A mural of Black Mountain native Roberta Flack is featured on the Black Mountain Center for the Arts public art walking tour.
© Karrigan Monk / USA TODAY NETWORK
(New York, NY) – R&B singer Roberta Flack has died at the age of 88. The Grammy award winning songstress first rose to national prominence in 1973 when her hit “Killing Me Softly With His Song” climbed the charts. Some consider her top hit to be “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.”
Flack battled with ALS and eventually died from symptoms associated with the disease.
According to Flack’s representative, the singer died on Monday morning in Manhattan. She was surrounded by family. Over the course of her career, Flack notched six top ten hits in the pop music category. Within the R&B category, Flack scored ten top ten songs.
In 1973 and 1974, Flack became the first artist to win the Grammy Record of the Year in back-to-back years. She’d just celebrated her 88th birthday on February 10th.
Born and raised in North Carolina, Flack got her first start signing at her high school in Black Mountain. After graduating high school at the young age of 15, she received a full scholarship to Howard University in Washington, DC. Later she taught English and music to high schoolers in Farmville, North Carolina, and later in the DC area.
