a lousy job of choosing singles from the album. “You’ve Got a Friend” was the lead single, and they followed it up with a cover of the Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” which peaked at #71. They finally got it right on the third try with what in retrospect feels like the obvious “duh” choice: “Where Is the Love.”
It’s no wonder that Roberta Flack became more assertive in her dealings with management as time went on.
“Feel Like Makin’ Love” (Eugene McDaniels) From Feel Like Makin’ Love, 1975: Boy, oh, boy, did those people in the seventies feel like makin’ love! Though they share a common title, this is not a cover of Bad Company’s fuck song, released in 1975. Roberta’s single was actually released in May 1974 and shot straight to #1; the album hit the shelves a year later, a month before the release of Bad Company’s Straight Shooter.
Based on the stories my parents shared with me about sex in the 70s, the music industry could have ordered up dozens of songs with the same title, and all of them would have been hits.
The difference between the two songs is not as blatant as one might think. Gene McDaniels’ song is consistently sweet, romantic and focused on verbal foreplay, as are the verses in the Paul Rodgers composition. The big difference comes in the form of the onomatopoeic thrusts in the chorus of the Bad Company song, creating a combination of foreplay and get-down-and-dirty. Bad Company’s song has a sacred place in my fuck playlists, while Roberta’s is relegated to the preparation stage of showering, makeup, and slipping on the leather or lingerie.
Befitting the imagery in the lyrics, Roberta’s vocal is subtle, a bit on the demure side but full of anticipation for the magic moment.
Strollin’ in the park
Watchin’ winter turn to spring
Walkin’ in the dark
Seein’ lovers do their thing . . .When you talk to me
When you’re moanin’ sweet and low
When you’re touchin’ me
And my feelings start to show . . .In a restaurant
Holdin’ hands by candlelight
While I’m touchin’ you
Wanting you with all my mightOoh
That’s the time
I feel like makin’ love to you
That’s the time
I feel like makin’ dreams come true
Oh, baby
The music is dominated by minor seventh and major seventh chords that combine to create a mood of elegance, groove, and introspection. Roberta’s arrangement is light on histrionics and heavy on subtlety, and works beautifully with her sensitive vocals. In addition to arranging this song, Roberta produced the entire album under an alias she created as a child when she dreamed of becoming an opera singer: Rubina Flake. This show of assertiveness concerning her music would turn out well in the long run, but like all first-time experiences, she admitted, “I made a lot of mistakes. It was a very hard time for me. There were days when I just cried and cried. But you press on. You press on.” (Wikipedia).
Perseverance could have been Roberta Flack’s middle name.
“Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” (Gerry Goffin, Carole King) From Quiet Fire, 1971: I didn’t care much for Carole King’s rather pedestrian version on Tapestry, released earlier in 1971, but Roberta Flack managed to move the timeline, transforming a Shirelles song that was clearly written for a teenage audience of the 60s grappling with the age-old teenage question, “Do I go all the way or not?” into a song that fits the milieu of the wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am 70s—without changing a single word in the lyrics.
To appreciate that perspective, allow me to remind you of Roberta’s approach to interpretation: “I tell my own story in each song as honestly as I can.” When she recorded her version, she was in her early-30s, a mature adult in her sexual prime. To “tell her own story,” she had to approach the song through that lens and her personal experience. By this time, the Pill and IUD’s were widely available, so there was little risk of getting pregnant if you chose to engage in sexual intercourse. The primary concern for most people in the loose environment of the Sexual Revolution involved casual sex, one-night stands that would never blossom into a serious relationship. You may have hit it off with someone in a nightclub and let your emotions and hormones convince you that he or she could be “the one,” but unless you made your intentions crystal clear (not easy to do when you’re a bit drunk), you might find yourself hoodwinked into a one-shot deal. “Will you still love me tomorrow?” is a question that can only be answered by dialogue before you get into the sack.
But if you find out that your new partner is a shitty lay, no harm done (if you’re on the Pill or using a condom and assuming the absence of venereal disease).
The song opens with a lengthy and welcome piano passage that confirms Roberta as a top-tier pianist. She sings the song slowly and deliberately, occasionally raising her voice on the lines she wants to emphasize. Toward the end of the first verse, a string section appears, complete with two cellos. While I would have been happy with just Roberta and her piano, the string arrangement written by Arif Marden helps to vary the texture and strengthen the emotional aspect of the piece (though it does get a bit too loud in spots). The fade finds Roberta softly singing the words “will you still love me” without the “tomorrow,” hinting that her intent is to find someone who will stay for the long haul. Roberta’s virtuoso vocal and piano performances rescue the song from nostalgic leanings and bring it into the present (a present that pretty much extends to today).
