Entertainment
Roberta Flack; Original Singer Of “Killing Me Softly With His Song,” Is Dead
Grammy-winning US singer; Roberta Flack has passed on at the age of 88.
The news of her death was confirmed by her Publicist; Elaine Schock. She told the PA news agency: “We are heartbroken that the glorious Roberta Flack passed away this morning, February 24th, 2025.
“She died peacefully surrounded by her family. Roberta broke boundaries and records. She was also a proud educator.”
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.
Roberta Flack used “her artistry, her talent, her innovation, and her heart” to expose the song Killing Me Softly With His Song to the world, one of the writers of the track said. Her version of the song, which was composed by Charles Fox, earned her two Grammys.
US songwriter Lieberman told the PA news agency that Flack “changed, not just me, but the whole world with her music”.
“My version was climbing up the charts, slowly, but climbing up the charts when Roberta Flack was traveling, I believe it was from New York to LA, and on the airplane, in the inflight system, she heard my song,” she said.
“By the time she had landed, she had listened to Killing Me Softly about four times and scribbled down all the lyrics and all of the chord changes, and she felt that she could do something with that song. It resonated with her.
“And when she landed she called her producer, Joel Dorn, and told him that she had a song that she really loved, and in time would really like to record it.
“She was performing at, I think it was the Forum in LA, and she had been kind of practicing the song with the band that she was performing with, and at the end of one concert, she had an encore, and she said to her band members, ‘I don’t know what to do’.
“And they said, ‘Well, why don’t you do that song we’ve been working on?’
“So she sang Killing Me Softly, and the audience went crazy. Afterward, she walked off stage, and Quincy Jones said, ‘Ro, don’t you sing that dang song one more time till you record it’.
“And so she recorded it and changed it in her very special way.
“At any rate, Roberta responded to the song and how it related to her, and turned my little song into something that, honestly, no one had at that point heard.”
A new version of the song was released in 1996 by Hip-hop trio Fugees and it topped the UK singles chart.
Roberta Flack won a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammys in 2020.
May her soul rest in peace, Amen.
Gentle Reminder: Take care not to assume that your strength is the reason you are standing. The one whom God keeps is the one who is kept.
Chychy Jonas
