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NEW YORK (AP):
A public memorial service bursting with music, including performances by Stevie Wonder and a surprise visit by Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean of the Fugees, celebrated the life and legacy of Grammy-winning singer and pianist Roberta Flack.
Flack’s songs The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face and Killing Me Softly With His Song made her a global star in the 1970s and beyond. She died last month at age 88.
After Hill showed up to perform back-to-back covers of those hits, Wonder performed for the service at a historic Harlem church — The Abyssinian Baptist Church. Founded in 1808, it is one of the oldest black Baptist churches in the US. The Reverend Al Sharpton gave the eulogy.
Flack “put a soundtrack to black dignity”, Sharpton said.
She was an influential performer with an intimate vocal and musical style that ranged easily between soul, jazz and gospel.
“Her existence was a form of resistance,” Hill said, holding back tears.
Hill’s appearance was unexpected but fitting. In the 1990s, Hill’s hip-hop trio, the Fugees, did a masterful take on Flack’s cover Killing Me Softly With His Song. It won the group a Grammy, two decades after Flack took home the Record of the Year trophy for the song.
“I adore Ms Roberta Flack,” she said. “Roberta Flack is legend.”
Hill then launched into a cover of The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face followed by Killing Me Softly With His Song with the Fugees’ Wyclef Jean — and Wonder joining in on harmonica.
A legend who needed no introduction, Wonder followed up.
“The great thing about not having the ability to see with your eyes is the great opportunity of being able to even better see with your heart. And so I knew how beautiful Roberta was, not seeing her visually but being able to see and feel her heart,” Wonder said.
He performed his song If It’s Magic, then sat at the piano to sing with the harpist a song he wrote for Flack, I Can See the Sun in Late December.
“I love you, Roberta. And I will see you,” Wonder said at the end.
Actor Phylicia Rashad remembered first seeing Flack perform when she was a student at Howard University — to an audience that grew rapt by her quiet, steady voice.
Flack lived comfortably with her genius and without having to proclaim it to people, Rashad said.
“She wore that like a loose-fitting garment and lived her life attending to that which she cared for most: music, love and humanity,” Rashad said.
Her Celebration of Life memorial was live-streamed at www.RobertaFlack.com and on YouTube.
English (US) ·