*”Where Is The Love” (William Slater, Ralph MacDonald) From Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway, 1972 : The song that should have been the lead single involves the sort of relationship I have always managed to avoid. From Songfacts: “In this song, Flack and Hathaway sing about a relationship that is not working out. Unlike most male/female duets, they aren’t singing to each other, but are both taking the role of the person who is on the short end of the relationship. It’s a classic case of girl leaves boyfriend, tells another guy she will love him, then goes back to her original boyfriend, leaving Donny and Roberta to ask, ‘Where Is The Love?'”
Slater and MacDonald wrote the song with the Fifth Dimension in mind, but when Roberta and Donny came up one song short of an album, MacDonald (who was working with Roberta in the role of percussionist) happily offered it to the duo. It was a perfect fit for Roberta and Donny, allowing them to harmonize, play call-and-response, and occasionally take the lead. From an acting perspective, Donny gives the strongest performance, clearly irritated by the broad who can’t make up her mind. The song flows beautifully, the strings are suitably tempered, and the melodies are quite catchy. Despite Donny’s feigned impatience, it sounds like the two of them are having one helluva good time. The listening public rewarded their efforts by pushing “Where Is the Love” to #5 on the charts.
“The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” (Ewan MacColl) From First Take. 1969: Color me baffled, but how in the hell could Roberta’s maiden album achieve near-universal acclaim and reach the top of the charts without even one charting single? More to the point, why did it take a Clint Eastwood film released two years later to awaken Americans to one of the greatest vocal performances on record and force Atlantic to release it as a single? The only theory I can come up with is that when the Miracle Mets won the World Series over the heavily favored Orioles, every brain in America blew a fuse that could only be repaired when Clint Eastwood made his directorial debut.
And yes, that’s the worst theory I’ve ever come up with.
This Rolling Stone commentary on First Take by Julius Lester may help explain my bafflement:
With the appearance of her first album a little less than a year ago, Roberta Flack immediately established herself as worthy to enter the pantheon with the two other truly great black female singers of the Sixties, Aretha and Nina Simone. It is impossible to classify her. She is not a “soul” singer like Aretha, who emphasizes gospel rhythms and blues harmonies. She is not a shouter like Aretha, either. She is not a jazz musician, as Nina Simone essentially is, though, Roberta resembles Nina in her amazing ability to get further inside a song than one thought humanly possible and to bring responses from places inside you that you never knew existed. However, where Nina Simone overpowers one with her strength, bitterness and anger, Roberta Flack underplays everything with a quietness and gentleness. More than any singer I know, she can take a quiet, slow song (and most of hers are) and infuse it with a brooding intensity that is, at times, almost unbearable. With her, Leonard Cohen’s “Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye” and Ewan MacColl’s “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” become the basis for meditation.
Roberta recalled how she came by the song in a piece on SuperSeventies.com: “One of my friends in Washington was a folk entertainer named Donal Leace, and one day he turned me on to a record by the team of Joe and Eddie. It was ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.’ A British folk singer, Ewan McColl, wrote it in 1963 for his wife (sic), Peggy Seeger, who was also a folk singer and the sister of Pete Seeger. I thought it was just beautiful and had to add it to my first album. A lot of people ask me what I was thinking about while I was recording that song. Actually, I was thinking about a little black cat that someone had given me, named Sancho Panza. I had just gotten back from being on the road for the first time, and I discovered that he had been killed. I only had one pet, and when I went into the studio, two days later, he was still on my mind. After the album was released, a disc jockey in New Orleans started a one-man campaign to get the song pulled off the album as a single. Nobody at Atlantic, though, paid any attention to him.”
