#451 Roberta Flack, 'First Take' (1969)

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With this album I have completed the listening of 50 albums. That’s 10% of the list gone. Not including this review, I’ve written approx. 10,600 words. Hope you’ve enjoyed reading them.

I know Roberta Flack from her massive hits ‘Killing Me Softly With His Song’ and ‘Tonight I Celebrate My Love.’ Both wordy titles, I’ve just realised. Other than that, I haven’t listened to an album in full. This album starts off with the rich jazzy sounds of a double bass. Accompanied by Flack herself on the piano and a stab of brass. This track, ‘Compared To What,’ has a pretty jazzy sound, while not quite being a jazz song at all. It’s essentially a rant about Lyndon B. Johnson and the Vietnam War. Topical for 1969. The album is quite different to what was popular at the time; Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Janis Joplin, even Bob Dylan, Joan Baez etc. In amongst the psychedelic rock, the soul, the folk, sits Roberta Flack. The rest of the album doesn’t quite sound like the opening track would lead you to believe. More piano-based ballads than upbeat Jazz. 

The album was well received upon release, but didn’t quite move mountains until two years later when one of the songs, ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,’ was featured in Clint Eastwood’s ‘Play Misty For Me.’ That catapulted both the song and the album to #1 on the charts. Sometimes it’s about the long game.

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