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# Strummin' my pain with his fingers | 0:00:02 | 0:00:04 | |
# Singin' my life with his words | 0:00:04 | 0:00:07 | |
# Killing me softly with his song...# | 0:00:07 | 0:00:11 | |
In 1973, Roberta Flack's brand of soft soul made her | 0:00:11 | 0:00:16 | |
one of the biggest selling female pop stars in the world... | 0:00:16 | 0:00:19 | |
The first thing I think about when I hear Roberta record a classic | 0:00:22 | 0:00:28 | |
is that I can't wait to sing it, you know? | 0:00:28 | 0:00:32 | |
# Where is the love | 0:00:32 | 0:00:34 | |
# Where is the love...# | 0:00:34 | 0:00:36 | |
..and the kids of Middle America loved her. | 0:00:36 | 0:00:39 | |
But 20 years earlier, the parents of those white kids | 0:00:43 | 0:00:46 | |
wouldn't have allowed Roberta to sit next to them on the bus. | 0:00:46 | 0:00:49 | |
We were living in a very radical time. | 0:00:52 | 0:00:54 | |
It was madness going on throughout the South. | 0:00:54 | 0:00:57 | |
But this isn't just a familiar rags-to-riches story | 0:00:59 | 0:01:02 | |
of triumph over adversity. | 0:01:02 | 0:01:04 | |
She raises this spectre of class. | 0:01:04 | 0:01:07 | |
She is a quintessential product of the black middle class. | 0:01:07 | 0:01:11 | |
Right down to where she's educated. | 0:01:11 | 0:01:14 | |
Nor did Roberta Flack set out to be a pop star. | 0:01:15 | 0:01:18 | |
In her voice you can hear both impact of her classical training | 0:01:19 | 0:01:23 | |
and, the, you know, the kind of fineness of her ear. | 0:01:23 | 0:01:26 | |
# Killing me softly...# | 0:01:26 | 0:01:28 | |
But the lure of the pop stage proved irresistible. | 0:01:30 | 0:01:33 | |
# Softly... # | 0:01:33 | 0:01:35 | |
When you start to perform and you go through all of the physical motions - | 0:01:35 | 0:01:40 | |
"Ladies and Gentlemen - Roberta Flack" | 0:01:40 | 0:01:42 | |
and you come to where that spot. | 0:01:42 | 0:01:45 | |
There's a moment that you reach for | 0:01:45 | 0:01:48 | |
that that can only be described as blissful. | 0:01:48 | 0:01:53 | |
# This is my prayer | 0:02:03 | 0:02:05 | |
# This is my prayer# | 0:02:05 | 0:02:06 | |
Aretha Franklin is everybody's idea of what a soul singer is. | 0:02:06 | 0:02:11 | |
# For ever, ever... | 0:02:11 | 0:02:14 | |
# Stay in my heart | 0:02:14 | 0:02:16 | |
# Ever... Yeah # | 0:02:16 | 0:02:17 | |
Passionate, loud and driven by the power of gospel. | 0:02:17 | 0:02:20 | |
# Oh! Lovers together | 0:02:22 | 0:02:23 | |
# We're together | 0:02:24 | 0:02:26 | |
# To live without you... # | 0:02:26 | 0:02:28 | |
For Clint Eastwood, an invitation to terror. | 0:02:28 | 0:02:31 | |
WOMAN SCREAMS | 0:02:31 | 0:02:35 | |
But when Eastwood featured Roberta Flack's The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face | 0:02:35 | 0:02:40 | |
in the film Play Misty For Me | 0:02:40 | 0:02:42 | |
and propelled it to the top of the charts - | 0:02:42 | 0:02:44 | |
a new kind of soul voice introduced itself on to the world stage | 0:02:44 | 0:02:48 | |
# The first time... | 0:02:49 | 0:02:51 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:02:51 | 0:02:55 | |
# ..ever I saw your face | 0:02:55 | 0:02:58 | |
# I thought the sun | 0:03:02 | 0:03:06 | |
# ..rose in your eyes...# | 0:03:06 | 0:03:12 | |
It was the first time that I'd ever heard a song | 0:03:14 | 0:03:17 | |
recorded at that tempo. | 0:03:17 | 0:03:20 | |
It was not the normal ballad. | 0:03:21 | 0:03:25 | |
It was more, almost a testimony. | 0:03:25 | 0:03:28 | |
# And the first time | 0:03:31 | 0:03:34 | |
# ..ever I kissed your mouth... # | 0:03:35 | 0:03:41 | |
She makes us redefine this whole notion | 0:03:41 | 0:03:44 | |
of what black female soul music is as a sound. | 0:03:44 | 0:03:48 | |
# I felt the earth... # | 0:03:50 | 0:03:52 | |
You're getting as close inside of her head | 0:03:52 | 0:03:56 | |
as her sound is going to allow you to get. | 0:03:56 | 0:03:58 | |
# Like the trembling heart... # | 0:04:01 | 0:04:03 | |
When I did, First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, | 0:04:03 | 0:04:05 | |
sometimes when I first started to sign the song | 0:04:05 | 0:04:08 | |
I'd be in tears, I mean... | 0:04:08 | 0:04:10 | |
MIMICS CRYING | 0:04:10 | 0:04:12 | |
# To the dark...# | 0:04:12 | 0:04:16 | |
I didn't know that people could feel what I felt. | 0:04:16 | 0:04:21 | |
You know, this deep, deep, deep thing. | 0:04:21 | 0:04:23 | |
But they could get it. I'd look up and they'd be crying, too. | 0:04:23 | 0:04:26 | |
And I would say, "Wonder why they're crying. What did I do?" You know? | 0:04:26 | 0:04:30 | |
"Did I do something wrong?" | 0:04:30 | 0:04:31 | |
And then I realised later that it wasn't that, | 0:04:31 | 0:04:34 | |
I realised later that it's... It's the communication. | 0:04:34 | 0:04:38 | |
# Till the end of time, my love...# | 0:04:38 | 0:04:44 | |
Roberta is more lyrical in her approach, | 0:04:45 | 0:04:50 | |
and her vocal prowess. | 0:04:50 | 0:04:52 | |
She has a very, very clear haunting and soothing voice. | 0:04:52 | 0:04:57 | |
Aretha will make you sweat, | 0:04:57 | 0:04:59 | |
and Roberta makes you think. | 0:04:59 | 0:05:02 | |
# The first time...# | 0:05:04 | 0:05:07 | |
When I first heard it | 0:05:08 | 0:05:11 | |
I almost wasn't sure, it was a black voice. | 0:05:11 | 0:05:14 | |
# ..your face # | 0:05:14 | 0:05:19 | |
Cos there is an enigma at the heart of it, you know. | 0:05:19 | 0:05:22 | |
It's a kind of different soul voice. | 0:05:22 | 0:05:26 | |
And it's obviously from a different tradition. | 0:05:26 | 0:05:29 | |
So where did Roberta Flack's brand of soul come from? | 0:05:38 | 0:05:41 | |
Despite being born in the segregated South in 1937, | 0:05:41 | 0:05:45 | |
its roots were more in aspiration than they were in desperation. | 0:05:45 | 0:05:49 | |
At any early age, Roberta's family migrated from North Carolina | 0:05:53 | 0:05:56 | |
to Arlington, | 0:05:56 | 0:05:58 | |
a then segregated suburb of Washington DC. | 0:05:58 | 0:06:01 | |
When we talk about the segregated South, | 0:06:02 | 0:06:05 | |
and, really, Arlington is still the South in this period, | 0:06:05 | 0:06:08 | |
You're still talking about a community that is... | 0:06:08 | 0:06:11 | |
constrained by Jim Crow. | 0:06:11 | 0:06:13 | |
The so-called Negro movement is part of the attempted takeover | 0:06:16 | 0:06:19 | |
of our country by the lazy, the indolent, | 0:06:19 | 0:06:22 | |
the beatniks, the ignorant and by some misguided... | 0:06:22 | 0:06:25 | |
On the other hand the benefits of those types of communities | 0:06:32 | 0:06:36 | |
were that, um, you had your rich, robust lives | 0:06:36 | 0:06:40 | |
where you have the entire class spectrum. | 0:06:40 | 0:06:42 | |
There's a kind of shared sense of purpose | 0:06:44 | 0:06:46 | |
and a kind of self-government because, | 0:06:46 | 0:06:48 | |
if you imagine you know, an entire social order that presumes | 0:06:48 | 0:06:54 | |
your inferiority, | 0:06:54 | 0:06:55 | |
there has to be another set of ethics and norms and values | 0:06:55 | 0:06:59 | |
that are established that can accommodate all the talents | 0:06:59 | 0:07:03 | |
and all the gifts of members of the community. | 0:07:03 | 0:07:07 | |
It was in this kind of self-contained segregated community | 0:07:07 | 0:07:10 | |
