We’ve all heard the saying “saved by the bell.” But some musicians might argue that we should also have an expression for when an artist is saved by a movie (or by TV). Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” is a song that was upstaged by the British band’s other hits such as “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions” until the 1992 hit comedy Wayne’s World revitalized it, bringing it to a whole generation of Gen Xers whose first exposure to the song was from the movie. (Even Rami Malek, who won an Oscar for portraying Queen’s lead singer, Freddie Mercury, said the first time he ever heard “Bohemian Rhapsody” was when he saw Wayne’s World.) The ’60s soul singer Sam Moore’s music fell out of favor in the ’70s. But when Saturday Night Live stars John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd played Moore’s “Soul Man” in their “Blues Brothers” sketches, they helped breathe new life into Moore’s career. The soul and R&B virtuoso Roberta Flack, who died this week at the age of 88, was undoubtedly one of the most talented singers of this era, but one wonders how her career would’ve played out if her music hadn’t also been saved by the movies.
Roberta Cleopatra Flack was born on Feb. 10, 1937, in Black Mountain, North Carolina. Her father was a draftsman for the Department of Veterans Affairs, and her mother was a music teacher and church organist. Flack inherited her mother’s piano talents, but her vocal gifts seemed to have come directly from heaven. Flack was recognized as a musical prodigy as early as 13 years old. She played the full score of Handel’s “Messiah” for her church choir and received a full musical scholarship to Howard University at an age when most teenagers are still studying for their learner’s permits. The foundation of Flack’s training was in classical music; as she would say in an interview, “For the first three decades of my life, I lived in the world of classical music. I found in it wonderful melodies and harmonies that were vehicles through which I could express myself.” It was a foundation sturdy enough to support the other musical structures that she would later add to it — folk, soul, jazz, rock, show tunes, and R&B.
When she was 19 years old, Flack dropped out of Howard and moved back to North Carolina to help support her family. She worked briefly as a teacher and music instructor before making her way back up to Washington, where she found work singing in nightclubs and other D.C. hot spots. One night, while performing at the club Mr. Henry’s, the jazz impresario Les McCann happened to be in the audience. McCann was so awestruck by Flack’s voice that he implored Atlantic Records executives he knew to come to Washington to hear her. As McCann later recounted, “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.” Equally impressed, the Atlantic Records executives offered her an audition, and they signed her shortly thereafter.
Flack’s first two albums, First Take (1969) and Chapter Two (1970), were critically acclaimed — especially by jazz aficionados — but didn’t sell well. Her career prospects as a successful solo artist were hazy until one day in 1971 when Clint Eastwood was driving to work and heard her song “For the First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.” The Dirty Harry and spaghetti western star was in the middle of shooting his directorial debut, Play Misty for Me, a music-themed thriller about a radio DJ. Eastwood had been struggling to find the right song for a slower, more ponderous interlude in an otherwise fast-paced film. When he happened to catch Flack’s song on the radio, he knew he had found the song that would be his movie’s missing piece. He called Flack and offered her $1,000 to use the song in his movie. A flabbergasted Flack agreed. When Atlantic Records caught wind of the deal, they rushed out a single of the song to coincide with the film’s release. Soon after Play Misty for Me hit theaters, “For the First Time” shot up to No. 1 on the Billboard Top 100 chart and stayed in that spot for six weeks. Flack’s place in the American popular music scene was now assured; that the song went on to win the 1973 Grammy for Record of the Year didn’t hurt either.
A year later, Flack’s single “Killing Me Softly With His Song” also quickly rocketed up to No. 1 and won the Grammy for Record of the Year, making her the first artist to win back-to-back Record of the Year Grammys. Flack went on to win two more Grammys and net 14 Grammy nominations in a career that spanned almost 50 years.
Daniel Ross Goodman is a Washington Examiner contributing writer and the author, most recently, of Soloveitchik’s Children: Irving Greenberg, David Hartman, Jonathan Sacks, and the Future of Jewish Theology in America.
