← All Of It with Alison Stewart
All Of It with Alison Stewart
Remembering Roberta Flack
00:11:50
The documentary "Roberta" provides a portrait of the life and career of the celebrated vocalist Roberta Flack, who died on Monday, February 24. Director Antonino D’Ambrosio discusses the life and work of the legendary singer.
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Antonio D'Ambrosio
Listener supported WNYC Studios.
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Alison Stewart
This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. Roberta Flack passed away this week at the age of 88. It was announced in 2022 that she had ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Around the time of that announcement, we spoke about a documentary that was made about Roberta Flack's life. It was called Roberta. We learn about Flack's upbringing in Virginia as a child music prodigy. She was a music teacher who also played the DC Piano bar scene before becoming a world famous artist at the cutting edge of soul music and activism. The documentary is Streaming now on PBS. I spoke with director Antonio D'Ambrosio when the film first premiered, and I started by asking him how Roberta Flack's family nurtured her musical career from a young age.
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Antonio D'Ambrosio
Well, the big thing is that, and this is something that allowed her to be such a kind of innovator and a pioneer. Actually a central, a part of the soul movement that was to come in the late 60s into the 70s is that the, her mother was a church organist. So music was central to the, to the lives of, of her entire family. So it was present at home, it was present outside of the home. So, you know, she just, wherever she was, she was breathing in music, which, and of course, she was a prodigy. And, and you know, growing up during that time, there was not many opportunities for her to perform because of segregation. So she was, you know, thanks to her mother in particular, was able to kind of start to realize some of her ambitions around music through the church.
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Alison Stewart
She admitted that she always felt a little bit different as a, as a young person. What was behind that feeling?
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Antonio D'Ambrosio
Well, I think that, you know, it's interesting, Allison, because, you know, I've spent so much time with her and this, you know, this is, you know, my fifth or sixth film. I don't even know. So I've made films about Johnny Cash and Frank, Frank Serbico, the Clash, and I work closely with Public Enemy, just a range of artists and they all share something that is just, you know, they have kind of this relentless and undaunted belief in the beauty of their own dreams. And when you're a child with that Kind of ambition, desire, you know, and this really far reaching curiosity to express yourself. It's just going to place you in sort of opposition to everyone around you or not living those kind of lives. Right. And in particular, again, as you know, as we mentioned, she's, she's dealing with racism and also sexism, you know, within her own community as well. And then, you know, soon to, to, to experience it first at school and then of course, when she tried to, to, to make it as a professional musician. So the thing with Roberta that stands apart for me, you know, outside of all those, all those people I mentioned I've worked with, is that her, her strength was so resolute and her vision was so steadfast and relentlessly singular that she was just never going to be defeated, like, ever. It was never going to happen. So. But she possessed that Allison when, from when she was like a very young, young girl and she had the courage of her convictions at 13, 14, and as you saw in the film, you know, at 15, she goes to Brown University. And you know, she's just, you know, essentially still a girl, you know, amongst adults, trying to realize these gene, these dreams that she could see in her mind and she can realize in her heart, but people can't really come to grips with that are outside of her.
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Alison Stewart
Just my quick question. Did she go to Howard?
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Antonio D'Ambrosio
I'm sorry, Howard. Yes, yes, my editor went, My editor went to Brown. So I was just talking before I saw you. Yes, I'm sorry, I'm sorry about that. Yes, Howard.
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Alison Stewart
Yeah, just at age 15, she gets the scholarship to go to Howard University, HBCU. So. But what did that actually mean for, for her going to college so young? How do you think that helped or what impact did that have on her ability to make it really?
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Antonio D'Ambrosio
Well, I, you know, it, you know, it threw her head first into the fire. I mean, literally, because as she says in the film, you know, she'd never done anything on her own really before completely, you know, and she was not, she had not been alone. So now you have to cook for yourself, you have to do everything for yourself. And you know, again, you know, she has these, these unrealized, really, really intense ambitions. So it, it made her grow up very, very quickly, but, you know, it put her on the path to what, you know, allowed her to really reach. You know, Allison, she was a super superstar and not many people ascend to that level. Right. That is a really rarefied level that she ascended to, which I'm sure we'll talk about. And you know, that, that, that strength. I mean, she is tough. So she has the talent and the toughness. And I think, you know, starting out so young and, you know, Howard University is a. Is a, you know, is a very, very challenging and excellent academic environment, but still, you know, must be daunting when you're 15 years old to go there. And of course, as you saw in the film, not to give everything away in the film, she wasn't really allowed to pursue music there. So she ended up studying to become a teacher, which ended up actually benefiting her greatly in her career in terms of becoming a mentor to people like Donny Hathaway and Luther Evandros and so many others, like dozens of other musicians.
