(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE FIRST TIME EVER I SAW YOUR FACE")
ROBERTA FLACK: (Singing) The first time ever I saw your face.
MICHEL MARTIN, BYLINE: If you listened to music at all in the 1970s, you probably know Roberta Flack's three huge hits - "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," "Killing Me Softly With His Song" and "Feel Like Makin' Love." The first two won her Grammy's for record of the year. Roberta Flack died yesterday at the age of 88. Ann Powers of NPR Music is here to help us remember her. Hello, Ann.
ANN POWERS, BYLINE: Hello, Michel. It's good to talk to you on this sad occasion.
MARTIN: It is sad. And, you know, look, I apologize 'cause I know it's a cliche, but I'm just going to say it, I feel like Roberta Flack was the soundtrack to my becoming a young woman.
POWERS: Absolutely.
MARTIN: And I think that she was that for a lot of people. What was it about her as a musician that made her so successful?
POWERS: I mean, really, Roberta Flack, to me, is the essence of soul music in the '70s and beyond. Such a great interpreter. You know, she was classically trained. She worked in jazz and then reinvented soul for a new era. She brought a new quality to soul. The writer Jason King called her the inventor of vibe. You know, in songs like what we just heard, "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," it's almost like she expanded time and created a space where we could all contemplate and feel and think together in her music.
MARTIN: Was it something about the way she carried her phrasing? When you hear her song, you know it's her.
POWERS: Yes.
MARTIN: There is really nobody else that sounds like her.
POWERS: You know, it's not well-known, but she actually produced a lot of her music, although she used a pseudonym, Rubina Flake.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
POWERS: But as - isn't that interesting?
MARTIN: (Laughter) That's kind of funny.
POWERS: (Laughter) But as she was doing that, she was one of the inventors of quiet storm. Even in a song like "Feel Like Makin' Love," it's like a different cadence, but it still has that beautiful legato singing and that gentility, that genteel flavor that she brought to everything.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FEEL LIKE MAKIN' LOVE")
FLACK: (Singing) Ooh. That's the time I feel like makin' love to you.
POWERS: And, of course, she continued to be influential on new generations. Most notably, when The Fugees and Lauryn Hill reinvented "Killing Me Softly" for their own version of the song, and it was a massive hit.
MARTIN: And talk about her influence beyond music.
POWERS: Michel, it's fascinating because, I mean, frankly, I think a lot of white Americans don't realize how Roberta Flack was the emblematic musician, singer, activist in the '70s and into the '80s. I mean, she played the Soul to Soul festival in Ghana alongside Wilson Pickett and Ike and Tina Turner. She sang at Jackie Robinson's funeral in 1972. She was one of the first Black investors in the pioneering radio station WBLS in '74. And also, like, she was the first Black woman - Black person to move into the Dakota. She was neighbors with John Lennon and Yoko Ono and actually good friends with them. And she really was, I don't know, like, kind of like the Bob Dylan of soul (laugher). She's the person who embodied the music.
MARTIN: That is Ann Powers of NPR Music. Ann, thank you so much.
POWERS: Thank you so much.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "KILLING ME SOFTLY WITH HIS SONG")
FLACK: (Singing) Strumming my pain with his fingers. Singing my life with his words. Killing me softly with his song. Killing me softly with his song. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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