Customer Reviews

Let It Be Roberta - Roberta Flack Sings The Beatles

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Love the Beatles, love Roberta. Two thumbs up on this. Sweet interpretations, quintessential Roberta vocals. Great selection of tracks, with so many to choose from. Worth the purchase.

A beautiful, sometimes radical re-imagining of some of the Beatles classics (and one by George) by one of the great voices of our time. Highly recommended.

I'm enjoying listening to the new Roberta for several reasons, including the difficult ones:

First impression is that although some of the arrangements are challenging in ways that I'm not taken with initially, when I consider the musicians involved and what it's about I learn to appreciate it; I become educated. It's not that I'm being a Beatle snob about it, rather at first listen I feel some difficulty with some choices for which I blame on the production mainly, that is the producer. I don't always like the imprint of the producer on her musicianship, and also the background voices at times. Sometimes I selfishly only want to hear her voice and no one elses, as one who is a Babs fanatic would want. I don't want anything clouding my ability to hear the purity and honest integrity of her voice and heart. However, the work required to create this recording is apparent, it's a lot of hard work and time to get this result. I certainly couldn't do what she does without being completely consumed and devoted to it 24/7 and I doubt I would get such successful results. I'm not disappointed, I just have to work a little to understand some of her choices, and that's a good thing too because it brings more dimension to the listener's appreciation than simply digesting something without having to even chew it to savor it. That's the sign that differentiates it from pop music to art. I felt the very same way at first with some Beatle records on my first listening. Curious, the parallel.

As the album plays through its entirety, I understand the breadth of style and expression she undertook with the whole project and those first impressions that didn't grab me at first become more coherent and enjoyable. Also, there are many arrangements that really move me: `Yesterday', `Here There...','If I fell', `And I love him' (possibly the most forward looking arrangement). What is truly amazing is how she can completely change the melody of these songs and not change the feeling or how we already understand the songs, e.g. `I'm looking through you'. Of course the one track that made me stop in my tracks and forget to breathe was the live Carnegie track from 1972. Astonishing. I wish she still used the piano the way that she once did, you can really hear her classical training in it, and it's so deeply Jazz, her singing and arranging and feeling. Perhaps she felt it would sound stuck in the past if she did an entire album like that now. Listening to the span of styles of the recording paints a representation of time and style changes, which keeps it relevant.

And here's proof of her ability to keep the songs relevant and also turn my ear to hear something differently...because of the way she sings the end of `Come Together', I just now, at the age of 54 understood what the title means; it now seems to me as if it's about John being frustrated telling the leaders and the common man of the world at the time to pull together and work together to make the world better, c'mon people, get it together, come together. Roberta took `We can work it out' and made it encouraging to work things out, rather than just plead for it to be so and hope it will be. She made the message motivational.

The more I listen to the recording and literally let it be, no pun intended, it speaks to me. She amazes me. It's no easy task to reinvent songs that everyone in nearly every corner of the world is so familiar with, so much so that they are practically written in stone in every one's imagination. She can turn a melody in a new direction, and still the original aspect is intact, and if it divulges in another direction, it's very exciting to follow it and still have those touchstone moments where the notes we expect do finally appear in the melody and reassure us of it's familiarity which encourages us to sing along with it in our hearts, for we're not lost in following her, but we're definitely following her. She enables you to trust her and listen and follow. Despite how overly familiar I am with `Yesterday' her version made my eyes well up. The fact that I can go on to this extent of analysis and insight about the recording speaks volumes for it's successful result and artistry.

I read an interview at Huffington Post and you can really tell how seriously she takes her art. That means so much to me, because I have always felt great responsibility and seriousness about my abilities as well, and about art. She talked about the importance of inspiration. I respect how humble she is about her gifts.

I am so grateful to the few musicians like her that do what they do to keep music alive. And to be able to do it at 75...amazing.

