Roberta Flack (1937-2025)

with Donny Hathaway

The first Roberta Flack album I ever heard was Chapter Two (1970). It belonged to my sister Leslie.  The opening track was Reverend Lee (Gene McDaniels), a PG-13 song about a “sexy Southern Baptist minister.” My all-time favorite Roberta song is Gone Away (Donny Hathaway, Leroy Hutson, Curtis Mayfield), which I’ve used in my depressing quartet of songs when I broke up with someone.  A song I didn’t appreciate as much at the time as I did subsequently is Business Goes On As Usual, a song by Fred Hellerman and Fran Minkoff,  which is a stark reflection of consumerism and war. I eventually purchased it and every other album mentioned here. 

I bought Quiet Fire (1971), her third album, which starts with the anthemic  Go Up Moses (Roberta Flack, Jesse Jackson, Joel Dorn). There are some lovely covers, but my favorite is To Love Somebody (Barry and Robin Gibb), especially the second half.

Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway (1972) paired two Atlantic Records artists to great commercial success, reaching #3 pop and #2 RB. The first single was You’ve Got A Friend (Carole King), #29 pop, #8 RB, #36 AC.  Be Real Black For Me (Charles Mann, Donny Hathaway, Roberta Flack) would appear on the six-CD anthology 100 Years of Black Music. But the hit was Where Is The Love (Ralph MacDonald, William Salter), which got to #5 pop and #1 RB and AC. 

Finally

I finally purchased First Take (1969), which reached #1 on the pop and RB album charts. It was propelled by The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (Ewan MacColl) after Clint Eastwood included it in his 1971 film Play Misty for Me. The single went #1 pop and AC for 6 weeks, and #4 RB.  The first song on the album was Compared To What (Gene McDaniels).

The Killing Me Softly album (1973) went to #3 pop and #2 RB. It featured Killing Me Softly With His Song (Charles Fox, Norman Gimbel) that went to #1 pop, #2 AC. 

Rubina Flake

Feel Like Makin’ Love (1975) is the singer’s first album, under the pseudonym Rubina Flake, to be produced by Flack herself. I Can See The Sun In Late December (Stevie Wonder), at nearly 13 minutes, is about 6 minutes too long, but interesting.  She’s Not Blind (Stuart Scharf) is my favorite song on the album. The title track (Gene McDaniels) went to #1 on pop, RB (5 weeks) and AC (2 weeks) charts. 

Blue Lights in the Basement (1977) starts with the song Why Don’t You Move In With Me (Gene McDaniels); the intro is grand. When I saw Roberta at First Night in Albany, NY, in the late 1990s, she could not replicate the great piano line. The Closer I Get To You (Reggie Lucas, James Mtume) is a duet with Donny Hathaway that went to #2 pop, #1 RB for 2 weeks, #3 AC

Roberta Flack (1978) was a contractual obligation album. If I Ever See You Again did go #1 AC for 3 weeks, #24 pop, #37 RB

Dakota

Roberta Flack Featuring Donny Hathaway (1980) featured only two pieces with her old singing partner. You Are My Heaven (Eric Mercury, Stevie Wonder) #8 RB, #46 AC, #47 pop, is the last song Hathaway would ever record. “After having dinner with Flack at her residence in the Dakota,  Hathaway had then returned to his suite on the fifteenth floor of Essex House, later fatally falling from the window of his suite.”

I missed buying a couple of her albums before Oasis (1988). The title track (Marcus Miller, Mark Stephens) went to #1 RB, # 13 AC

The last album of hers I bought was Let It Be Roberta: Roberta Flack Sings the Beatles (2012). Roberta lived across the hall from John and Yoko in the Dakota building in New York City. Here, There, and Everywhere is the only live track.

My post from 2012. Obits from Variety, Rolling Stone, and THR. From the latter: “In November 2022, it was revealed that she had been diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and could no longer sing. In 2016, she suffered a stroke, and she retired from performing two years later.”