that Roberta Flack was raised in the late 1940s. | 0:07:10 | 0:07:13 | |
At that time Arlington was a relatively comfortable, | 0:07:15 | 0:07:19 | |
black, middle-class suburb. | 0:07:19 | 0:07:20 | |
One of four children, | 0:07:31 | 0:07:32 | |
Roberta Flack's father had a government job in Washington | 0:07:32 | 0:07:35 | |
and her mother was a music teacher. | 0:07:35 | 0:07:37 | |
People who were Roberta Flack's age who come out of the South, | 0:07:38 | 0:07:41 | |
I mean, you know, these are people for whom the opportunity | 0:07:41 | 0:07:46 | |
to become middle class, where it is, where the money is a little better | 0:07:46 | 0:07:49 | |
than it was for the generation before them. | 0:07:49 | 0:07:51 | |
Where the housing opportunities are a little better, as well. | 0:07:51 | 0:07:55 | |
And it's a product of a lot of hard work and sacrifice | 0:07:55 | 0:07:58 | |
that your community and your parents put in. | 0:07:58 | 0:08:01 | |
At the centre of these communities were the churches - | 0:08:02 | 0:08:05 | |
and at the centre of the churches was the music. | 0:08:05 | 0:08:07 | |
In Arlington, the biggest was the Macedonia Baptist Church | 0:08:11 | 0:08:15 | |
and the music was gospel. | 0:08:15 | 0:08:16 | |
# ..trying to get home | 0:08:16 | 0:08:19 | |
# I'm climbing higher mountains | 0:08:20 | 0:08:24 | |
# Trying to get home... # | 0:08:24 | 0:08:27 | |
I could walk in any Baptist church | 0:08:27 | 0:08:29 | |
and hear what we know of as traditional gospel | 0:08:29 | 0:08:33 | |
with folks like Aretha Franklin and Sam Cook, Mahalia Jackson... | 0:08:33 | 0:08:36 | |
# That is why I can shout | 0:08:38 | 0:08:41 | |
# Because I know what it's | 0:08:41 | 0:08:44 | |
# All about...# | 0:08:44 | 0:08:47 | |
The people who so many years later | 0:08:52 | 0:08:55 | |
got packaged into soul and turned into soul | 0:08:55 | 0:08:57 | |
would have come out of your Baptist churches. | 0:08:57 | 0:09:00 | |
The roots of Roberta Flack's brand of soul - | 0:09:00 | 0:09:03 | |
also came from church, but of a different kind. | 0:09:03 | 0:09:07 | |
She attended the more sedate Lomax AMA Methodist Church | 0:09:07 | 0:09:11 | |
where her mother was both pianist and choir mistress. | 0:09:11 | 0:09:14 | |
CONGREGATION SINGS HYMN | 0:09:16 | 0:09:20 | |
I'd like to think of Roberta, | 0:09:23 | 0:09:26 | |
as I always think of myself, | 0:09:26 | 0:09:28 | |
as being a good girl. | 0:09:28 | 0:09:29 | |
We are good girls, OK? | 0:09:29 | 0:09:32 | |
Um, and her background, coming from a Methodist environment, | 0:09:32 | 0:09:37 | |
Methodist church environment, mirrors mine. | 0:09:37 | 0:09:40 | |
The choir sang hymns, and hymns are very, very straight-laced | 0:09:40 | 0:09:46 | |
and to the point, and wonderful harmony. | 0:09:46 | 0:09:49 | |
# Glory be to the Father...# | 0:09:50 | 0:09:54 | |
When you think of, say, an Aretha Franklin, | 0:09:56 | 0:09:58 | |
or even an Al Green or a James Brown... | 0:09:58 | 0:10:01 | |
who have that kind of fiery, gritty kind of sweaty voices, | 0:10:01 | 0:10:05 | |
Roberta Flack is not really known for that, | 0:10:05 | 0:10:08 | |
her voice has more to do with the kind of quiet hymnals, right? | 0:10:08 | 0:10:11 | |
And being able to just sing a song, straight, | 0:10:11 | 0:10:15 | |
not alter and switch off the melody too much. | 0:10:15 | 0:10:17 | |
She's very good at that, | 0:10:17 | 0:10:19 | |
so I think a lot of that is definitively rooted in the church. | 0:10:19 | 0:10:21 | |
# Come ye disconsolate | 0:10:26 | 0:10:38 | |
# Where 'ere ye lie. # | 0:10:40 | 0:10:49 | |
I had a lot of experience, | 0:10:55 | 0:10:58 | |
or opportunity, | 0:10:58 | 0:10:59 | |
to play the organ for church services at Lomax. | 0:10:59 | 0:11:04 | |
When there were some incredible musicians in charge of the choir. | 0:11:04 | 0:11:09 | |
I can remember a lady | 0:11:17 | 0:11:21 | |
at my church, Mrs Lillian Thompson - God rest her soul - | 0:11:21 | 0:11:26 | |
said to me one day, | 0:11:26 | 0:11:28 | |
"Roberta, I hope that you never stop playing the piano and organ | 0:11:28 | 0:11:32 | |
like you are doing now." | 0:11:32 | 0:11:34 | |
And I said to her "Why would I do that?" | 0:11:34 | 0:11:36 | |
Roberta's musical education in the church - | 0:11:41 | 0:11:43 | |
was supplemented at her local high school, | 0:11:43 | 0:11:46 | |
where she excelled in both classical piano and voice. | 0:11:46 | 0:11:49 | |
In the segregated early 50s, | 0:11:52 | 0:11:54 | |
Hoffman Boston was an entirely black school | 0:11:54 | 0:11:57 | |
both in intake and in staff. | 0:11:57 | 0:11:59 | |
All over black America if you were a high school principal | 0:12:02 | 0:12:05 | |
you were probably that black person who had an advanced degree, | 0:12:05 | 0:12:09 | |
from either one of the top black schools, | 0:12:09 | 0:12:11 | |
or in some cases the Ivy League schools. | 0:12:11 | 0:12:13 | |
But black educators couldn't work in those Ivy League schools - | 0:12:14 | 0:12:18 | |
so you had a world that was separate | 0:12:18 | 0:12:23 | |
and, in some ways, less than equal, | 0:12:23 | 0:12:26 | |
some ways more than equal in terms of the quality of education. | 0:12:26 | 0:12:30 | |
Those people were completely committed to providing | 0:12:35 | 0:12:38 | |
first rate education, for people like a Roberta Flack. | 0:12:38 | 0:12:42 | |
There was a term that was commonly used "to lift as we climb", | 0:12:46 | 0:12:51 | |
meaning educational aspirations were not just for individuals | 0:12:51 | 0:12:55 | |
but for the entire community. | 0:12:55 | 0:12:57 | |
So segregated schools were these beautiful sites for self-creation | 0:12:58 | 0:13:04 | |
and community formation. | 0:13:04 | 0:13:05 | |
Roberta's blossoming musical talent was recognised | 0:13:09 | 0:13:13 | |
and nurtured in Hoffman Boston. | 0:13:13 | 0:13:15 | |
Roberta was just like we are, just a everyday young student. | 0:13:15 | 0:13:22 | |
But when it came time to being serious about what she supposed to | 0:13:22 | 0:13:26 | |
-she was very, very serious. -Very focused. -Yes. Yes. | 0:13:26 | 0:13:31 | |
And she'd go to music lessons. | 0:13:31 | 0:13:33 | |
You know, when her mother would send her to music higher... | 0:13:33 | 0:13:36 | |
She didn't have time for us and that's good. | 0:13:36 | 0:13:38 | |
A good thing she didn't because look where she is today! | 0:13:38 | 0:13:41 | |
When Roberta Flack left high school in 1953, | 0:13:43 | 0:13:47 | |
her church marked her out as somebody | 0:13:47 | 0:13:49 | |
who could lift as she climbed. | 0:13:49 | 0:13:52 | |
They granted her a scholarship at the age of just 15, | 0:13:52 | 0:13:55 | |
to study classical music | 0:13:55 | 0:13:57 | |
at the most prestigious African American college - | 0:13:57 | 0:14:00 | |
Howard University. | 0:14:00 | 0:14:02 | |
Howard University is one of a small group of really | 0:14:02 | 0:14:06 | |
premier historically black college and universities | 0:14:06 | 0:14:09 | |
and so, you get the best and the brightest in every possible arena. | 0:14:09 | 0:14:14 | |
So it is the site where there's so much | 0:14:14 | 0:14:18 | |
intellectual activity, politically relevant activity, | 0:14:18 | 0:14:22 | |
the place where the litigation strategy | 0:14:22 | 0:14:24 | |
for Brown v Board of Education was developed. | 0:14:24 | 0:14:28 | |