Thank you Roberta, you did the boys good, but more importantly, you did it your way, and you did Roberta good in the process; we the listeners got both. Giving the listener those two aspects simultaneously is damn near impossible, unless the artist really knows who they are and what the music is, and they can coexist in harmony. No easy feat. How fortunate she is to live what she loves. And she works damn hard on it, for our benefit.

Beatles + Roberta Flack?!? What could be better?!?

These tracks are stunning, seriously. Roberta breathes new life into these Beatles classics and makes them all her own. First single, We Can Work It Out is fantastic, but In My Life is hands-down my favorite. This is the perfect gift for Valentine's Day!

It has a perfect blend of songs that offer familiar as well as new sounds. Great original, unpredictable interpretation of the Beatles.
I LOVE IT!! Music that can be enjoyed by the whole family, young & old.

Love this record! Nobody can replace the Beatles - that's a given - But music lives by others putting their spin on classics. I like to think that it's a way of collaborating that is vital in the creative process. In this case, it's a legendary voice singing legendary songs. I was captivated by Roberta's voice after all these years and really appreciated what she did with the songs. I'm planning on picking up an extra copy for my Mom for V-day. I know she will love it as much as I do. Especially check out - "We Can Work It Out" and "In My Life".

I LOVE Roberta Flack, and have since high school. Chapter Two is one of the greatest albums of ALL TIME! In amassing a collection of every album she has ever done, I have looked forward to her putting her stamp of other'' songs. "Bridge Over Troubled Water", "You've Got a Friend" and the inimitable "You are Everything" are milestones on several of her works. All great originals, made even better by her soulful plaintive downright angelic voice.

When I read in The New York Times that she was working on this album, I was filed with anticipation. Working with some of the best material in the past fifty years, I was contemplating a double or even a triple album! But what a disappointment this is! It seems as though the pull towards MOR and Pop (which I guess started in the Killing Me Softly album) has taken her over. "In My Life" and "Hey Jude" highlight a Bubblegum sound which here seems to have overcome her wonderful voice. "Jude" is a light, happy sort of song of no consequence. And with nothing even approaching "Nah-Nah-Nah-Na-Na-Na-Nah, Nah-Na-Na-Na, Heyyyyyy Jude" final three minutes of the Beatles' Opus, it sounds here like the song ended in the middle.

"Let it Be" opens with the words,"when I find myself in times of trouble..." But it sounds like Roberta has never seen a troubling day. It makes me long for the voice that wailed "Jesse come home, there's a hole in the bed"?). Like "We Can Work It Out", another deep and soulful song, in this version totally lacking any depth or emotion. Ditto "The Long and Winding Road": another tug-at-the-heart-strings kinda song. Sadly, she fails to tug on anything in this elevator-music version. It makes one realize how emoting McCartney actually was back in the day.

Save the money. Better yet, invest in her first three or four albums.

"The wait is over!", or so I thought...

But once I played the CD, what did I get...
nice background music... not one song really standing
out.

Sure, Roberta Flack's sophisticated (classy?) approach,
rearrangements and interpretations of these timeless
BEATLES songs makes this CD a must-have for her all-
time fans (like me).

And yes, she adds a nice woman's voice to these songs
and she blends them well with her trademark urban-
borderline-jazzy style.

However it doesn't compare to Sarah Vaughan's 1981
masterpiece "Songs Of The Beatles".

Hopefully the sales of this album will enable the
artist, that Roberta Flack truly is, to work on
a new studio album of original contemporary material.

I will for sure listen to this album a few more times;
after all, her delicate, beautiful and vulnerable voice
does charm and mesmerize after all these years.

Cheers from Hong Kong,
Cars10

Roberta Flack's Beatles songs is a very good recording. She didn't include some Beatles standards, but we can find "Isn't It A Pity" and an excellent "OH Darling!".
I strongly recommend Roberta Flack' new record.

Yes, it took almost 30 years, but what the hell! Roberta sounds great.

I love her gently sympathetic voice, spectacular songs and incredible energy.

"Let It Be Roberta" is the best Beatles's tribute album! I hope I could sing those songs more earlier, but it's never too late to sing such an amazing album for you.