Roberta Flack: Now Playing (clear vinyl) [WARNER]

Why you'll love it

This Rhino collection comes on crystal clear vinyl, pressed in the USA, with ten songs spanning 1970 to 1982. It gathers three Billboard Hot 100 No. 1s from the singer who won the Grammy for Record of the Year two years running.

This edition

• Clear vinyl
• Pressed in the USA
• Jim Marshall cover photo

About the album

Roberta Flack had a way of slowing a room right down. She grew up in Arlington, Virginia, playing piano for the church choir, won a full scholarship to Howard University at 15 and trained as a classical pianist before her emotive, unhurried ballads helped give birth to the quiet storm radio format.

Now Playing follows her Atlantic years in ten songs. "Compared to What" opens with a jolt of soul-jazz, then she turns Leonard Cohen's "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye" into something hushed and aching. "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," "Killing Me Softly with His Song" and "Feel Like Makin' Love" are the chart-toppers, "Where Is the Love," "The Closer I Get to You" and "Back Together Again" are her duets with Donny Hathaway, and "Making Love" brings things to 1982.

She received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020. She took a Leonard Cohen song from Montreal and a Carole King tune from New York and made both sound like they'd always been hers, which other singers have been finding mildly annoying ever since.

Also at Kops: more Roberta Flack on vinyl · browse 70s Soul On Up

Tracklist

Listen

On Rhino / Atlantic (cat# RCV1 726598), the 2024 compilation.