Brown Versus Board of Education was the landmark case in 1954, | 0:14:28 | 0:14:33 | |
which banned segregation in American Schools. | 0:14:33 | 0:14:37 | |
It was a triumph for the university in Roberta's first year. | 0:14:37 | 0:14:40 | |
But outside the cloistered walls | 0:14:42 | 0:14:45 | |
the Southern states had no intention of going quietly. | 0:14:45 | 0:14:48 | |
The following year, a young preacher emerged in the South | 0:14:51 | 0:14:55 | |
to kick start the civil rights movement. | 0:14:55 | 0:14:57 | |
"At present we are in the midst of a protest. | 0:15:00 | 0:15:03 | |
"Just the other day one of the fine citizens of our community | 0:15:05 | 0:15:09 | |
"Mrs Rosa Parks was arrested because she refused to give up her seat | 0:15:09 | 0:15:14 | |
"for a white passenger. | 0:15:14 | 0:15:16 | |
The movement was led by the African American educated middle class, | 0:15:20 | 0:15:23 | |
of which Roberta Flack was now comfortably part of, | 0:15:23 | 0:15:27 | |
back in the classical music department at Howard University. | 0:15:27 | 0:15:30 | |
CLASSICAL SINGING | 0:15:31 | 0:15:33 | |
At Howard Roberta Flack distinguished herself | 0:15:47 | 0:15:50 | |
in a distinguished music programme. | 0:15:50 | 0:15:53 | |
She studied both music and voice. | 0:15:53 | 0:15:55 | |
She really was a musical prodigy. | 0:15:55 | 0:15:57 | |
Really extraordinarily brilliant. | 0:15:57 | 0:16:00 | |
When she directed Aida, at the school, | 0:16:04 | 0:16:07 | |
the entire faculty stood and gave her a standing ovation. | 0:16:07 | 0:16:11 | |
# All through the night | 0:16:11 | 0:16:17 | |
# I'm gonna to let it shine... # | 0:16:17 | 0:16:22 | |
Being a student at Howard served me well. | 0:16:25 | 0:16:28 | |
I had a good time in school, | 0:16:28 | 0:16:31 | |
I was very successful as a piano accompanist to, erm... anybody. | 0:16:31 | 0:16:37 | |
Anybody wanted to sing they could find me. | 0:16:37 | 0:16:40 | |
-< Any style? -Any style! Find me. | 0:16:40 | 0:16:44 | |
And I can play it. | 0:16:44 | 0:16:45 | |
If I didn't know it I'd...pull it together some kind of way, you know. | 0:16:45 | 0:16:50 | |
To make it sound like I did. | 0:16:50 | 0:16:52 | |
Because I had a strong desire to please, too. | 0:16:52 | 0:16:55 | |
And that was my - means of doing that. | 0:16:55 | 0:16:58 | |
I think that Roberta Flack is absolutely a product | 0:16:58 | 0:17:02 | |
of African Americans' long affiliation with classical music. | 0:17:02 | 0:17:07 | |
Whilst listeners may not think of classical first when they hear her, | 0:17:07 | 0:17:12 | |
her life is evidence and her music is evidence | 0:17:12 | 0:17:16 | |
of that training and that awareness which came to her | 0:17:16 | 0:17:19 | |
at different kinds of ways - | 0:17:19 | 0:17:20 | |
from the church, from Howard, from her community | 0:17:20 | 0:17:23 | |
and so she could not help but manifest that | 0:17:23 | 0:17:25 | |
in her playing and in her singing. | 0:17:25 | 0:17:27 | |
# I never dreamed you'd leave in summer... # | 0:17:29 | 0:17:37 | |
She knew where to hit the keys | 0:17:39 | 0:17:41 | |
so that the words would not be disturbed by the keyboard. | 0:17:41 | 0:17:44 | |
That's really critical for someone who accompanies themselves. | 0:17:45 | 0:17:49 | |
She knows how to maintain the body technique | 0:17:49 | 0:17:52 | |
so that nothing is lost in the voice in that process. | 0:17:52 | 0:17:57 | |
# And I thought the cold would leave by summer | 0:17:57 | 0:18:04 | |
# But my quiet nights will be spent alone... # | 0:18:08 | 0:18:17 | |
At Howard, Roberta had her heart set on a classical career, | 0:18:19 | 0:18:23 | |
but the realities of a segregated America dulled those dreams. | 0:18:23 | 0:18:27 | |
When Roberta Flack is at Howard there's not a lot of black people | 0:18:28 | 0:18:31 | |
with those kind of skills in composition, arranging, conducting, | 0:18:31 | 0:18:35 | |
you know, who are going to be in line, | 0:18:35 | 0:18:38 | |
to take over the New York Philharmonic | 0:18:38 | 0:18:42 | |
or the National Symphony Orchestra. | 0:18:42 | 0:18:43 | |
I had a dean that advised me that as a Piano major, | 0:18:49 | 0:18:52 | |
the doors would not be as open to me when I finished that course of study, | 0:18:52 | 0:18:56 | |
and that I should take Education. | 0:18:56 | 0:18:59 | |
I walked away from a potential career as a classical concert pianist. | 0:19:02 | 0:19:07 | |
Let's try this right from the beginning. | 0:19:10 | 0:19:12 | |
OK, let's do the doo-doo doo-doo part at the beginning, | 0:19:12 | 0:19:15 | |
then we'll get into... We'll do that twice # Doo-doo doo-doo doo - | 0:19:15 | 0:19:18 | |
and then right into the song. Here we go. | 0:19:18 | 0:19:21 | |
# Doo-doo-doo-doo doo...# | 0:19:21 | 0:19:23 | |
With her ambition thwarted, Roberta began teaching music | 0:19:26 | 0:19:30 | |
in the public school system in Washington DC. | 0:19:30 | 0:19:34 | |
So not only do you have to enunciate the words clearly, | 0:19:34 | 0:19:36 | |
but you also have to put a little stress, a little emphasis | 0:19:36 | 0:19:39 | |
on certain words - make the words almost picturesque. | 0:19:39 | 0:19:43 | |
But as the '60s dawned there was a sense that things | 0:19:43 | 0:19:46 | |
were about to change. | 0:19:46 | 0:19:48 | |
# People get ready | 0:19:48 | 0:19:50 | |
# There's a train a-coming | 0:19:50 | 0:19:54 | |
# You don't need to no baggage | 0:19:54 | 0:19:56 | |
# You just get on board... # | 0:19:56 | 0:19:59 | |
The civil rights movement had gathered an unstoppable momentum | 0:20:01 | 0:20:05 | |
with Martin Luther King's triumphant march, on Washington in 1963. | 0:20:05 | 0:20:09 | |
The following year, | 0:20:11 | 0:20:13 | |
a decade after Brown versus Board of Education | 0:20:13 | 0:20:17 | |
the government were forced to bring an end to a century of segregation. | 0:20:17 | 0:20:21 | |
# So people get ready for the train to Jordan | 0:20:22 | 0:20:27 | |
# Picking up passengers | 0:20:28 | 0:20:31 | |
# Coast to coast | 0:20:31 | 0:20:35 | |
Throughout this momentous decade, Roberta continued to teach, | 0:20:35 | 0:20:40 | |
but she hadn't given up on her own dream. | 0:20:40 | 0:20:42 | |
I would teach school five days a week. | 0:20:43 | 0:20:46 | |
I was trying to develop my skill to read music, | 0:20:46 | 0:20:51 | |
interpret it, rearrange it - do whatever I needed to do with it. | 0:20:51 | 0:20:54 | |
I thought I could do everything. | 0:20:54 | 0:20:56 | |
And I felt comfortable enough to know that if I had a chance I could, | 0:20:58 | 0:21:03 | |
I could show anybody that I could. | 0:21:03 | 0:21:07 | |
It wasn't until 1968 that a 31-year-old Roberta Flack | 0:21:09 | 0:21:14 | |
got her chance to shine. | 0:21:14 | 0:21:17 | |
Mr Henry's was a late-night joint | 0:21:17 | 0:21:19 | |
that catered to a fashionably mixed crowd. | 0:21:19 | 0:21:22 | |
# Ain't no valley low enough | 0:21:22 | 0:21:26 | |
# Ain't no river wide enough | 0:21:26 | 0:21:30 | |
# Keep me from gettin' to you | 0:21:30 | 0:21:32 | |
# Hold on, baby | 0:21:32 | 0:21:34 | |
# Ain't no mountain high | 0:21:34 | 0:21:37 | |
# No valley low, yeah... # | 0:21:37 | 0:21:41 | |
You know, I was so excited. | 0:21:41 | 0:21:43 | |
So excited. | 0:21:43 | 0:21:45 | |
I'm teaching school, I was still teaching school five days a week | 0:21:45 | 0:21:48 | |
