Roberta Flack: Killing Me Softly With His Song (Live)

Roberta Flack died on February 24, 2025. The music of Roberta Flack has been a Faux household favorite for decades. Several of her songs, both solo and with Donny Hathaway, are included on my favorite morning playlist, so there have been countless days that I have listened to her music. I heard of her death while talking with a work colleague. He is a huge Flack fan, and the news of her death came across his news feed while we were meeting. We then spent the next fifteen minutes talking about her music and Donny Hathaway’s music and how much we both love it. From a live music perspective, Ms. Faux has an even stronger connection than simply liking Flack’s music. Her first memory of seeing a live concert is seeing Flack at an outdoor concert when she was about 7 years old. I never got to see Flack perform, but I would have loved to have done so.  

The music of Roberta Flack seems lost to time as I get older. I know that some of her songs, such “Killing Me Softly With His Song” and “Feel Like Makin’ Love” can still be heard on the radio, but most of her music has slowly faded away. This is probably because she never seemed to adopt the persona of a pop star. At her core, she was a jazz performer who was able to cross over into the world of soul and pop music through her amazing talent as a vocalist and pianist. There were several iconic soul vocalists in the 1970s, such as obvious legends like Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight, Diana Ross, Al Green, and Chaka Khan, but Flack was the first to win back-to-back Grammy Awards for Record of the Year. Her work from 1971 through 1978 is as impressive as any other female vocalist of the time. This is the period that included all of her brilliant collaborations with Donny Hathaway and most of her own solo success. While most people are drawn to vocalists who belt out songs with power or stretch the limits of their range across multiple octaves (Flack could do both), I have always been drawn to voices that are emotive and unique. Flack was one of those voices. 

To listen to all of the songs of the day, check out the Radio Faux Show Song of the Day playlist.

• Artists I Have Seen Live