Roberta Flack Performs “Killing Me Softly” and “Just Like a Woman” | Carson Tonight Show. Air date: July 13th, 1973

Coverville 1524: Roberta Flack Tribute and Mitch Ryder Cover Story

February rambling: We Are All Immigrants

Do Not Obey In Advance

Henry Louis Gates Jr. On The Message Of ‘Finding Your Roots’: ‘We Are All Immigrants’ | The View

Can Characters Come Alive Without People?  Hank Azaria; recommended with your sound on

A directory that connects veterans with rehab facilities and recovery services across New York

The Best Anti-Fascist Films of All Time

Tony Roberts, Woody Allen sidekick, and Broadway stalwart, Dies at 95

Fay Vincent, who served as 8th MLB Commissioner, dies at 86

Olga James, ‘Carmen Jones,’ Actress and Singer, Dies at 95

Dick Button, Icon of Olympic Figure Skating, Dies at 95

9 Fascinating Facts About Food Allergies

Now I Know: A Prankster With a Legacy of Love and When Cardboard Art Goes Sledding and The Life-Saving Power of a … Jump Rope? and Why Do Nigerian Email Scammers Still Claim to Be From Nigeria? and The Place Where You’re Not Allowed to Die

The new normal?

The Path to American Authoritarianism

Is Elon Musk Staging a Coup? Unelected Billionaire Seizes Control at Treasury Dept. & Other Agencies

The Musk-Altman Feud Is Kendrick-Drake But With a Lot More Impact on Our Lives

Elon Musk Is Hacking German Politics, and the Berlin Film Festival May Pay the Price

This is a full-frontal assault on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. If the agency can no longer effectively represent the American people, FOTUS’ favorite billionaire will have much to gain personally.

The World’s Richest Men Take On the World’s Poorest Children; Shutdown of USAID ‘Would Have Deadly Consequences for Millions’

They dismiss the national archivist.

CDC Researchers Ordered to Retract Papers Submitted to All Journals — Banned terms must be scrubbed from CDC-authored manuscripts

Rubio skips G20 summit due to South African ‘DEI’

He dismisses the Kennedy Center chair and plans to make himself the head

FOTUS taps televangelist kook to run new White House ‘faith’ office.
Man who loves to build walls demolishes the wall between church and state.

Reactions to the madness

Jamil Smith, the Emancipator: Along with a copy of the 13th Amendment, I typically carry a copy of historian Timothy Snyder’s “On Tyranny” in my satchel when I’m headed out of the door in the morning…  Snyder’s book aims to help citizens of every nation learn from history and it’s filled with needed lessons on how to resist those who seek to exploit those faults for power and profit… Snyder’s first bit of advice in the book has successfully entered the national lexicon: Do not obey in advance.

I Refuse to Be a Good German

We Are All Gazans Now

Just Security keeps a continuously updated litigation tracker to help the rest of us stay current. 

The Fagin figure leading Elon Musk’s merry band of pubescent sovereignty pickpockets

Cartoon: Tom the Dancing Bug implores you not to call them Nazis!
Don’t call that Nazi a Nazi—you’ll hurt his feelings!

Don’t Believe Him| The Ezra Klein Show; What He’s Doing

Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God– Rabbi Morris Panitz | Vaera 5785 / 1.25.2025

Music

Singer Marianne Faithfull Dies at 78; Broken EnglishThe Ballad of Lucy Jordan; As Tears Go By (2018)

The Mynah Birds – It’s My Time w/ Rick James & Neil Young

Elizabeth Mitchell: Little Liza Jane

Wood Notes by William Grant Still

Lucy Dacus – Ankles

Coverville 1520: Billy Ocean Cover Story and Listener-Submitted Set and 1521: The INXS Cover Story III

Teddy Swims: Lose Control

Marcel Tyberg’s Piano Trio in F major

Japanese Breakfast – Orlando In Love

Indiana Jones: The Raiders March by John Williams

A Bar Song (Tipsy) – Postmodern Jukebox ft. Nathan Chester

Hamilton Leithauser – Knockin’ Heart

American Pie – Don McLean.

Frank, Dino, and Bing perform Style from their 1964 movie, Robin and the Seven Hoods

Khruangbin: May Ninth

This Magic Moment – The Drifters

Dreamgirls title song from Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon (1983)

Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon, Sandy Duncan (1980), and Cathy Rigby (2009) performing a number from Peter Pan

Making the effort

“ministry of presence, support, and advocacy for the victims of society’s injustice and neglect”

Making the effort is its own reward, someone said.

It would have been very easy not to go to church the Sunday morning of February 2nd. Even with my greatest effort, clearing our sidewalk of snow and ice the day before was impossible as the temperature plummeted, even with rock salt. Most of my neighbors were likewise stymied.