and playing, um... | 0:21:48 | 0:21:52 | |
at Mr Henry's. | 0:21:52 | 0:21:55 | |
Five days a week, too! | 0:21:55 | 0:21:57 | |
I was supposed to do two shows, | 0:21:57 | 0:21:59 | |
I would wind up doing five in a night, | 0:21:59 | 0:22:02 | |
cos I just couldn't get up - from the piano. | 0:22:02 | 0:22:05 | |
# Come on, people... # | 0:22:08 | 0:22:11 | |
Anybody that had come into town to do a concert, | 0:22:11 | 0:22:15 | |
as she got more popular, more well-known, | 0:22:15 | 0:22:18 | |
would come and...and listen to her. | 0:22:18 | 0:22:20 | |
Liberace came once to hear her. | 0:22:20 | 0:22:22 | |
I think somebody actually stole one the candelabras | 0:22:23 | 0:22:26 | |
off of his limousine when it was parked out front. | 0:22:26 | 0:22:29 | |
# Take that dream of her two young brothers | 0:22:32 | 0:22:34 | |
# Gonna take that dream...# | 0:22:34 | 0:22:36 | |
The thing that I remembered | 0:22:36 | 0:22:38 | |
other than being captivated by her at the first hearing, | 0:22:38 | 0:22:42 | |
we had a couple of guys with us that were, erm... | 0:22:42 | 0:22:47 | |
out for fun! | 0:22:47 | 0:22:49 | |
A couple of drinks, and one of them said "Sing one for Jesus!" | 0:22:49 | 0:22:55 | |
And I buried my head and... | 0:22:57 | 0:22:58 | |
# Save the little children... # | 0:23:02 | 0:23:04 | |
So the next song she sang was # I Told Jesus | 0:23:04 | 0:23:09 | |
# Be alright if he called my name # | 0:23:09 | 0:23:13 | |
I said this woman is going to just have the most wonderful career, | 0:23:13 | 0:23:19 | |
because nothing, nothing bothers her. | 0:23:19 | 0:23:23 | |
# If you see me walking down the street | 0:23:23 | 0:23:25 | |
# And I start to cry | 0:23:25 | 0:23:27 | |
# Each time we meet | 0:23:27 | 0:23:30 | |
# Walk on by | 0:23:30 | 0:23:34 | |
# Walk on by. # | 0:23:36 | 0:23:38 | |
And I was performing in Washington, DC | 0:23:38 | 0:23:40 | |
and my guys, my rhythm section, | 0:23:40 | 0:23:42 | |
said they were going to go to this little club, | 0:23:42 | 0:23:45 | |
and there was a young lady there playing piano and singing and... | 0:23:45 | 0:23:48 | |
would I like to go? | 0:23:48 | 0:23:50 | |
I said, "Yeah, sure" and that was... | 0:23:50 | 0:23:53 | |
The young lady was Roberta Flack. | 0:23:53 | 0:23:55 | |
And, boy, she blew me away. | 0:23:55 | 0:23:58 | |
REALLY blew me away. | 0:23:58 | 0:24:00 | |
# Sister Jones was taken away | 0:24:01 | 0:24:06 | |
# She didn't live another day | 0:24:06 | 0:24:11 | |
# Sister Jones was taken away | 0:24:16 | 0:24:21 | |
# She didn't live | 0:24:21 | 0:24:26 | |
# Another day | 0:24:26 | 0:24:30 | |
# Sister Jones was taken away | 0:24:32 | 0:24:37 | |
# She didn't live | 0:24:39 | 0:24:41 | |
# She said Lord, Lord, Lord | 0:24:44 | 0:24:46 | |
# If you take him away...# | 0:24:46 | 0:24:49 | |
If you close your eyes and sing and... | 0:24:49 | 0:24:52 | |
feel and emote, | 0:24:52 | 0:24:54 | |
and not see anybody in the audience, | 0:24:54 | 0:24:58 | |
not think about anybody that you might see, | 0:24:58 | 0:25:01 | |
or who might see you - just be there - | 0:25:01 | 0:25:03 | |
it's a very interesting place to be. | 0:25:03 | 0:25:05 | |
And when you, once you get there it's...it's a... | 0:25:05 | 0:25:10 | |
It's very hard to leave. | 0:25:10 | 0:25:14 | |
# Yeah, yeah, yeah... | 0:25:14 | 0:25:19 | |
# She said Lord... | 0:25:19 | 0:25:25 | |
# Lord, Lord, Lord | 0:25:25 | 0:25:28 | |
# If you take him away | 0:25:28 | 0:25:31 | |
# I don't wanna live another day | 0:25:31 | 0:25:35 | |
# Yeah, yeah... | 0:25:35 | 0:25:37 | |
# Sister Jones was taken away | 0:25:37 | 0:25:45 | |
# You know, she didn't live | 0:25:47 | 0:25:49 | |
# She didn't live | 0:25:51 | 0:25:55 | |
# She didn't live another day...# | 0:25:55 | 0:26:05 | |
WHOOPS AND APPLAUSE | 0:26:05 | 0:26:11 | |
It was my moment. I was on stage. | 0:26:16 | 0:26:18 | |
I was right dead centre, where I needed to be. | 0:26:18 | 0:26:21 | |
And I had everybody's attention. | 0:26:21 | 0:26:23 | |
And I could take them where I wanted them to go. | 0:26:23 | 0:26:27 | |
Well, I can't describe her voice. | 0:26:27 | 0:26:30 | |
I can say that when I heard her sing... How it made me feel. | 0:26:30 | 0:26:35 | |
Tears to my eyes, a lot of deep feeling. | 0:26:36 | 0:26:39 | |
So I picked up recording equipment to record her and take the rec... | 0:26:40 | 0:26:45 | |
the recording to Atlantic | 0:26:45 | 0:26:46 | |
and once they heard the tapes, that was... It began. | 0:26:46 | 0:26:52 | |
After ten years, her teaching days were over, | 0:26:54 | 0:26:57 | |
Roberta transferred the songs she'd been performing at Mr Henry's | 0:26:57 | 0:27:01 | |
onto vinyl. | 0:27:01 | 0:27:03 | |
# I loved you in the morning | 0:27:03 | 0:27:06 | |
# Our kisses deep and warm...# | 0:27:06 | 0:27:09 | |
Released in 1969, First Take | 0:27:09 | 0:27:12 | |
was an eclectic mix of folk, jazz and show tune, | 0:27:12 | 0:27:17 | |
but this was also an album of its time. | 0:27:17 | 0:27:20 | |
I think it's a very, very fascinating record, | 0:27:20 | 0:27:22 | |
because there's romantic ballads, | 0:27:22 | 0:27:25 | |
there's covers of Leonard Cohen songs on there... | 0:27:25 | 0:27:29 | |
It's a very hybrid fusion record, | 0:27:29 | 0:27:32 | |
but it's one that is deeply rooted in black politics of the late 1960s | 0:27:32 | 0:27:36 | |
and I think part of the reason Roberta Flack doesn't get fully credited | 0:27:36 | 0:27:41 | |
for being a part of that political tradition | 0:27:41 | 0:27:43 | |
is because she's a woman. | 0:27:43 | 0:27:45 | |
Story goes African American popular music - | 0:27:45 | 0:27:48 | |
became explicitly political and socially critical | 0:27:48 | 0:27:51 | |
with Marvin Gaye's What's Going On in 1971. | 0:27:51 | 0:27:54 | |
# Mother, Mother | 0:27:54 | 0:27:57 | |
# There's too many of you crying...# | 0:27:57 | 0:27:59 | |
Roberta Flack's album comes out two years before. | 0:28:01 | 0:28:03 | |
Right? So really it's much earlier. | 0:28:03 | 0:28:05 | |
GUNSHOT | 0:28:05 | 0:28:07 | |
We have to recognise who our major enemy is! | 0:28:07 | 0:28:11 | |
In 1969, while black America was erupting after | 0:28:16 | 0:28:19 | |
the assassination of Martin Luther King, | 0:28:19 | 0:28:22 | |
and while the non-violence of civil rights was drowned out | 0:28:22 | 0:28:25 | |
by the rage of Black Power. | 0:28:25 | 0:28:28 | |
The major enemy is the honky and his institutions of racism - | 0:28:28 | 0:28:31 | |
that's the major enemy. | 0:28:31 | 0:28:33 | |
Marvin Gaye was too Busy Thinking About His Baby. | 0:28:33 | 0:28:36 | |
# Oh, yeah | 0:28:36 | 0:28:38 | |
# And I ain't got time for nothing else | 0:28:38 | 0:28:41 | |
But Roberta Flack was trying to make it real. | 0:28:44 | 0:28:48 | |
# Said I love the lie...# | 0:28:48 | 0:28:50 | |
ROBERTA SINGS | 0:28:50 | 0:28:52 | |
How bold is that? | 0:29:25 | 0:29:26 | |
This is your first album | 0:29:26 | 0:29:27 | |
and you decide this is the first song on the album - | 0:29:27 | 0:29:30 | |
Compared To What - where you're basically calling out everything. | 0:29:30 | 0:29:34 | |
You're just coming out of the black saying, | 0:29:34 | 0:29:36 | |
"You got to be real," You know? Compared To What, you know? | 0:29:36 | 0:29:40 | |
