RIP Roberta Flack

[CuriousByNature]

The grammy award-winning singer, perhaps best known for "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" and "Killing Me Softly With His Song" died at home today.  She was diagnosed with ALS several years ago.  RIP.

[Ali Gator]

Some trivia I came across about a year ago...

Back in 1977, when song-writer / film-maker Joseph Brooks was finishing production on the tear-jerker 'You Light Up My Life', he only wanted Flack to record the title song to be released as the single (and include it on the soundtrack). In the movie, Kvitka Cisyk provided the 'singing voice' of actress Didi Conn, but Brooks wanted Flack to sing a cover version to be released to radio. He sent the song to her record label Atlantic Records, and asked them to convince her to record the song. They tried, but she defiantly refused. She said she hated the schmaltzy song, and wouldn't record it - no matter how much they would pay her extra to sing it, or if they threatened to drop her from her contract. She was not recording it - and she didn't.  The song, of course, ended up in the hands of an unknown singer named Debby Boone and it became a #1 hit for ten weeks straight, became the biggest hit of the 1970s, and won a slew of awards for Boone and Brooks. The movie becomes a box-office hit - and all credit it given to  the strength of the single.

A year after, Brooks produces the semi-quasi sequel to the film, 'If Ever I See You Again'.  Brooks writes a 'theme song' for that movie, and offers it to pop sensation Barry Manilow (who declines the offer).  He then asks Atlantic Reocrds once again if they can get Flack to do it, and the label works out a deal with Brooks (via Flack's lawyers) to record the song (realizing what a mistake she made a year earlier, Flack also records a few more songs for the film and its soundtrack). She records the schmaltzy ballad, and its released as a single. It hits the Top 40, but doesn't even come close to its predecessor as it peaks at #24 and then begins it's descent on the chart. Nor does the movie come close to its predecessor - it became a box office flop and drops out of movie theaters just when the single debuted on the Hot 100.  

Edited February 25 by Ali Gator