And now . . . the rest of the story courtesy of Wikipedia: “Flack’s slow and intimate version, chosen by Clint Eastwood for Play Misty for Me, accompanied a love scene with Eastwood and actress Donna Mills. Flack recalled that Eastwood heard her recording on his car radio while driving on a Los Angeles freeway, then phoned her at her Alexandria, Virginia home. According to Flack, Eastwood said: “‘I’d like to use your song in this movie . . . about a disc jockey [with] a lot of music in it. I’d use it in the only part of the movie where there’s absolute love.'” She agreed, and they discussed payment. Eastwood paid $2,000 to use the recording, and when Flack said she wanted to re-record it at a faster tempo, he replied: “No, it’s not [too slow].” Flack also recalled that during the First Take sessions, producer Joel Dorn suggested re-recording the track with a slightly faster tempo and a lyric edit to shorten its running time. Flack declined: “Joel said: ‘Okay, you don’t care if it’s a hit or not?’ I said: ‘No, sir.'” Following the November 1971 release of Play Misty for Me, the track’s popularity surged, prompting Atlantic Records to issue it as a single — shortened by one minute — in February 1972. The single became a major hit in the United States, reaching number one for six weeks on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the easy listening charts in spring 1972.”
Roberta said it best in a 2015 interview with Sarah Carson of The Telegraph: “It’s a perfect song. Second only to ‘Amazing Grace’, I think . . . It’s the kind of song that has two unique and distinct qualities: it tells a story, and it has lyrics that mean something. Because of its meaningful lyrics, the song can be interpreted by a lot of people in a lot of different ways: the love of a mother for a child, for example, or that of two lovers. I wish more songs I had chosen had moved me the way that one did. I’ve loved most every song I’ve recorded, but that one was pretty special.”
Roberta kills me softly every time I listen to this song, one of the most beautiful and captivating performances ever recorded. From the soft intro of acoustic guitar, double bass, and piano to the closing lines, I feel like I’ve entered a sacred space of eternal love where nothing else matters, a place I wish I never had to leave. I will skip the part where I dig into the details of the arrangement because I want to hold on to the feelings Roberta evokes in me, and I feel that an analysis would be sacrilegious. All I will say is that Roberta’s deeply felt vocals, MacColl’s lyrics, and every aspect of the arrangement create a uniquely powerful musical experience like few others.
The first time ever I saw your face
I thought the sun rose in your eyes
And the moon and the stars were the gifts you gave
To the dark and the endless skiesAnd the first time ever I kissed your mouth
I felt the earth move in my hand
Like the trembling heart of a captive bird
That was there at my command, my loveAnd the first time ever I lay with you
I felt your heart so close to mine
And I knew our joy would fill the earth
And last ’til the end of time, my loveThe first time ever I saw
Your face
Your face
Your face
Your face
*”Back Together Again” (Reggie Lucas, James Mtume) and “You Are My Heaven” (Stevie Wonder, Eric Mercury) From Roberta Flack Featuring Donny Hathaway, 1980: The next two songs were unfortunately released posthumously. “Intended as her second duets album with Donny Hathaway (following 1972’s Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway), Flack’s ninth studio album project became a Flack solo album with Hathaway as guest due to Hathaway’s death after recording only two songs with her. On 13 January 1979 Hathaway and Flack had recorded the duets “Back Together Again” and “You Are My Heaven” – the latter the last song Hathaway would ever record: after having dinner with Flack at her residence in the Dakota, Hathaway had then returned to his suite on the fifteenth floor of Essex House, later fatally falling from the window of his suite . . . Flack was devastated and, spurred by his death, included the few duets they had finished on her next album, Roberta Flack Featuring Donny Hathaway.” (Wikipedia)
Roberta told Jet Magazine, “I tried to reach out to Donny. That’s how we managed to do the song we did last year. I felt this need because I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t save him; I knew he was sick. But I knew when he sat down at that piano and sang for me, it was like it was eight or nine years ago because he sang and played his ass off.” (via Wikipedia)
There are conflicting views on whether it was a mental-illness-induced suicide or an accident, but either way, Donny’s death was a tragic loss to his family, his friends, and the world of music.
The disco-ish arrangement of “Back Together Again” is something that would normally turn me off, but the soulful performances of the two singers overcome my resistance. Both sing and play their asses off, and Donny sounds like he is fully engaged in the music and in full command of his remarkable phrasing ability. Roberta matches the power of his performance, and if you knew nothing about the impending tragedy, you would think, “Hey, these two are having a great time.”
“You Are My Heaven” is a funk-tinged delight. Donny gets the first solo and seizes the opportunity to display his remarkable range and feel for the rhythm, and shows no signs of flagging at any point in the song. Roberta’s contribution is equally strong, and I had to laugh when she closes the song with a wordless vocal passage that shows her remarkable range—and “If you can do it, I can do it too” kind of thing.