Moreover, the service wasn’t at my church but at Emmanuel Baptist, one of the FOCUS churches.  “For more than 50 years, FOCUS has created a community called to be a collective voice – and a helping hand – for those in need.”

Yeah, I COULD have blown it off, but I like supporting FOCUS. Moreover, singing together with people from other congregations is fun. So I took the 910 bus down to the state capitol and walked the two slippery, frigid (<0F, c. -20C) blocks to Emmanuel, where about 25 of us got to sing a couple of songs together.

Pastor Kathy gave a good sermon. She noted that Jesus took a public stand against a faith system that offered religious cover for political violence.  My, did THAT resonate!

Covenant

We always recite the FOCUS covenant. It has changed a bit since the collective formed in the mid-1960s, but the spirit of service has not been altered;

We believe that we are called by God to discern amid the many shapes of need and pain around us, the design of Christ’s mandate for our shared ministry.
We covenant, therefore, with God and with one another:
to engage in a search for faithful and effective forms of ministry;
to provide a ministry of presence, support, and advocacy for the victims of society’s injustice and neglect;
to speak the truth in places of power on behalf of the powerless;
to equip ourselves for the service of Christ through joint educational and community-building ventures;
and to celebrate in worship the meaning of our shared mission.

We commit to these purposes our prayers, our time, our talent, and our material resources with the hope that our life and work together in this time and place will demonstrate the liberating and reconciling power of the gospel.

What now?

After the service, I talked to several people about how they were doing and what they were doing to keep themselves sane these days.  One worked at the FOCUS food pantry, and another served meals at the FOCUS breakfast club. Serving others gave them hope. 

Another person I’ve known for a long time talked about volunteering at RISSE, whose mission is “to support refugees and immigrants to build new lives and thrive in the Capital Region… through language classes, immigration and employment assistance, youth programming, and case management. The service is not very far from my house. (Related: from WRGB-TV, Channel 6 -Local schools prepare for immigration policy changes.)

Yet another person suggested checking out a website called Indivisible. When I got home, I went to the website, but I was wary. The most geographically specific site was labeled: All in for Harris/Walz Action Team Capital Region NY. 

Nevertheless, I wrote in an email titled, “What actions are you doing re: DOGE?” along with this Democracy Now video. Beth from Bethlehem Indivisible replied, “Lots of phone calls to electeds, and after last night’s Indivisible Mass Call, we are planning office visits to Schumer and Gillibrand, which is the most important thing right now.”

So, I’m “in the loop” on what I hope is a fruitful experience. (Oh, Kelly is writing to his Member of Congress.)  I’m tired of being tired, frustrated, and angry without direction. Is this THE answer? Dunno. But I need to do SOMETHING that seems to be a response to political violence.

Genealogy blocked

Hey, I wrote to my state legislators about a potential change in NYS law that would hurt genealogical research.

“As part of New York State’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget proposal, Part U of the Health and Mental Hygiene Legislation would:

  • 😡 Extend embargo periods to 125 years for birth records, 100 years for marriages, and 75 years for deaths — making New York one of the most restrictive states for vital records access in the entire country!
  • 😡 Hike fees by more than 400%, raising the cost of a single genealogical record request to $95!
  • 🤬 Eliminate even the basic vital records indexes, making it nearly impossible to simply confirm if a record exists in the first place!”

Read here and especially here, and if you’re in New York State, contact your state legislators before 5 pm on Tuesday, February 11.

The 2024 Year’s End Quiz continued

tax the rich!

Last year, which is to say yesterday, I  started to do the 2024 Year’s End Quiz that Kelly always does. But my answers became Too Damn Long, so I split it up. 

Whose behavior merited celebration?

Oh, there’s a bunch of people trying to fight the good fight; I suppose there are a lot of local heroes. And there’s a person who has taken a great deal of interest in my genealogical process, which I greatly appreciate. 

Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

There are SO many.

A wide swath of the American public seems to think that taxing rich people is a bad thing, even though they’re not rich themselves. I remember the discussion over the so-called death tax a few years ago, and people balked at it even though they’re extremely unlikely to be in that situation. The Ultra Millionaire Tax Act of 2024 (H.R. 7749) is far less likely to impact them. They won’t be making $50 million, which might be taxable. Income inequality has been rampant since Ronald Reagan’s time, and it has only worsened.

