American Masters: Roberta Flack follows the music icon from a piano lounge through her rise to stardom. From “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” to “Killing Me Softly,” Flack’s virtuosity was inseparable from her commitment to civil rights. Detailing her story in her own words, the film features exclusive access to Flack’s archives and interviews with Clint Eastwood (actor, director, and producer), Yoko Ono (multimedia artist, singer-songwriter, activist), Angela Davis (political activist), Eugene McDaniels (singer-songwriter), Joel Dorn (producer), Peabo Bryson (singer-songwriter), Valerie Simpson (songwriter, producer, and performer), Les McCann (musician), Sean Lennon (musician), Jason King (music scholar, musician, and author), Ann Powers (music critic, author) and more. In addition to Flack’s timeless music.
My favorite story in American Masters: Roberta Flack was the story about “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.” The song had been released three years before Clint Eastwood directed his first movie, Play Misty For Me. Eastwood was driving to work when he heard “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” on the radio. He almost drove off the road because of the impact the song had on him. When Eastwood contacted Roberta Flack about the song, she initially turned him down. Finally, she agreed but tried to get Eastwood to drop the beginning 8 measures of the song. Eastwood said, “I want every note of your song for my movie.” And, once people heard “The First Time Every I Saw Your Face” in Eastwood’s movie, the song began to get airplay again.
“The First Time Every I Saw Your Face” won Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. Billboard ranked it as the number one Hot 100 single of the year for 1972. That launched Roberta Flack’s career. Do you have a favorite Robert Flack song? GRADE: A (for both the TV program and the CD)
TRACK LIST:
| The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face | |||
| Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow | |||
| Where Is The Love | |||
| Killing Me Softly With His Song | |||
| Feel Like Makin’ Love | |||
| The Closer I Get To You | |||
| More Than Everything | |||
| Only Heaven Can Wait (For Love) | |||
| Back Together Again | |||
| Making Love | |||
| Tonight, I Celebrate My Love | |||
| Oasis | |||
| And So It Goes | |||
| You Know What It’s Like | |||
| Set The Night To Music | |||
| My Foolish Heart | |||
| Uh-Uh Ooh-Ooh Look Out (Here It Comes) (Steve Hurley’s House Mix) |
Always hated First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. It’s like fingernails on a blackboard. It just seems so slow and draggy . I know I’m in a minority but I just can’t stand that song. Critic Robert Christgau once said of Flack that she made you wonder if she was going to fall asleep before you do.
Steve, Clint Eastwood heard something in “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” and that changed his career from an actor to a director…and made Roberta Flack a Grammy Winner.
He was already directing MISTY, George…he just knew (as a jazz fan, who loved jazz pop–hence the very title of the film)) that he wanted her version of the song in the film.
Todd, as the documentary makes clear, Clint Eastwood wanted ALL of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” not the abridged version Roberta Flack initially offered. If PLAY MISTY FOR ME was a flop, that would have been the end of Eastwood’s directing dreams. Flack’s song contributed to the success of the film.
I think you’re jumping to conclusions here, George–Flack was told that her unedited record was “uncommercial” in the typical Industry Bullshit way, hence the offer of the short record first…and an actor as successful as Eastwood already was was unlikely to be Forbidden from directing again if his first film wasn’t a hit, even in the early ’70s…and MISTY wasn’t a hit so much as a sleeper, a mild success. (Probably in part since it wasn’t about Eastwood’s character as Mr. Tough!)
Todd, Clint Eastwood wanted to expand his range with directing aspirations and acting asperations. If you recall, Eastwood took a step away from action movies and did some comedies.
Well, even it the orang comedies, he was a tough aging coot. I think the backers tended to let him know…
Steve, I thought I was the only one who hated it. Boring!
I agree, Steve. It is a rather sleepy song. And look!! The + sign is back! You get two and I only get one. I feel discriminated against. There may be a lawsuit in this.
Michael, before you consider a lawsuit, consider the pluses and the minuses of such a decision.
I like her sound and saw her in concert once in the mid-1970s. Very laid-back vibe. I think my favorite Flack song is “The Closer I Get to You”.
Deb, I like the songs Roberta Flack did with Donny Hathaway and Peabo Bryson.
And that became The Song all Quiet Storm and (at least more-pop) fusion groups seemed to cover for a good while.
Todd, I was a Big Fan of Quiet Storm music back in the day.
I can’t decide whether it should be Killing Me Softly or Will you still love me tomorrow which is one of my all time favourites, of course also in the Shirelles original version.
Wonderful songs!
I was so lucky to be able to listen to American Forces Network!
Wolf, I enjoy almost all of Roberta Flack’s songs.
While I give Flack an A, I’d only give the episode a B+, for what it didn’t manage to get to in her career (not even what they settled on for compensation for it’s use in PLAY MISTY). In gathering up some other information about Flack after viewing (since I’d been hearing Flack’s work since early childhood…and “Ever I Saw Your Face” is a slow build, folks…it works), I noted that she was born one day after my mother, on 10 February rather than 9 Feb 1937, and 200 miles or so to the south of Camilla Rocchi, in small-town North Carolina rather than West Virginia…and both Got Outta Dodge in their youth by going it not quite alone in DC, much to their mutual relief. Might be part of why my mother was a fan.
Also note how the Grammys, that sham, managed to give her the award for a two-year old released recording now that it was A Hit. Flack had (alas, with her health problems in recent years) a great voice as well as instrumental ability…and shouldn’t be judged by “hits” alone (any more than any other artist).
Or, its use, of course.
Todd, the Grammys–and most “Award” shows for that matter–are merely marketing devices. But, getting Grammys does increase sales as Roberta Flack found out…and it boosted her career prospects, too.
I agree that the song is a soporific! Imagine her and Herb Alpert doing a duet! It would save the cost of a lethal injection! However, I heard a bar band do The First Time Ever I saw Your Face one night and it was terrific!
I miss the Sunday football player pictures!
Bob, there will be a Super Bowl post next Sunday for sure!
Re-editing my name to neutrality again…
In my college communciations course, I wrote a creative writing piece about falling in love with Roberta and the song when I heard it for the first time one late night while in bed. It may have been on a Rochester 50,000W station that blasted into Manitoba on some evenings after it got dark. Pretty sure I got an A for the work. Hadn’t heard the song for many years until the other day when it was played on our nostalgia station.
Kent, you might be able to access a PBS station’s website near you and watch AMERICAN MASTERS: ROBERTA FLACK for free. She lived an active life!