Giovanni Russonello for the New York Times on Roberta Flack’s resplendent voice:

Critics often struggled to describe the understated strength of her voice, and the breadth of her stylistic range. In its poise, its interiority and conviction, its lack of sentimentality or overstatement, her singing seemed to press the reset button on any standard expectations of a pop star. She placed equal priority on passion and clear communication—like an instructor speaking to an inquisitive student, or a lover pledging devotion.

“I’ve been told I sound like Nina Simone, Nancy Wilson, Odetta, Barbra Streisand, Dionne Warwick, even Mahalia Jackson,” Ms. Flack told The New York Times in 1970. “If everybody said I sounded like one person, I’d worry. But when they say I sound like them all, I know I’ve got my own style.”

Where Is the Love is a gorgeous jewel of a song, while Killing Me Softly With His Song remains an indelible part of my ’70s soundtrack. (Though I now can’t hear the opening phrasing without the Fugees’ sitar interlude 1^[1] popping in. Their cover is a testimonial to the song’s staying power.)

I wasn’t aware Flack was also a gifted and classically trained pianist:

Sitting on her mother Irene’s lap while Irene played piano and organ at their Methodist church, Flack began to tinker herself, then to properly play, demonstrating a prodigy-grade prowess as a young child that those around her clambered to support.

A Sunday-school teacher paid for Flack to take lessons. Flack’s father, Laron, brought home a ramshackle upright piano from a junkyard, which the family restored and painted green. By age 9, Flack was playing Chopin nocturnes, crying at the keyboard because the music moved her so powerfully. At 13, she accompanied her church’s choir on Handel’s “Messiah.” […]

At the time, America didn’t necessarily expect a Black child to master Verdi or Bach, and wasn’t always open to having its expectations upended. Flack would often recall skillfully performing a Scarlatti sonata in a statewide competition as a teenager, only to come in second in the segregated “Negro division”; Scarlatti, she gathered, wasn’t what the judges wanted from someone like her.

(From Jon Mooallem’s piece in The Wall Street Journal (Apple News+), which opens with a stunningly emotive lede.)

The New York Times piece has more on that competition:

At 13, Ms. Flack won second place in a statewide competition for Black students after performing a Scarlatti sonata; she was convinced that she had deserved the main prize and that the judges were thrown off by the sight of a Black girl playing classical music with such command. Just two years later, she entered Howard University on a full scholarship. She became the first undergraduate vocal student to give a public recital in classical vocal literature, and she conducted a student production of “Aida” that drew a standing ovation from Howard’s music faculty.

But a dean warned that the opportunities in classical orchestras would be scarce for a Black woman, advising Ms. Flack to pursue a teaching career. Upon graduating, she started working toward a master’s degree in music education.

A mixture of reactions here: delighted we were blessed with her voice; disappointed that we missed out on her classical piano virtuosity; disquieted the dean was almost certainly right in their assessment then; and disheartened that assessment may remain valid today.

Flack died of cardiac arrest, and was diagnosed with ALS in 2022. My usual donations to American Heart Association and ALS Association will be supplemented today in her honor.