And then, there are the politicians.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) “authored a resolution that would ban trans women from women’s bathrooms at the U.S. Capitol” after saying how much of an ally she is to LGBTQ people.

Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), possibly the most incompetent Senator, said it’s ‘Not Our Job’ to vet djt’s Cabinet picks (psst: yes, it is)

Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-GA) blames Democrats for weaponizing the weather.

Most of the Cabinet picks (Hegseth, RFK Jr, Gabbard, and especially Kash Patel)

Orange

Elon Musk and his tech bro buddies (rump jr, Vance)

Where did most of your money go?

The house, specifically a new back porch; the daughter’s education.

What did you get really excited about?

The mystery project

Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?

Sharply sadder, though better now than in the summer.

Thinner or fatter?

Definitely fatter. There is a distinct correlation between my emotional state and my food consumption.

Richer or poorer?

Poorer.

Science!

What do you wish you’d done more of?

I’d be in good shape if I could only get that cloning thing going.

What do you wish you’d done less of?

Brooding.

How did you spend Christmas?

With my wife, daughter, and MIL.

Did you fall in love in 2024?

Absolutely.

How many one-night stands?

Lessee: (two cubed) minus (the square root of 64).

What was your favorite TV program?

CBS Sunday Morning, CBS Saturday Morning, Abbott Elementary, Elsbeth. 

I’ve discovered that I like watching NFL football in the last year or two that I hadn’t felt for decades. It’s always recorded. Every week, I learn something new. In a game between the Cincinnati Bengals and the hated Dallas Cowboys, the score was tied near the end of the game. Cincinnati punted the ball, but Dallas blocked the kick. All the Cowboys needed to do was to let the ball go. They would have possession, and they were already in field goal territory. Instead, one of the Cowboys touched the ball but could not control it.  The Bengals regained possession and soon scored a touchdown to win the game. I loved it.

There’s a thin line…

Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Hate is such a terrible word. If I did, and I’m not saying I do, it’d be Elon, who helped buy an election by spending over a quarter of a billion dollars on djt and his cronies. Then he dances around, threatening to slash Social Security. As a friend likes to say, “Chuck YOU, Farley!” (Sidebar: one minor reason I don’t prefer the term African-American is that recently, someone referred to Elon Musk as an African-American, and it hurt my head.)

What was the best book you read?

Prequel and The Undertow are in the same vein.

What was your greatest musical discovery?

Cage the Elephant, who Anthony Mason interviewed on CBS Mornings.

What did you want and get?

To get to sing, listen to music, go to plays.

What did you want and not get?

Democracy

What were your favorite films of this year?

ConclaveThe Wild RobotSing SingGhostlightThelmaInside Out 2Poor Things, and Anatomy of a Fall. But my favorite was American Fiction.

What did you do on your birthday?

It was a Thursday, so I went to choir and took out the trash. Beyond that, I have no idea.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2024?

Comfortable.

Facts not in evidence

What kept you sane?

I think I went a little insane this year.

Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Bill McKibben

What political issue stirred you the most?

Global warming, abortion rights, book banning, racism, sexism, homophobia. Oh, and the possibility that good chunks of Project 2025, which I only mentioned a half dozen times, will be enacted, threatening democracy.

Who did you miss?

In the throes of my despair, it was my friend Norm, who died in 2016.

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2024:

This is part of what Kelly wrote last year. I think it works.

The United States of America desperately needs to re-embrace rational and collective thinking, and ditch its mythologies about rugged individualism and the eternal wisdom of “the Founders”.

If you take selfies, post your six favorite ones:

I don’t take many selfies. The one above, taken at the Museum of Broadway in Manhattan (and I don’t mean Kansas) in January 2024, is the only one I can find. 

The musical portion of the post 

 

Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

I was leaning into the third segment of the Monster / Suicide / America medley on the Monster album. The first part is relevant but slightly clunky, but there’s something very basic about the end of Suicide. The third part is anthemic. Lyrics and the track.

Cause there’s a monster on the looseIt’s got our heads into the nooseAnd it just sits there watchin’
America, where are you nowDon’t you care about your sons and daughtersDon’t you know we need you nowWe can’t fight alone against the monster
Also

The other song that came to mind was American Idiot by Green Day. This is the 20th anniversary of that album. I’m fairly sure that ADD gave it to me at some point. It’s a great collection, and the title song seems very appropriate. Lyrics. “Starting off the album with a bang, ‘American Idiot’ is a scathing takedown of American culture in the years following 9/11.” The track.