All of these sort of swirling around its like people were | 0:29:40 | 0:29:42 | |
trying to find centre. | 0:29:42 | 0:29:43 | |
It's a kind of wail against authenticity. | 0:30:07 | 0:30:11 | |
It's like make it real Compared To What? | 0:30:11 | 0:30:14 | |
Why am I not OK by myself? | 0:30:14 | 0:30:17 | |
I know this is what you say we are, | 0:30:19 | 0:30:22 | |
I know this is even what we say we are, but, you know, | 0:30:22 | 0:30:25 | |
let me just...take a minute here and see whether | 0:30:25 | 0:30:28 | |
I can offer you a version. | 0:30:28 | 0:30:30 | |
# Tryin' to make it real, yeah | 0:30:30 | 0:30:33 | |
# Compared to what...# | 0:30:34 | 0:30:37 | |
In that sense she's also, I think, part of a long tradition | 0:30:37 | 0:30:42 | |
of African American intellectuals and creatives | 0:30:42 | 0:30:46 | |
who've tried really hard to forge this space, | 0:30:46 | 0:30:50 | |
in which they can be individuals. | 0:30:50 | 0:30:53 | |
# Hang it up...# | 0:30:53 | 0:30:54 | |
When you see Roberta Flack in that tradition | 0:30:54 | 0:30:57 | |
she suddenly makes more sense. | 0:30:57 | 0:30:59 | |
I thought was a clever song it was Gene McDaniels, | 0:30:59 | 0:31:03 | |
it gave me an opportunity to express a point, | 0:31:03 | 0:31:07 | |
without hitting somebody over the head, you know. | 0:31:07 | 0:31:11 | |
# Callin' the name. # | 0:31:11 | 0:31:14 | |
Eugene McDaniels was one of a number of black songwriters | 0:31:14 | 0:31:17 | |
that Roberta Flack gathered round her for the making of the album. | 0:31:17 | 0:31:21 | |
# Making the...last time | 0:31:24 | 0:31:28 | |
# Like the first time | 0:31:30 | 0:31:33 | |
# Merging as one | 0:31:35 | 0:31:39 | |
# Fusing into the vast...# | 0:31:43 | 0:31:46 | |
Eugene McDaniels in terms of his aspirations, | 0:31:46 | 0:31:51 | |
is probably as close to a Bob Dylan | 0:31:51 | 0:31:55 | |
as black American music produced in that particular moment, | 0:31:55 | 0:31:58 | |
in the sense that this was somebody | 0:31:58 | 0:32:01 | |
that really wanted to make the lyrics the thing. | 0:32:01 | 0:32:05 | |
You told me... You called me and told me you had a song for me. | 0:32:05 | 0:32:08 | |
That's right, and you are the only person that I write exclusives for. | 0:32:08 | 0:32:11 | |
But why you playing my song for him. | 0:32:11 | 0:32:13 | |
He asked to hear it. He just asked to hear it. He can't have it. | 0:32:13 | 0:32:17 | |
Can't have it. It's yours. | 0:32:17 | 0:32:20 | |
-Is that a promise. -Yes, ma'am. | 0:32:20 | 0:32:22 | |
Cos you know how I feel about your songs. | 0:32:22 | 0:32:25 | |
Sure feels great to have folks fighting over your music. | 0:32:28 | 0:32:30 | |
-It's really a trip, man! -I'm not fighting. | 0:32:30 | 0:32:33 | |
Black songwriters felt comfortable being really intellectual. | 0:32:33 | 0:32:36 | |
People didn't have this anxiety of education. | 0:32:36 | 0:32:40 | |
People were actually proud to be able to express | 0:32:40 | 0:32:43 | |
really complicated thought about the world inside of popular music. | 0:32:43 | 0:32:47 | |
They felt that space had been opened up for them. | 0:32:47 | 0:32:50 | |
# Just pick up your papers | 0:32:50 | 0:32:53 | |
# Turn on your TV | 0:32:53 | 0:32:56 | |
# See a lot of demonstrations | 0:32:57 | 0:33:02 | |
# For equality | 0:33:02 | 0:33:05 | |
# Folks wouldn't have to suffer | 0:33:05 | 0:33:08 | |
# If there was more love, more love, more love | 0:33:11 | 0:33:15 | |
# These are trying times...# | 0:33:15 | 0:33:16 | |
Trying Times was written by an old friend from Howard university | 0:33:18 | 0:33:22 | |
- Donny Hathaway - | 0:33:22 | 0:33:24 | |
but it wasn't her political songs | 0:33:24 | 0:33:27 | |
that thrust Roberta Flack into the mainstream. | 0:33:27 | 0:33:30 | |
In 1972, Clint Eastwood choose one of her love songs | 0:33:34 | 0:33:38 | |
to feature in his directorial debut Play Misty for Me. | 0:33:38 | 0:33:43 | |
I was living in Alexandra, Virginia, with my mom and she said "Roberta", | 0:33:43 | 0:33:47 | |
I said "Yes", she said, "Somebody name Clint Eastwood is on the phone." | 0:33:47 | 0:33:51 | |
And I had, I thought she was either putting me on - | 0:33:51 | 0:33:53 | |
or was somebody playing a joke on me. | 0:33:53 | 0:33:55 | |
It was the real guy. | 0:33:55 | 0:33:57 | |
# The first time... # | 0:33:58 | 0:34:00 | |
I was very confused about him liking it, though I said to him | 0:34:02 | 0:34:05 | |
"Don't you want me to shorten it? Isn't' it too long?" | 0:34:05 | 0:34:08 | |
"No, I want it just like it is, all 5 minutes and 16 seconds." | 0:34:08 | 0:34:13 | |
Clint Eastwood needed the song | 0:34:13 | 0:34:15 | |
for an unusually long and wordless love scene. | 0:34:15 | 0:34:19 | |
His brave decision in this clip | 0:34:20 | 0:34:22 | |
to play The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face in its entirety | 0:34:22 | 0:34:26 | |
changed Robert Flack's life. | 0:34:26 | 0:34:29 | |
Mainstream white America fell in love with the song. | 0:34:29 | 0:34:33 | |
It became the biggest selling single of the year, | 0:34:33 | 0:34:36 | |
and the woman who wanted to be a concert pianist, | 0:34:36 | 0:34:39 | |
now found herself as one of the most successful pop singers in the world. | 0:34:39 | 0:34:43 | |
# Doo-doo doo-doo doo...# | 0:34:48 | 0:34:51 | |
I think I've done The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face 5,000 times, | 0:34:51 | 0:34:55 | |
and it is a beautiful song, | 0:34:55 | 0:34:56 | |
but there are other songs out there, | 0:34:56 | 0:34:59 | |
so to stay ahead of the game, | 0:34:59 | 0:35:00 | |
and keep things interesting for you, | 0:35:00 | 0:35:02 | |
you have to work with that, and I'm constantly concerned about that. | 0:35:02 | 0:35:07 | |
Now the search was on for the crucial follow up hit. | 0:35:07 | 0:35:10 | |
# I felt all flushed with fever | 0:35:13 | 0:35:16 | |
# Embarrassed by the crowd. # | 0:35:16 | 0:35:20 | |
I was on a plane coming from California to New York - | 0:35:20 | 0:35:25 | |
all I could hear was this song. | 0:35:25 | 0:35:28 | |
I was so just smitten. | 0:35:28 | 0:35:29 | |
I couldn't sleep the whole time for the flight. | 0:35:29 | 0:35:32 | |
I called Quincy as soon as I got to the airport, | 0:35:32 | 0:35:35 | |
and I got the music and recorded it. | 0:35:35 | 0:35:39 | |
# Strumming my pain with his fingers | 0:35:39 | 0:35:41 | |
# Singing my life... # | 0:35:41 | 0:35:43 | |
The song Roberta heard was Killing Me Softly by Lori Lieberman, | 0:35:43 | 0:35:47 | |
a white folky West Coast singer. | 0:35:47 | 0:35:50 | |
I was listening to Lori Lieberman's version of it, | 0:35:51 | 0:35:54 | |
which, of course, came first, was very, very lovely, | 0:35:54 | 0:35:57 | |
and I was, like, well, OK, so what happens between Lori Lieberman | 0:35:57 | 0:36:00 | |
and Roberta Flack? | 0:36:00 | 0:36:02 | |
And one thing she does, she gives it a stronger pulse. | 0:36:02 | 0:36:05 | |
# I heard he sang a good song | 0:36:05 | 0:36:08 | |
# I heard he had a style | 0:36:08 | 0:36:12 | |
# And so I came to see him | 0:36:12 | 0:36:15 | |
# To listen for a while...# | 0:36:15 | 0:36:19 | |
And so that frees her up | 0:36:19 | 0:36:21 | |
to be even more open with her vocals | 0:36:21 | 0:36:23 | |
because you have this thing that sort of propelling the song | 0:36:23 | 0:36:27 | |
