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If you've ever thought that Roberta Flack's famous "quiet fire" was just about the smooth stylings of most of her hit singles, this album should expand your understanding of the term. That kind of gorgeous, leisurely phrasing is well represented by the hit "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," as well as her elegant take on Leonard Cohen's "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye."
But if those tracks place the emphasis on the "quiet," other smokier, more smoldering numbers let you know where the "fire" comes in. The opening cut, "Compared to What" is politically charged soul that captures the spirit of hurt, hope and rage of the era perfectly. She approaches the conviction and the cold fire of Nina Simone at her sharpest.
And while she may seem "supper club elegant" a good deal of the time, she can get downright churchy on a number like "I Told Jesus."
I'm sure there are those who would take issue with me for daring to compare her Spanish number "Angelitos Negros" to Grace Slick's half-Spanish (or half-"Pig-Spanish") "Manhole," but there is something about the timbre of their voices when singing in that language that is startlingly similar. Flack's song is,of course, purer both musically AND linguistically, than the pastiche that Slick comes up with, but both singers are indeed both "cool" and "fiery" simultaneously. And there's something about their singing en espanol that seems to emphasize that similarity. (If only Grace had put as much care into the language as she had put into the elaborate orchestration.) My Spanish is extremely limited, but Flack's command of the language as it's SUNG seems pretty darn impressive and authoritative.
Roberta Flack's critics sometimes suggest that she sometimes confuses "languor" with "torpor." A reasonably valid opinion, I suppose, but one that probably reveals more about the listener than the perormer. I'll admit that there are been times when I'm not as up for some of her lengthy mood pieces as I am at others. A song like "Our Ages or Our Hearts" (which seems to bemoan a--gasp!--thirteen year age difference between two adult lovers!)can try my patience. And my first reaction to "The Ballad of the Sad Young Men" was that it was a bit on the mawkish side. But that's just me. And y'know, there are times--late at night--when these songs take on a certain undeniable luster. The same can be said for the entire album.
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Roberta Flack, simply the Best
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 2, 2011