Don’t wanna be an American idiot
One nation controlled by the media
Information age of hysteria

It’s calling out to idiot America

Welcome to a new kind of tension
All across the alienation
Where everything isn’t meant to be okay
Television dreams of tomorrow
We’re not the ones who’re meant to follow

For that’s enough to argue

What 2024 Meant To Me

I DO make resolutions

And now, a general exploration of What 2024 Meant To Me:

I often wonder why I do what I do. This summer, I was struck by something that John Green, the vlogger (no relation), had posted: that he questioned whether his actions were worthwhile. I thought that was odd: he was helping fight infant and maternal mortality in Africa, fighting disease, etc., so I couldn’t understand why he would question his impact.

But it triggered an evaluation of how I want to use my time. I retired five years ago and assumed that after a half-decade, I would have reached certain mileposts, goals, or whatever. This has simply not happened.

I decided to sign up to have a therapist. It was online, one of those Zoomy-like things, and it simply didn’t take. It’s not the first time I’ve gotten therapy or the first time it hasn’t worked out the way I’d hoped. However, perhaps by pursuing the process, I reached some conclusions anyway.

Just say no

One of them was not to work on a book project. It was a text that the adult child of a very famous person had written, and it was referred to me.  I realized that working on it was making me frickin’ nuts, but I felt obliged to work on it because I had said I would until I realized it was not worth my sanity. The author never understood this. In fact, about a week later, he texted me and said, “How much money would it take for you to finish it?” The answer to the question was that there was no amount of money in the world that would have had me continue to work on this project. Not only did it not bring me joy, but it brought me despair.

I also quit participating on a board I had a great deal of emotional attachment to. This was very difficult, but for reasons that are way more complicated and boring to recite here, it became a necessity as well. I took some mild solace in that three or four others departed the board after I left. I feel bad that the board is in such disarray, but I can’t make that my issue, he said.

Genealogy

One of my to-do lists has been my genealogy, which has gone virtually nowhere in 2024. My sister Leslie has talked to the family on both sides of the tree, our third cousin on my mother’s side, and my father’s first cousin so that the needle might move in 2025.

Since someone asked, the blog still serves a function for me. It is, among other things, a history of events that I frankly can’t remember when they happened. It’s a public diary, and I suppose I could write a private one, but I would never bother to.

As I’ve said, I failed miserably when I planned to write about my daughter’s early days. The public diary has forced me to think about things in a way I need to process the world.

Starting the quiz

Here’s an annual Year’s End Quiz, which I continue to purloin from Kelly.

Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Every year, I keep saying that I don’t make resolutions, but I think that’s probably incorrect. I think I made resolutions about doing genealogy, which, as I’ve noted, I failed to fulfill. I offered resolutions about straightening up some work areas that are largely undone and reading more books, which is only marginally better than the year before.

As for 2025, I am going to make the same resolutions. But I’m also going to work on a project, a specific, measurable project, and I ain’t gonna tell you what it is here until I get to a certain point in the process. It might be July or maybe even late August, but I will mention it. And I will work on it because… oh, if you knew what it was, you would know why, but you don’t, so there it is.

Did anyone close to you give birth?

I don’t believe so

Did anyone close to you die?

NancyAl, and Barry. Oh, and Midnight.

What countries did you visit?

None in 2024. I’m toying with going someplace in 2025, and I’ll probably return to the States, won’t I?

Future

What would you like to have in 2025 that you lacked in 2024?

Inner peace? Democracy?

What was your biggest achievement of the year?

I don’t know; sometimes, I think just showing up is an achievement. I’d say writing on this blog daily, but I did that last year and the year before…

What was your biggest failure?

I could not recognize earlier how much the aforementioned book editing and the committee work were making me – how did I put it? -frickin’ nuts.

What was the best thing you bought?

Nothing substantial comes to mind. Some music. Bellflower. Oh wait, I know what it is. I bought a new iPhone case, a certain green shade. According to Charli XCX, the color is brat, whatever that means.  More importantly, my phone case is much easier to distinguish than a black or gray one, making it simpler to find when I inevitably misplace it in my house.

This is TOO MUCH. I’ll finish it next year, which is to say, tomorrow. 

Ramblin' with Roger
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