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Alison Stewart
So before she was famous, always mentioned she was a music teacher in D.C. she was a beloved local musician where she had this gig at a Capitol hill bar called Mr. Henry's. What did you learn about this point in her career and that energy that she was bringing to that Mr. Henry's at night that made her so, so popular?
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Antonio D'Ambrosio
You know, it's interesting because so much of what has really embodied who she is and formulate her character is turning obstacles into opportunities. You know, first of all to come out of the segregated south and then. And then start to perform what she, what she made a deal with, with. With Henry of. Famously of Mr. Henry's to perform for free for three nights a week at this. At the. At his club there. You know, you're in the shadow of New York, you know, and the music scene is really only happening in la, in New York. So, you know, she's, you know, that's another obstacle for her to overcome. So she convinces him. And of course what happens is, is that the shows start becoming these, you know, first whispered about and then loudly talked about. We have to go see this woman play the piano and sing at Mr. Henry's. Roberta Flack. And. And a lot of that was at first the gay community, you know, and she was like performing because, you know, Roberta Flack, her. Her virtuosity was, was. Was limitless. So she had a repertoire of 3, 4, 500 songs that she could display off the car, off the cuff. And she would do these kind of montage versions of songs. Start off with beet, you know, a Curtis Mayfield song, and going, I mean, you know, to a Beatles song. And that's what she would do. So these things became like these, These intense performances. And then she started using this kind of as a platform, platform to tap into some of the kind of the social transformation happening at the time so we mentioned, you know, lgbtq, that she was really embedded in that community there. And as you saw probably in the film, taking the song the bow to the sad young men and transforming into this kind of anthem for the, for that community. Well, they, you know, the club started getting overrun, so Mr. Henry, Henry's decided to. So Henry and Mr. Henry's decided to create a space upstairs just for her that was kind of set up like a church so, you know, that people would come there and listen to, you know, her, her sermons, which were just, you know, two, three hours of her just playing music non stop. And we have very, some very rare footage in the film of her performing at Mr. Henry's as you, as you saw and you know, you could see just what the performances were like in terms of really grabbing people within their, like just in their heart and, you know, pulling them with her. And of course, Ahmed Erdogan, who was the head of Atlantic Records at the time, himself a refugee to his country, living in D.C. you know, gets wind of, of Roberta Flack and then, you know, the. She's, she's on, she's on the way, you know, still not, not, not famous fast, you know, but getting there because she gets the record deal that, that, that leads to first take, which I think is one of the greatest records ever made.
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Alison Stewart
Well, let's listen to a little example of Roberta flack performing at Mr. Henry's. Take a listen to this.
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Antonio D'Ambrosio
If you take him away I don't wanna live another day Sister Jo, you.
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Alison Stewart
Can hear the power of her voice. And in your movie Roberta, it touches on the album first take, which was really just Roberta recording a bunch of first takes of songs she knew or written just like she was playing at Mr. Henry's. And one person interviewed in the film calls it a Black Lives Matter record.
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Antonio D'Ambrosio
Why, yes, that's right, Jason King. I mean, again, because she was touching on all the themes of the day. And quite frankly, what a great artist does is not just see around the corner or around the bend, but, you know, their music continues to be something that is both transformative in the present and predictive of the future. You know, you can listen to that record and it's saying everything about what we're living through now, that's for sure. And at the time, 1969, 1970, you're talking about, you know, everything that's happening, in particular with civil rights. And the album is, is no doubt about it, that is embedded in its, in its, in its DNA, this idea of, of, of civil rights but, you know, human rights, freedom for black folks, you know, the, the idea to give voice to that community in word and song, which he does. And, you know, and what's interesting is that at the time, Jesse Jackson is breaking away from Martin Luther King's organization and goes out and it's going to start his own organization, which we, which we know. And Roberta becomes instrumental in helping him do that. And that's largely through the power of her music. And her performance is coming out of first take.
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Alison Stewart
That was director Antonino D'Ambrosio speaking about his documentary Roberta, about the life of Roberta Flack. Flack died this week at the age of 88.
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