Last August or so I saw or heard someone singing the praises of Roberta Flack’s debut album First Take (1969). As luck would have it I found a cheap vinyl copy in September; but as luck wouldn’t have it, the disc was in barely playable condition. Still, I heard enough to know I too would be singing its praises in due course.
When I hastened to obtain another copy from a Discogs seller, even at four times the price I’d paid for the first one there was no qualm of buyer’s remorse. I particularly love the opening two tracks, the uptempo opener ‘Compared to What’ and the impassioned ‘Angelitos Negros’. Elsewhere, Flack’s famous version of ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’ is all the more lovely in the context of the album, and follows a stately cover of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye’, then still a relatively new song.
My luck came good again a few weeks later when I turned up her fourth solo album Killing Me Softly (1973), again on vinyl and again for only a few pounds (albeit this time in better shape). I was well-acquainted with the powerful title track but didn’t know the album included another Leonard Cohen number in the shape of Flack’s version of ‘Suzanne’. Overall I thought the LP almost as good as her first. I had to wait several more months before chancing on album no. 2, Chapter Two (1970), which cost me roughly twice as much as Killing Me Softly, half as much as my second First Take. It gets off to another strong start with Reverend Lee but has a couple of weaker tracks too, such as her less than fully convincing attempt on Dylan’s ‘Just Like a Woman’.
Most recently of all - the weekend before last, returning to my usual haunts paid dividends yet again when I found a copy of her 1972 duet album Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway. This one I’m still getting to know - at first acquaintance I feel it may be straddling the line between the agreeably and the overly smooth: repeated listening will be the test of that. Now I suppose I’m on the lookout for solo LP no. 3, Quiet Fire (1971).