Killing Me Softly With His Song singer Roberta Flack dies aged 88
Grammy-winning US singer Roberta Flack has died aged 88, her publicist has confirmed.
She was known for songs including The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, originally by Ewan MacColl, and Killing Me Softly With His Song, written by Lori Lieberman and Norman Gimbel.
In 2022 it was announced the veteran musician had ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, a progressive neurological condition that had made it “impossible” for her to sing, according to a representative.
Publicist Elaine Schock told the PA news agency: “We are heartbroken that the glorious Roberta Flack passed away this morning, February 24 2025.
“She died peacefully surrounded by her family.
“Roberta broke boundaries and records. She was also a proud educator.”
US singer and actress Jennifer Hudson hailed Flack as “one of the great soul singers of all time”.
“So sad to hear of Roberta Flack’s passing,” the Grammy-winning artist wrote in an Instagram tribute post alongside a black and white photo of Flack.
Flack was born on February 10 1937 in North Carolina but grew up in Virginia and started classical piano lessons at the age of nine.
She was awarded a full scholarship to Howard University in Washington, DC aged 15 and hoped to become an opera singer, a dream that was put on hold when she returned to North Carolina following her father’s death in 1959.
She went back to the capital a year later to teach and in the early 1960s she began accompanying opera singers at the Tivoli opera restaurant in Georgetown, later playing in various clubs in the Washington area before taking up a residency at Mr Henry’s.
After watching her perform, jazz musician Les McCann helped to launch Flack’s recording career and she was signed to Atlantic Records after decades of classical study, teaching music and accompanying opera singers.
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face catapulted her to stardom after Clint Eastwood used the song as the soundtrack for a love scene in his film Play Misty For Me.
It also won the Grammy for record of the year in 1973 and a year later her song Killing Me Softly With His Song won the same gong and Flack won best female pop vocal performance.
The latter saw a resurgence in popularity in the 1990s when hip-hop trio Fugees recorded a new version.
The singer was also awarded a lifetime achievement award by the Recording Academy in 2020.
Two years later, Roberta, a feature-length documentary about the soul singer was released and told of her rise to stardom amid the backdrop of America’s civil rights movement.