and pushing it along. | 0:36:27 | 0:36:28 | |
Also she asked that ingenious, erm, "Oh" part... | 0:36:28 | 0:36:33 | |
# Ohhhh.... | 0:36:33 | 0:36:36 | |
# Oh-ohhh... Oh-ohhh oh-ohhh oh-ohhh | 0:36:36 | 0:36:41 | |
# La la la la la la | 0:36:41 | 0:36:44 | |
# Oh-ohhh oh-ohhh oh-ohhh...# | 0:36:44 | 0:36:46 | |
..where she really just kind of airs out | 0:36:46 | 0:36:50 | |
and lets it stretch and lets it soar | 0:36:50 | 0:36:52 | |
and become this beautiful, beautiful moment. | 0:36:52 | 0:36:55 | |
Killing Me Softly was another massive hit, | 0:36:58 | 0:37:01 | |
winning three Grammy awards in 1974. | 0:37:01 | 0:37:05 | |
But despite this success, or maybe because of it, | 0:37:05 | 0:37:08 | |
Roberta Flack was not without her detractors. | 0:37:08 | 0:37:11 | |
In the 1970s, a lot of critics didn't really consider | 0:37:11 | 0:37:15 | |
Roberta Flack to be soul. | 0:37:15 | 0:37:17 | |
Partly that was because some critics felt her singing was very white. | 0:37:17 | 0:37:22 | |
# Suzanne takes you down | 0:37:24 | 0:37:27 | |
# To a place by the river...# | 0:37:27 | 0:37:30 | |
She wasn't singing like an Aretha Franklin, | 0:37:30 | 0:37:33 | |
she didn't have that kind of fiery quality. | 0:37:33 | 0:37:36 | |
She would stick to the melody - she would sing it straight. | 0:37:36 | 0:37:39 | |
# And you know that she's half crazy...# | 0:37:39 | 0:37:43 | |
Part of that comes from her family's background in the church, | 0:37:43 | 0:37:47 | |
and it's also her classical training. | 0:37:47 | 0:37:49 | |
# She feeds you tea and oranges...# | 0:37:49 | 0:37:52 | |
What appears on the surface to be this quietude, | 0:37:52 | 0:37:56 | |
this meekness, this... is in fact a...a granite persona, | 0:37:56 | 0:38:01 | |
because you needed to be really tough, right? | 0:38:01 | 0:38:05 | |
To find this additional energy | 0:38:05 | 0:38:07 | |
to pull away from this tradition of blackness that says | 0:38:07 | 0:38:11 | |
"I'm authentic, I come from the church, and we, you know, | 0:38:11 | 0:38:14 | |
"we grunt and we call and response, etc, etc..." | 0:38:14 | 0:38:17 | |
None of that's in her music. | 0:38:17 | 0:38:19 | |
And none of that's in her music | 0:38:19 | 0:38:21 | |
because she's deliberately decided that it shouldn't be there. | 0:38:21 | 0:38:25 | |
# I learned the truth at 17 | 0:38:25 | 0:38:29 | |
# That love was meant for beauty queens | 0:38:29 | 0:38:34 | |
# And high school girls with clear-skin smiles | 0:38:34 | 0:38:38 | |
# Who married young and then retired...# | 0:38:38 | 0:38:42 | |
Roberta Flack was often seen in the context of a generation | 0:38:42 | 0:38:45 | |
of white female singer-songwriters who emerged in the '70s. | 0:38:45 | 0:38:49 | |
# The Friday night charade of youth...# | 0:38:50 | 0:38:53 | |
This was the dawn of the women's movement | 0:38:54 | 0:38:57 | |
when the personal was political. | 0:38:57 | 0:38:59 | |
# At 17 I learned the truth...# | 0:38:59 | 0:39:04 | |
But Roberta's brand of feminism was also rooted in her blackness. | 0:39:04 | 0:39:08 | |
This is a song about a very big, strong, black, sexy | 0:39:08 | 0:39:13 | |
Southern Baptist minister, | 0:39:13 | 0:39:16 | |
who thinks that he has his program all together, | 0:39:16 | 0:39:20 | |
until he runs up against a lady, | 0:39:20 | 0:39:23 | |
who shows him that he AIN'T got it together. | 0:39:23 | 0:39:27 | |
First time I heard Reverend Lee it reminded me | 0:39:27 | 0:39:30 | |
of a lot of these black preacher tales. | 0:39:30 | 0:39:34 | |
You know, the black preacher presents himself as, God's man, | 0:39:34 | 0:39:40 | |
but there are all these folk tales about preachers who go wayward. | 0:39:40 | 0:39:45 | |
# Reverend Lee, she said | 0:39:45 | 0:39:49 | |
# Said Lord knows I love you child | 0:39:49 | 0:39:53 | |
# I will not even place God above you...# | 0:39:53 | 0:40:01 | |
She actually has this interplay between the preacher himself | 0:40:03 | 0:40:07 | |
and this siren, this woman sent from Satan | 0:40:07 | 0:40:11 | |
who is luring this man. | 0:40:11 | 0:40:13 | |
# Oh, she was twistin' and turning | 0:40:13 | 0:40:17 | |
# She was beggin' and pleadin'...# | 0:40:19 | 0:40:23 | |
The siren always wins because in the end she's, like, | 0:40:27 | 0:40:32 | |
I have the power to pull you to a place | 0:40:32 | 0:40:35 | |
that even your religion can't quite save you. | 0:40:35 | 0:40:38 | |
# Oh, do it to me | 0:40:39 | 0:40:41 | |
# Reverend Lee | 0:40:41 | 0:40:43 | |
# Do it to me | 0:40:43 | 0:40:45 | |
# Reverend Lee | 0:40:46 | 0:40:49 | |
# Do it to me | 0:40:49 | 0:40:51 | |
You know, over the course of... of her career she... | 0:40:51 | 0:40:55 | |
I think the music that she's chosen to sing, um, | 0:40:55 | 0:40:59 | |
certainly speaks to her feelings about blackness. | 0:40:59 | 0:41:03 | |
Feelings about blackness had evolved in the mid-'70s | 0:41:08 | 0:41:12 | |
as the gaze turned inward. | 0:41:12 | 0:41:13 | |
Black consciousness was the byword. | 0:41:15 | 0:41:18 | |
# Yes... | 0:41:18 | 0:41:20 | |
# This is the ghetto | 0:41:21 | 0:41:24 | |
# Sure 'nuff now | 0:41:24 | 0:41:26 | |
# Mm-mm-hmm...# | 0:41:31 | 0:41:33 | |
At this time, Roberta Flack reignited her collaboration | 0:41:40 | 0:41:44 | |
with Donny Hathaway, her old friend from Howard University. | 0:41:44 | 0:41:48 | |
Hathaway had developed a unique politically charged soul sound. | 0:41:53 | 0:41:58 | |
# The ghetto, the ghetto, the ghetto...# | 0:42:05 | 0:42:11 | |
By that political moment, | 0:42:11 | 0:42:14 | |
in the early '70's is the period | 0:42:14 | 0:42:16 | |
we associate with of black consciousness - | 0:42:16 | 0:42:20 | |
we've struggled for these many years for inclusion | 0:42:20 | 0:42:23 | |
at the level of law and rights now we want to be recognised for | 0:42:23 | 0:42:28 | |
who we are, completely, physically culturally. | 0:42:28 | 0:42:32 | |
What does it mean to be a black human being in this world? | 0:42:32 | 0:42:37 | |
How does one embrace that? | 0:42:37 | 0:42:39 | |
How does one embrace that in the way one treats one's body, | 0:42:39 | 0:42:44 | |
and the way one talks about one's body, | 0:42:44 | 0:42:46 | |
and the way one thinks about how you move through the world. | 0:42:46 | 0:42:51 | |
Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway produced an album of duets | 0:42:56 | 0:43:00 | |
that perfectly expressed the mood of black America at the time. | 0:43:00 | 0:43:05 | |
# Your hair, soft and crinkly | 0:43:05 | 0:43:10 | |
# Your body, strong and stately | 0:43:12 | 0:43:18 | |
# You don't have to search and roam | 0:43:20 | 0:43:25 | |
# Cos I got your love at home | 0:43:25 | 0:43:30 | |
# Be real black for me | 0:43:33 | 0:43:37 | |
# Be real black for me. # | 0:43:39 | 0:43:42 | |
That's a love song | 0:43:45 | 0:43:47 | |
but it's a love song with deep political implications. | 0:43:47 | 0:43:51 | |
It is about love between black people, right, | 0:43:51 | 0:43:56 | |
and a kind of disrobing | 0:43:56 | 0:43:59 | |
a kind of being unfettered by what the world says you are, | 0:43:59 | 0:44:06 | |
and revelling in what you really are. | 0:44:06 | 0:44:09 | |
Some people identify blackness as this hard thing | 0:44:09 | 0:44:12 | |
and this thing that is only pain, that is only defence. | 0:44:12 | 0:44:18 | |
That song is the opposite of that. | 0:44:18 | 0:44:21 | |
