American singer and pianist Roberta Flack, one of the icons of soul and R&B music, died.Roberta Cleopatra Flack was an American singer and pianist known for her emotive, genre-blending ballads that spanned R&B, jazz, folk, and pop and contributed to the birth of quiet storm
Age
Roberta was 88 years old in 2025.
Career
Born Roberta Cleopatra Flack in Black Mountain, North Carolina on February 10, 1937, the artist was raised in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington DC.
Her large, musical family had a penchant for gospel, and she took up the piano in her youth, which ultimately earned her a music scholarship to Washington’s Howard University at the tender age of 15.
She told Forbes in 2021 that her father “found an old, smelly piano in a junkyard and restored it for me and painted it green.”
“This was my first piano and was the instrument in which I found my expression and inspiration as a young person.”She was a regular playing clubs in Washington, where she was eventually discovered by jazz musician Les McCann.
Flack signed at Atlantic Records, launching a recording career at the relatively late age of 32.
But her magnetic star grew overnight after Clint Eastwood used her romantic ballad “The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face” on the soundtrack of his 1971 movie “Play Misty for Me.”
The Grammy Award-winning singer was known for performing songs such as ‘Killing Me Softly With His Song’, ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’, ‘Feel Like Makin’ Love’; ‘Where Is the Love’ or ‘The Closer I Get to You’.Roberta Flack, one of the most important artists of the 1970s.
Cause of Death
Roberta died on Monday 24th February at the age of 88. The singer announced in 2022 that she had ALS and would no longer sing. She died at her home surrounded by her family, her agent Elaine Schock said in a statement to the Associated Press
Net Worth
Roberta has an estimated et worth of about $20million