I'll post this again as my tribute. She had soul, she had power, but she also had a subtlety that so many of the icons lacked. She was truly wonderful.
Imagine living in Washington DC in 1969. You go out on a date. Dinner at Mr Henry’s on Pennsylvania Avenue. Your date is stunning. The conversation is easy and relaxed. Things are going better than you could ever have expected.
Dinner over, coffee is served. Where this ends, you have no idea, but the night is full of promise. Or it was. Because the woman at the piano has just started to sing. And all of sudden, there is nobody else in the room. Your date is a mere spectator now you’ve heard that voice. Because you’ve heard Roberta Flack’s voice. And you are in love.
I don’t know whether Larry McCann’s first experience of Flack’s voice when he heard her at Mr Henry’s was as dramatic as that. I hope it was. I hope he was transfixed. I hope he ran to a payphone and rang someone. Whatever he said, it made an impact. A huge impact. It was McCann that brought Roberta Flack’s immeasurable talent to the wider world.
I hope it was eventful, because her voice deserves it. It is truly wonderful. Full of passion. And of soul. But for all that it is undoubtedly passionate and soulful, it’s also thoughtful and contemplative. It’s powerful. It’s beautiful. It can literally make me cry. It has and it still does.
There are no gimmicks. Nothing is contrived. There are no clichés.
McCann himself was a prodigious talent. As one of the first artists to blend jazz with funk and soul, he pioneered the use of the clavinet and synthesizers. He played with some of the greats and amassed a huge collection of private recordings from artists like Eddie Harris and Duke Ellington. With that pedigree, it’s no surprise he spotted Miss Flack’s voice.
He was a pianist and composer at Atlantic Records at the time. No surprise that Roberta Flack would sign for them that year.
McCann summed up its appeal in the liner notes of Flack’s debut album, First Take…
“Her voice touched, tapped, trapped, and kicked every emotion I've ever known. I laughed, cried, and screamed for more...she alone had the voice.”
Beautifully put.
First Take nearly made it here. It’s unquestionably essential. As good a debut as you’ll find. Best-known for The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, for me Ballad of the Sad Young Men is the one stands out. It’s difficult to articulate how and why music does what it does to us. It is emotional. And so, it’s different for all of us. But I defy you to let the beauty and power of that song wash over you and not be moved.
I chose Chapter Two because it showed just what she was capable of doing. I’m going to shamelessly steal some lines from a 50-year retrospective of this 1970 release because I can’t improve upon them…
“There are only eight songs on Chapter Two, her (yes) second album, released in August 1970, as there were on her debut, First Take, from the year before. And after the relatively upbeat Gene McDaniels song “Reverend Lee,” a cousin to “Son of a Preacher Man,” each track on Chapter Two is like a meditation. You have heard some of these songs before, many times: “Just Like a Woman,” “The Impossible Dream,” “Let It Be Me,” “Until It’s Time For You to Go.” What could possibly be surprising or revelatory about them? It’s as though Flack were asking herself the same question in real musical time: what can I discover in here, if I just slowed down, and really dug a little deeper?”
Again, just like McCann’s first testimonial, beautifully put.
A ‘meditation’. I like that. Take a song like ‘Until It’s Time For You To Go’ and you can see precisely what he means.
The quality of the sound and of the arrangements should be no surprise. Atlantic brought in the likes of Donny Hathaway, King Curtis and Eumir Deodato. It’s such a good record.
Gone Away has always been the song for me on this album. I play the album a lot. I play that song all the time. It has everything. Light and dark. Soft and hard. The Impressions original isn’t bad, but Flack’s version takes it to the levels it deserves.
I’m not going to break down each track. I don’t need to. I’ll just urge you to immerse yourself in it. Play in one sitting if you can. Have a drink but don’t be drunk.
Late last year, I read that Roberta Flack has Lou Gehrig’s disease. She can’t sing and finds speaking difficult. Life can be so cruel. Thankfully, and I accept, selfishly, we know that we have so much of that voice to enjoy.
She was an artist. An icon.
Antonino D’Ambrosio’s documentary ‘Roberta’ premiered recently in the US.
In a recent interview, he said this…
“I've been around a lot of different kinds of artists who have had different places in popular culture. The thing that’s remarkable about Roberta Flack is that I knew that she had a singular vision in terms of how she lived her life and was able to create—as a woman, and as a Black woman coming out of segregation. To me, she's one of the pantheons—a force. Imagine what kind of spiritual, almost metaphysical force you must have as a person to last that long in popular culture, and to also achieve that level of superstardom. It’s very rare.”
She could articulate what it is to be in love. And to lose it. But she could also be angry. Poetic and political in equal measure. She was brave and strong. Her first husband, Chris Novosel, was a white jazz bassist. They married when such unions were rare and frowned upon.
Her own words say so much about her as an artist and a person. When asked what she learnt from their relatively-short marriage, she said this…
"I [learnt] that love is love and no one has the right to judge it. Steve and I remain friends to this day. Our love endures, although its form has changed"
Hard not to love her too.
Roberta Flack. Chapter Two. I struggle to think of an artist and an album that deserve the mantle 'essential' more.
Enjoy.