It's tender and it's...and it's warm and it's inviting | 0:44:21 | 0:44:25 | |
but it's still talking and dealing with blackness, | 0:44:25 | 0:44:29 | |
and the acceptance of one's other blackness in another person. | 0:44:29 | 0:44:33 | |
# Be real black for me | 0:44:35 | 0:44:38 | |
# Be real black for me # | 0:44:40 | 0:44:44 | |
While Roberta was signing songs of black consciousness | 0:44:54 | 0:44:57 | |
her personal life made this complicated. | 0:44:57 | 0:45:00 | |
Her bass player was her husband and he was Caucasian, | 0:45:01 | 0:45:05 | |
so imagine living in Washington then and being married... | 0:45:05 | 0:45:09 | |
Mixed couple? Oh, my God! | 0:45:09 | 0:45:11 | |
So they were catching the hell. | 0:45:11 | 0:45:14 | |
When you hear her sing... you feel it. You feel it. | 0:45:14 | 0:45:19 | |
The hell she was catching, even came from within the family. | 0:45:20 | 0:45:24 | |
After seven years of marriage - | 0:45:24 | 0:45:26 | |
Roberta Flack had never even met her husband's parents. | 0:45:26 | 0:45:29 | |
Do you think that your mother and father would recognise me | 0:45:29 | 0:45:36 | |
if they knew they saw me on national television? | 0:45:36 | 0:45:40 | |
What do you think they'd do if they see me? | 0:45:40 | 0:45:42 | |
-Do you think they'd know who I am? They'd know I'm your wife? -Sure. | 0:45:42 | 0:45:46 | |
-They know who you are. -They do know who I am? -Certainly. | 0:45:46 | 0:45:49 | |
-How do you know? -We told them before we got married. | 0:45:49 | 0:45:52 | |
-You told them what my name was? -Right. | 0:45:52 | 0:45:54 | |
But do you think they connect that with you know | 0:45:55 | 0:45:58 | |
whatever the image is supposed to represent now? | 0:45:58 | 0:46:02 | |
You don't think that they'd see me on television | 0:46:03 | 0:46:06 | |
and say that's the daughter... That's the girl that my son married? | 0:46:06 | 0:46:10 | |
I think they'd say that. And they'd also say that that's... | 0:46:10 | 0:46:14 | |
You really think they'd know who I am? | 0:46:14 | 0:46:16 | |
My first husband is Caucasian. | 0:46:16 | 0:46:18 | |
Young musician. Beautiful musician. | 0:46:18 | 0:46:21 | |
And I...I used to think a lot of those songs that I was singing... | 0:46:21 | 0:46:25 | |
"Yes, we're different, we're worlds apart, we're not the same - | 0:46:25 | 0:46:28 | |
"we laughed and joked, at the start like in a game. | 0:46:28 | 0:46:32 | |
# Like in a game...# | 0:46:32 | 0:46:33 | |
"You could have stayed around my heart, but in you came | 0:46:33 | 0:46:37 | |
"and here you stay until its time for you to go | 0:46:37 | 0:46:40 | |
PICKS OUT TUNE ON PIANO "Don't ask... Don't ask how of me | 0:46:40 | 0:46:45 | |
"Don't ask why of me | 0:46:45 | 0:46:47 | |
"Don't ask... | 0:46:50 | 0:46:52 | |
"..for ever... | 0:46:54 | 0:46:56 | |
"..of me... | 0:46:56 | 0:46:57 | |
"Love me... | 0:46:59 | 0:47:00 | |
"Love me now" | 0:47:02 | 0:47:03 | |
There's something else that you have to watch while you're building, | 0:47:14 | 0:47:17 | |
trying to achieve something in the business, | 0:47:17 | 0:47:19 | |
and that is to really FEEL like doing it. | 0:47:19 | 0:47:22 | |
I have to go out and travel two or three days in a row | 0:47:22 | 0:47:24 | |
with concerts each night | 0:47:24 | 0:47:26 | |
and at the end of it I'm just whipped. | 0:47:26 | 0:47:28 | |
"Roberta Flack, Going Down To The River, take one." | 0:47:28 | 0:47:31 | |
# I'm going down | 0:47:31 | 0:47:33 | |
# To the river | 0:47:36 | 0:47:39 | |
# To lay my burden down...# | 0:47:43 | 0:47:47 | |
She was pretty exacting in the studio | 0:47:48 | 0:47:51 | |
because this is her reputation. | 0:47:51 | 0:47:53 | |
I think we started about six in the evening, | 0:47:53 | 0:47:56 | |
and by about 2 o'clock in the morning she was satisfied. | 0:47:56 | 0:48:01 | |
Over and over and over and over. | 0:48:01 | 0:48:04 | |
I'm sure some people would say that she's a really hard sometimes. | 0:48:04 | 0:48:10 | |
A bit like me because I understand what she wants... | 0:48:10 | 0:48:13 | |
When you want something, you want something, and... | 0:48:13 | 0:48:15 | |
when it's right, it's right. | 0:48:15 | 0:48:16 | |
# For the first time...# | 0:48:19 | 0:48:21 | |
She's a studied musician, you know, | 0:48:21 | 0:48:24 | |
and I think that she was very conscious of the fact - | 0:48:24 | 0:48:26 | |
Well, hey, I'm the one that studied. | 0:48:26 | 0:48:28 | |
I'm the one that knows the difference between G and G-sharp. | 0:48:28 | 0:48:32 | |
I think all of that had to do with her exacting nature, | 0:48:32 | 0:48:36 | |
and the fact that she just wasn't going to let anybody push her around. | 0:48:36 | 0:48:40 | |
Male or female you kind of have to be that way, | 0:48:40 | 0:48:43 | |
but especially so, if you are female, | 0:48:43 | 0:48:45 | |
and a minority female in the music business, at that time especially. | 0:48:45 | 0:48:49 | |
We're talking the '70s. | 0:48:49 | 0:48:51 | |
# Somewhere deep in my body | 0:48:51 | 0:48:55 | |
# I feel that magical glow...# | 0:48:57 | 0:49:02 | |
When Roberta went into the studio to record her next album in 1974, | 0:49:03 | 0:49:08 | |
she decided to produce it herself | 0:49:08 | 0:49:10 | |
under the pseudonym Robina Flake. | 0:49:10 | 0:49:13 | |
I took so long to a finish Feel Like Making Love, | 0:49:14 | 0:49:17 | |
by the time I got through playing songs and hearing songs, | 0:49:17 | 0:49:22 | |
and listening to songs and recording songs, | 0:49:22 | 0:49:25 | |
and "No, I don't like that" and "Yes, I do" and "No", "Yes", "No", "Yes". | 0:49:25 | 0:49:30 | |
A year had passed. | 0:49:30 | 0:49:32 | |
Wow! | 0:49:33 | 0:49:34 | |
And Feel Like Making Love had been on the charts for a year - | 0:49:34 | 0:49:37 | |
Thank you, God! | 0:49:37 | 0:49:38 | |
# Strolling in the park | 0:49:40 | 0:49:43 | |
# Watching winter turn to spring | 0:49:43 | 0:49:46 | |
# Walking in the dark | 0:49:50 | 0:49:53 | |
# Seeing lovers do their thing | 0:49:53 | 0:49:56 | |
# Ooh-ooh-ooh | 0:49:59 | 0:50:00 | |
# That's the time | 0:50:00 | 0:50:02 | |
# I feel like making love to you | 0:50:03 | 0:50:08 | |
# That's the time | 0:50:10 | 0:50:11 | |
# I feel like making dreams come true | 0:50:13 | 0:50:18 | |
# Oh, baby...# | 0:50:19 | 0:50:21 | |
Feel Like Making Love was another number one hit in 1975. | 0:50:23 | 0:50:27 | |
Again written by Eugene McDaniels, | 0:50:30 | 0:50:33 | |
but this time with no sign of any political edge. | 0:50:33 | 0:50:36 | |
# And my feelings start to show. # | 0:50:36 | 0:50:39 | |
As the 70's progressed, Roberta Flack's music | 0:50:39 | 0:50:42 | |
was increasingly appealing to the more comfortably-off sections | 0:50:42 | 0:50:46 | |
of the African American community. | 0:50:46 | 0:50:48 | |
That black middle class that had created Roberta Flack, | 0:50:51 | 0:50:54 | |
Martin Luther King and the dentists who gave birth to Miles Davis | 0:50:54 | 0:50:59 | |
and the church leaders who gave birth to Aretha Franklin, | 0:50:59 | 0:51:01 | |
is formed inside the hub of segregation. | 0:51:01 | 0:51:05 | |
The post-civil rights period is about opening up American society. | 0:51:07 | 0:51:13 | |
And as the black middle class gets bigger | 0:51:15 | 0:51:19 | |
it then drives a wedge into the black political tradition. | 0:51:19 | 0:51:24 | |
