NEW YORK — A public memorial service bursting with choral music and the Berklee College of Music’s Nebulous String Quartet, with Stevie Wonder and the Rev. Al Sharpton also on the bill, celebrated the life and legacy of Grammy-winning singer and pianist Roberta Flack.
Flack’s songs “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” and “Killing Me Softly with His Song” made her a global star in the 1970s and beyond. She died last month at age 88.
Wonder was among the artists scheduled to perform during the service at a historic Harlem church, while Sharpton was to deliver the eulogy, according to the memorial program.
Flack was an influential performer with an intimate vocal and musical style that ranged easily between soul, jazz and gospel.
Her “Celebration of Life” memorial was livestreamed at www.RobertaFlack.com and on YouTube.
Here are some highlights:
For the memory of a singing legend, an historic location
Flack’s memorial was open to the public at The Abyssinian Baptist Church. Founded in 1808, it is one of the oldest Black Baptist churches in the U.S.
The church was decorated for the ceremony with stunning white and yellow bouquets and filled quickly beforehand. At the center, a screen showed a young Flack at the piano and played highlights of her career.
It was a fitting location: Flack grew up with church gospel and her mother played organ at the Lomax African Methodist Episcopal Church in Arlington, Virginia. As a teen, she began accompanying the church choir on piano.
The program featured a powerful quote from Flack.
“Remember: Always walk in the light,” it read. “If you feel like you’re not walking in it, go find it. Love the Light.”
A celebration of a life in music … with music
“Many of us are here today because she has touched not just our hearts, but she also touched our souls,” said the Rev. Dr. Kevin R. Johnson, the senior church pastor who led the service.
Choir performances including a rousing rendition of “Amazing Grace” came in between a video recollection of Flack’s life and scripture readings.
“That’s what we call church, y’all,” Johnson said at the close of one choral performance.
Organ and piano riffs played off and on in the background.
“She just sang the song. She let you hear the lyrics. She let you understand the beauty. But I also want you to understand that this woman was also a pure genius,” Santita Jackson, daughter of the Rev. Jesse Jackson and a friend of Flack, told the near-capacity crowd.
Actor Phylicia Rashad remembered first seeing Flack perform when she was a student at Howard University — to an audience that grew rapt by her quiet, steady voice.
Flack lived comfortably with her genius and without having to proclaim it to people, Rashad said.
“She wore that like a loose fitting garment and lived her life attending to that which she cared for most: music, love and humanity,” Rashad said.
What are some of Flack’s best-known songs?
Flack leaves behind a rich repertoire of music that avoids categorization. Her debut, “First Take,” wove soul, jazz, flamenco, gospel and folk into one revelatory package, prescient in its form and measured in its approach.
She will likely be remembered for her classics. Those include “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” her dreamy cover of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” written by English folk artist Ewan MacColl for his wife Peggy Seeger. It marked the beginning of Flack’s mainstream success when it was used in a love scene between Clint Eastwood and Donna Mills in his 1971 film “Play Misty for Me.”
But most will think of “Killing Me Softly with His Song” when Flack’s name comes up in conversation. She first heard Lori Lieberman’s “Killing Me Softly with His Song” while on a plane and immediately fell in love with it. While on tour with Quincy Jones, she covered the song, and the audience fell in love with it, too, as they’d continue to for decades.
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