Word: flacks
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Second-decade rockers were dealing in primal screams in 1967 when Roberta Flack came along with her sweet, sensuous voice, an authentic light among trays of crackerjack sparklers. Flack turned The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (1972) and Killing Me Softly with His Song (1973) into blockbuster hits. She began collecting her four gold singles and two gold albums. By the end of 1973 she had won a pair of Grammy awards. But one day, glancing at a copy of her album First Take, she realized suddenly that "I could not go through life playing First Time Ever...
...career was at its peak. Yet, reversing the ambition of those opera singers who long to perform in nightclubs, Flack yearned for her classical roots. "One of the hassles of being a black female musician," she says, "is that people are always backing you into a corner and telling you to sing soul. I'm a serious artist. I feel a kinship with people like Arthur Rubinstein and Glenn Gould. If I can't play Bartok when I want to play...
After the five-year monotony of one-night rock stands, Flack was becoming ill. Successful or struggling, a musical performer's life is lonely and difficult. "All of a sudden you get that rush of 20,000, 30,000, 50,000 people-THE WORLD. All these people love me, you think. Then you're back in a hotel room by yourself in Missouri, your stomach hurts, and your humanness just overwhelms you." Flack had an epic case of growing pains...
...Habit. She decided to pause. That pause extended into a 15-month intermission while she plunged into a surge of demanding musical activity. She studied classical composers-Bach, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff. Scornful of record producers with eyes for trends but with unschooled ears, Flack decided to produce her own album. She booked studio time, hired musicians and arrangers, and passed out W-2 forms, even struggling to learn to operate the engineer's console. It took over a year to complete the record, and Flack says that she will never do all that again. She is confident that...
...Flack, 36, feels like performing...