Roberta Flack

"Bustin' Loose" is a soundtrack album released by Roberta Flack in 1981. It was recorded for the movie of the same title starring Richard Pryor. Luther Vandross and Peabo Bryson contributed vocals to the album and Vandross wrote the song, "You Stopped Loving Me", which he later performed himself on his debut album "Never Too Much".

"Born to Love" is a 1983 studio album of duets by American singers Peabo Bryson and Roberta Flack. It was released by Bryson's label Capitol Records on July 22, 1983 in the United States. The album yielded the hit single "Tonight, I Celebrate My Love", written by Gerry Goffin and Michael Masser. The track "Maybe" was written and recorded for the film Romantic Comedy (1983).

Quiet Fire proves to be an apt title, as Flack's MOR-informed jazz and gospel vocals simmer just below the surface on the eight sides here. Forgoing the full-throttled delivery of, say, Aretha Franklin, Flack translates the pathos of gospel expression into measured intensity and sighing, elongated phrases. There's even a bit of Carole King's ashen tone in Flack's voice, as manifested on songs like "Let Them Talk," Van McCoy's "Sweet Bitter Love," and a meditative reworking of King's "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow."

"I'm The One" is an album by Roberta Flack released in May 1982 which reached #59 on the album chart in Billboard whose R&B album chart afforded the album a #16 peak. The Burt Bacharach/Carole Bayer Sager-produced "Making Love", which appeared in the film of the same name and in the spring of 1982 had afforded Flack her final solo Top 40 hit (#13 on the Billboard Hot 100), was included on the I'm the One album along with eight new tracks co-produced by William Eaton, Ralph MacDonald, William Salter and Flack herself. The track "I'm the One," given parallel single release with the album, peaked at #42 on the Hot 100 where it marked Flack's final solo appearance, although she'd return to the Hot 100 in 1983 with the duets "Tonight, I Celebrate My Love" (#16) and "You're Looking Like Love to Me" (#58) (both with Peabo Bryson) and again in 1991 with "Set the Night to Music" (with Maxi Priest/ #6). A third single from the I'm the One album: "In the Name of Love", reached #24 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart.

Singer and pianist of soul and jazz, Roberta Flack enjoyed immense success with her famous cover of "Killing Me Softly With His Song" (1972). Revealed by that of "the First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" or her duets with Donny Hathaway, she is one of the major performers of the 1970s, endowed with beautiful vocal qualities and mixing with refinement, in her music, folk, funk and classical styles.

Capping off a string of early-'70s hits with this album's title track, Roberta Flack would soon take a sabbatical from the spotlight in 1975. And while she would return to the stage and studio, Flack never quite hit the heights of this and the handful of other MOR soul releases from the first half of the decade. Her Carole King-meets-Gladys Knight sound is particularly impressive on highlights like "Mr. Magic" and "Feelin' That Glow." Helping out with the stellar backing are such luminaries as vocalist Patti Austin, drummer Alphonze Mouzon, keyboardist Bob James, and guitarist Hugh McCracken. Maybe not as fine an album as 1971's "Quiet Fire", "Feel Like Makin' Love" will still please the singer's dedicated fans.

50 years ago this month, Roberta Flack released her sophomore album, an LP which – despite failing to match the crazy commercial success of her debut, FIRST TAKE, with mainstream audiences – still packed a solid emotional punch and served to cement her superstar status on the R&B and jazz charts.

"First Take" is the debut album by the jazz/soul/R&B singer Roberta Flack. It was released in 1969 on Atlantic Records. After a track from this album, "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" was included by Clint Eastwood in his 1971 film "Play Misty for Me" with the song becoming a #1 hit in the United States, this album became #1 on the U.S. album chart.

The Beatles' song catalog is one of the best-known and revered bodies of work in the whole of modern music, and the depth, variety, and timelessness of the songs this once-in-a-lifetime band produced make that catalog both a marvel and a treasure. Everyone knows these songs, and everyone knows them in the original Beatles versions. Those versions are there, shining in stone, and even when they show up in remixes like in the recent LOVE mashup, the original recordings echo unshakably in the mind. Roberta Flack knows this.