There's definitely a difference of interests. | 0:51:25 | 0:51:29 | |
If you are a member of the urban black working class - | 0:51:29 | 0:51:34 | |
the majority of African Americans - | 0:51:34 | 0:51:36 | |
your sense of what the political future might be | 0:51:36 | 0:51:40 | |
starts to look very different to the son of a black dentist, | 0:51:40 | 0:51:44 | |
who's now gone to Harvard and got an MBA and is working at Goldman Sachs. | 0:51:44 | 0:51:49 | |
And those differences begin to be mirrored, | 0:51:49 | 0:51:52 | |
not just in the political arena, but also in the musical one. | 0:51:52 | 0:51:57 | |
As the '70s rolled into the '80s, Roberta Flack's music was | 0:52:04 | 0:52:08 | |
prominently featured on an American radio format called Quiet Storm. | 0:52:08 | 0:52:12 | |
Quiet Storm would be night-time radio | 0:52:14 | 0:52:17 | |
and it was all about, you know, slow the BPM all the way down. | 0:52:17 | 0:52:22 | |
It was really strong jazz influence R&B. | 0:52:22 | 0:52:27 | |
That's when you would have your DJ with the deep baritone voice | 0:52:27 | 0:52:30 | |
announcing, you know, that was Sweet Love by Anita Baker. | 0:52:30 | 0:52:34 | |
You know that's where R&B really started to leave youth behind. | 0:52:34 | 0:52:38 | |
# Soft and warm | 0:52:38 | 0:52:42 | |
# A quiet storm | 0:52:42 | 0:52:44 | |
# Quiet as when flowers talk at break of dawn | 0:52:44 | 0:52:49 | |
# Break of dawn...# | 0:52:50 | 0:52:53 | |
Because of, again, her vocal quality, | 0:52:53 | 0:52:55 | |
Roberta Flack was able to move into that realm | 0:52:55 | 0:52:58 | |
and continue to be a part of the conversation throughout the '80s. | 0:52:58 | 0:53:04 | |
The shift to sort of '80s R&B sound, | 0:53:04 | 0:53:07 | |
and politics almost entirely disappear. | 0:53:07 | 0:53:10 | |
The Quiet Storm era, generally. | 0:53:11 | 0:53:13 | |
I mean that's just a melancholy era. In black life. | 0:53:13 | 0:53:17 | |
# You short circuit all my nerves | 0:53:18 | 0:53:22 | |
# Promising electric things | 0:53:22 | 0:53:24 | |
# You touch me and suddenly there is rainbow rings | 0:53:26 | 0:53:30 | |
# Quiet storm...# | 0:53:30 | 0:53:32 | |
All of the regulation that came out in the '60s the Civil Rights Act, | 0:53:32 | 0:53:36 | |
aren't working how you thought they would, you know. | 0:53:36 | 0:53:40 | |
De-industrialisation of inner cities and white flight | 0:53:40 | 0:53:43 | |
are gutting inner cities. | 0:53:43 | 0:53:46 | |
So it's actually like a really ironic time | 0:53:46 | 0:53:48 | |
to have music that is so soothing | 0:53:48 | 0:53:50 | |
when the world is really kind of convulsive. | 0:53:50 | 0:53:52 | |
# Tonight I celebrate | 0:53:52 | 0:53:56 | |
# ..my love for you | 0:53:56 | 0:54:00 | |
# And hope that deep inside you'll feel it, too...# | 0:54:00 | 0:54:08 | |
In 1983, as the ghettos of black America were crumbling, | 0:54:08 | 0:54:12 | |
Roberta Flack found a new duet partner | 0:54:12 | 0:54:15 | |
after the sad death of Donny Hathaway a few years earlier. | 0:54:15 | 0:54:19 | |
She scored another big hit. | 0:54:19 | 0:54:20 | |
# When I make love to you...# | 0:54:22 | 0:54:24 | |
The first time I heard Tonight I Celebrate My Love, | 0:54:24 | 0:54:27 | |
I did not like the song. | 0:54:27 | 0:54:29 | |
The only reason I was interested in it was cos Roberta really liked it. | 0:54:29 | 0:54:34 | |
I knew it was special after the first pass. | 0:54:34 | 0:54:37 | |
Roberta is a stickler for pitch. | 0:54:40 | 0:54:42 | |
She's... | 0:54:42 | 0:54:43 | |
She's not demanding of it, | 0:54:43 | 0:54:46 | |
but you get the idea after a while that she wants it. | 0:54:46 | 0:54:50 | |
# Tonight there'll distance between us | 0:54:50 | 0:54:55 | |
# What I want most to do... # | 0:54:56 | 0:55:00 | |
Her music starts to feel more estranged | 0:55:00 | 0:55:03 | |
from the majority of black life. | 0:55:03 | 0:55:05 | |
But I think there's something to be said for consistency. | 0:55:05 | 0:55:08 | |
I mean she remained in the area of the heart, of intimacy, | 0:55:10 | 0:55:14 | |
of sexual relations... | 0:55:14 | 0:55:16 | |
She doesn't change from that. | 0:55:16 | 0:55:18 | |
But the priorities of African American life changed. | 0:55:18 | 0:55:23 | |
It's not entirely coincidence | 0:55:24 | 0:55:27 | |
that hip hop starts to emerge in the spaces of...urban poverty. | 0:55:27 | 0:55:32 | |
# Broken glass everywhere...# | 0:55:33 | 0:55:37 | |
The eruption of hip hop in the '80s | 0:55:37 | 0:55:38 | |
caused a chasm in African-American music | 0:55:38 | 0:55:41 | |
that would not be bridged for over a decade. | 0:55:41 | 0:55:44 | |
# A junkie's in the alley with the baseball bat | 0:55:44 | 0:55:46 | |
# Don't push me cos I'm close to the edge | 0:55:46 | 0:55:51 | |
# I'm trying not to lose my head | 0:55:51 | 0:55:55 | |
Ha-ha ha ha # | 0:55:55 | 0:55:57 | |
# Fight the power! | 0:55:57 | 0:55:59 | |
# Fight the power! | 0:55:59 | 0:56:01 | |
# Fight the power! | 0:56:01 | 0:56:04 | |
# Fight the power! | 0:56:04 | 0:56:05 | |
The sonic revolutions of hip hop - playing down in the hood - | 0:56:05 | 0:56:09 | |
and the slicker R&B sound | 0:56:09 | 0:56:11 | |
often entertaining a more uptown crowd. | 0:56:11 | 0:56:15 | |
# You got me feeling emotion...# | 0:56:17 | 0:56:20 | |
It would take another up town girl - | 0:56:20 | 0:56:22 | |
rummaging through her parents record collection | 0:56:22 | 0:56:26 | |
to eventually unite the warring genres and generations in 1996. | 0:56:26 | 0:56:32 | |
# I heard he sang a good song | 0:56:32 | 0:56:35 | |
# I heard he had a style | 0:56:35 | 0:56:40 | |
# And so I came to see him | 0:56:42 | 0:56:46 | |
# And listened for a while...# | 0:56:46 | 0:56:49 | |
The great thing about the Lauryn Hill version - | 0:56:49 | 0:56:51 | |
as wonderful as it is - | 0:56:51 | 0:56:53 | |
it did not replace the Roberta Flack version. | 0:56:53 | 0:56:56 | |
We let them live side by side. | 0:56:56 | 0:56:59 | |
# Killing me softly | 0:57:00 | 0:57:02 | |
# With his song # | 0:57:04 | 0:57:07 | |
We want to dedicate this to the hard-core, check it out! | 0:57:07 | 0:57:11 | |
# Ohhh... Ohh-ohh, ohh-ohh, ohh-ohhhh | 0:57:11 | 0:57:16 | |
# La la la la la la | 0:57:18 | 0:57:22 | |
# Ohhh... # | 0:57:22 | 0:57:24 | |
Most of the time people talk about | 0:57:24 | 0:57:26 | |
how many Queen Of Souls there've been who follow Aretha Franklin. | 0:57:26 | 0:57:30 | |
# Before I put on my make-up | 0:57:33 | 0:57:36 | |
# Make-up | 0:57:36 | 0:57:37 | |
# I say a little prayer ...# | 0:57:37 | 0:57:40 | |
# And I knew our joy...# | 0:57:40 | 0:57:43 | |
One thing you can say, now, is that Roberta Flack had descendants - | 0:57:45 | 0:57:51 | |
certainly Lauryn Hill, almost certainly Alycia Keyes. | 0:57:51 | 0:57:53 | |
# And it would last | 0:57:53 | 0:57:59 | |
# Till the end of time, my love...# | 0:57:59 | 0:58:04 | |
The moment belongs in equal measure | 0:58:04 | 0:58:07 | |
to those two traditions - those two women. | 0:58:07 | 0:58:10 | |
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE | 0:58:14 | 0:58:19 | |
I've had some good experiences. | 0:58:19 | 0:58:22 | |
Some wonderful moments in my life. | 0:58:22 | 0:58:25 | |
Do-dah, do-dah. SHE CHUCKLES | 0:58:25 | 0:58:27 | |
ROBERTA SINGS IN SPANISH | 0:58:27 | 0:58:33 |