Born to a musical family in Asheville,
North Carolina in 1937, Roberta Flack was discovered by
Les McCann. She was signed to
Atlantic Records, and first entered the charts with her
cover of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," a song, though recorded in 1969, only became a hit when it was played in the film "Play Misty for Me."
Flack enjoyed a number of critical and commercial successes in the seventies and early eighties, among them a series of hit duets with Donny Hathaway.