Oh, how I wish this duet could have lasted forever.
In the interview with Jet, “Flack announced that ‘The Closer I Get to You’ would forever be a dedication to Hathaway, and that all money made from the song would be donated to Hathaway’s widow and two children.” Roberta Flack was not only one of the greatest musicians of all-time, but a great human being.
“If Ever I See You Again” (Joe Brooks) From Roberta Flack, 1978: The backstory behind this song certainly lowers one’s expectations. Joe Brooks was the guy who wrote and directed the film You Light Up My Life and wrote the insipid title song that became a major hit for Debby Boone, which became the best-selling single of the decade and won Brooks the Oscar for Best Original Song. The film was universally panned by critics (20% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes), but did well at the box office because of the song. Brooks then came up with an idea for a second movie titled If I Ever See You Again, wrote the script and title song, and inserted himself in the lead acting role, but this time he was determined to select a big-name singer. Barry Manilow passed on the opportunity (him again?), so he contacted Atlantic head honcho Jerry Greenberg to ask about Roberta’s availability. From Vibe: “Flack would eventually describe ‘If Ever I See You Again’ as ‘a song I couldn’t stand’ that Greenberg insisted she record. I had a very clever lawyer who made a huge money deal for [my recording] that song.” The movie is celebrated as one of the biggest bombs of all time, running away with the award for Worst Picture at the Stinkers Bad Movie Awards.
If you’re wondering what happened to Joe Brooks, well . . . “In June 2009, Brooks was arrested on charges of raping or sexually assaulting 11 women lured to his East Side apartment from 2005 to 2008.” Aided by his female assistant, he posted notices on Craigslist seeking attractive women to appear in movies and paid for their plane tickets to New York. “Brooks was indicted on June 23, 2009. He was to be tried in the state Supreme Court for Manhattan (a trial-level court) on 91 counts of rape, sexual abuse, criminal sexual act, assault, and other charges. In December 2009, prosecutors said they would ask the grand jury to consider adding even more charges, in part because ‘additional victims’ had come forward. Brooks committed suicide on May 22, 2011, before he could be tried.” (Wikipedia).
So . . . we have a songwriter who wrote and directed shitty movies, penned boring songs for the masses, a singer who couldn’t stand the song . . . oh, did I forget to mention that Brooks produced Roberta’s version? Though her beautiful voice earns her the honor of “She could sing the phone book, and we’d still love her,” you can tell that Roberta had no intention of making this song her song. She hits the notes, but not the listener’s emotions.
And she deserved every penny of that deal.
“Jesse” (Janis Ian) From Killing Me Softly, 1973: Roberta recorded this song about a lost lover before Janis Ian released her version on the album Stars. String sections and acoustic guitar are featured in both versions; the main difference between the two involves the vocal dynamics: Roberta’s approach is largely understated with only a few passionate leaps, while Janis occasionally imbues her vocals with greater anxiety and power in response to her lover’s absence. There is no “this one’s better than the other one” here, as both versions are worthy of respect.
Joel Dorn’s production on this track is simply superb, providing a subtle and supportive background for the vocalist. The multi-genre, multi-talented Brazilian Eumir Deodato did a beautiful job arranging and conducting the string section, earning the honor of opening the song with a marvelously emotive statement of the melody, then following Roberta’s lead as her emotions rise and fall with the storyline. To put it simply, “Jesse” is a beautiful song that is a perfect closer to a beautiful album.
*****
Roberta Flack was a role model in many ways. The home page of the Roberta Flack Foundation tells us that she was “not just ‘an elegant and legendary vocal superstar’ (Amazon). She is also a dedicated humanitarian, educational activist, and social conscience who established her Roberta Flack Foundation to support aspiring creatives and causes she cares about.” When she passed away last year, Howard University celebrated her extraordinary life. “Roberta Flack’s legacy is woven into the fabric of music history, social activism, and Howard University. Her timeless songs continue to offer profound insight into our lives, loves, culture, and politics, ensuring that her spirit and influence will resonate for generations to come.”
Except for the superstar part, Roberta Flack lived the kind of life I want to live: immersed in the joys of music and making a positive difference for those ostracized or left behind.
And have plenty of sex!
