Roberta Flack, the Grammy-winning singer and pianist whose intimate vocal and musical style made her one of the top recordings artists of the 1970s and an influential performer long after, died Monday. She was 88.

Singer Roberta Flack poses for a portrait in New York on Oct. 10, 2018. (Photo by Matt Licari/Invision/Associated Press)

She died at home surrounded by her family, publicist Elaine Schock said in a statement. Flack announced in 2022 she had ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and could no longer sing.

Little known before her early 30s, Flack became an overnight star after Clint Eastwood used “The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face” as the soundtrack for one of cinema’s more memorable and explicit love scenes, between the actor and Donna Mills in his 1971 film “Play Misty for Me.” The hushed, hymn-like ballad, with Flack’s graceful soprano afloat on a bed of soft strings and piano, topped the Billboard pop chart in 1972 and received a Grammy for record of the year.

“The record label wanted to have it re-recorded with a faster tempo, but he said he wanted it exactly as it was,” Flack told The Associated Press in 2018. “With the song as a theme song for his movie, it gained a lot of popularity and then took off.”

In 1973, she matched both achievements with “Killing Me Softly With His Song,” becoming the first artist to win consecutive Grammys for best record.

She was a classically trained pianist discovered in the late 1960s by jazz musician Les McCann, who later wrote that “her voice touched, tapped, trapped, and kicked every emotion I’ve ever known.” Versatile enough to summon the up-tempo gospel passion of Aretha Franklin, Flack often favored a more reflective and measured approach.

For Flack’s many admirers, she was a sophisticated and bold new presence in the music world and in the social and civil rights movements of the time, her friends including the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Angela Davis, whom Flack visited in prison while Davis faced charges — for which she was acquitted — for murder and kidnapping. Flack sang at the funeral of Jackie Robinson, major league baseball’s first Black player, and was among the many guest performers on the feminist children’s entertainment project created by Marlo Thomas, “Free to Be … You and Me.”

Roberta Cleopatra Flack, the daughter of musicians, was born in Black Mountain, North Carolina, and raised in Arlington, Virginia. A gospel fan as a child, she was so talented a piano player that at age 15 she received a full scholarship to Howard, the historically Black university.

Flack’s other hits from the 1970s included the cozy “Feel Like Makin’ Love” and two duets with her close friend and former Howard University classmate Donny Hathaway, “Where Is the Love” and ”The Closer I Get to You” — a partnership that ended in tragedy. In 1979, she and Hathaway were working on an album of duets when he suffered a breakdown during recording and later that night fell to his death from his hotel room in Manhattan.

“We were deeply connected creatively,” Flack told Vibe in 2022, upon the 50th anniversary of the million-selling “Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway” album. “He could play anything, sing anything. Our musical synergy was unlike (anything) I’d had before or since.”

She never matched her first run of success, although she did have a hit in the 1980s with the Peabo Bryson duet “Tonight, I Celebrate My Love” and in the 1990s with the Maxi Priest duet “Set the Night to Music.” In the mid-90s, Flack received new attention after the Fugees recorded a Grammy-winning cover of “Killing Me Softly,” which she eventually performed on stage with the hip-hop group.

Overall, she won five Grammys (three for “Killing Me Softly”), was nominated eight other times and was given a lifetime achievement Grammy in 2020, with John Legend and Ariana Grande among those praising her.

“I love that connection to other artists because we understand music, we live music, it’s our language,” Flack told songwriteruniverse.com in 2020. “Through music we understand what we are thinking and feeling. No matter what challenge life presents, I am at home with my piano, on a stage, with my band, in the studio, listening to music. I can find my way when I hear music.”

In 2022, Beyoncé placed Flack, Franklin and Diana Ross among others in a special pantheon of heroines name-checked in the Grammy-nominated “Queens Remix” of “Break My Soul.”

Flack was briefly married to Stephen Novosel, an interracial relationship that led to tension with each of their families, and earlier had a son, the singer and keyboardist Bernard Wright. For years, she lived in Manhattan’s Dakota apartment building, on the same floor as John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who became a close friend and provided liner notes for a Flack album of Beatles covers, “Let It Be Roberta.” She also devoted extensive time to the Roberta Flack School of Music, based in New York and attended mostly by students between ages 6 to 14.

Flack had taught music in D.C.-area junior high schools for several years in her 20s, while performing after hours in clubs. She sometimes backed other singers, but her own shows at Washington’s renowned Mr. Henry’s attracted such celebrity patrons as Burt Bacharach, Ramsey Lewis and Johnny Mathis. The club’s owner, Henry Yaffe, converted an apartment directly above into a private studio, the Roberta Flack Room.

“I wanted to be successful, a serious all-round musician,” she told The Telegraph in 2015. “I listened to a lot of Aretha, the Drifters, trying to do some of that myself, playing, teaching.”

Flack was signed to Atlantic Records and her debut album, “First Take,” a blend of gospel, soul, flamenco and jazz, came out in 1969. One track was a love song by the English folk artist Ewan MacColl: “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” written in 1957 for his future wife, singer Peggy Seeger. Flack not only knew of the ballad, but used it while working with a glee club during her years as an educator.

“I was teaching at Banneker Junior High in Washington, D.C. It was part of the city where kids weren’t that privileged, but they were privileged enough to have music education. I really wanted them to read music. First, I’d get their attention. (Flack starts singing a Supremes hit) ‘Stop, in the name of love.’ Then I could teach them!” she told the Tampa Bay Times in 2012.

“You have to do all sorts of things when you’re dealing with kids in the inner-city,” she said. “I knew they’d like the part where (‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’) goes ‘The first time ever I kissed your mouth.’ Ooh, ‘Kissed your mouth!’ Once the kids got past the giggles, we were good.”

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City Limits rounds up the latest housing and land use-related events, public hearings and affordable housing lotteries that are ending soon.

Welcome to City Limits’ NYC Housing Calendar, a weekly feature where we round up the latest housing and land use-related events and hearings, as well as upcoming affordable housing lotteries that are ending soon.

Know of an event we should include in next week’s calendar? Email us.

Upcoming Housing and Land Use-Related Events:

Monday, Feb. 24 at 11 a.m.: The NYC Council’s Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises will meet regarding land use applications to rezone 123-12 Sutphin Boulevard, and for a sidewalk cafe at 37 Canal St. (Le Dive). More here.

Monday, Feb. 24, 5 to 8 p.m.: The mayor’s 2025 Charter Revision Commission, which is weighing government changes around housing and land use procedures, will hold a public input meeting in Queens. More here.

Tuesday, Feb. 25 at 10 a.m.: The NYC Council’s Committee on Fire and Emergency Management will hold an oversight hearing on the process and inspections of New York City’s Temporary Certificates of Occupancy. More here.

Tuesday, Feb. 25 at 10 a.m.: The NYC Council’s Committee on Contracts will hold an oversight hearing on food quality in the city’s homeless shelters. More here.

Tuesday, Feb. 25 at 12 p.m.: The New York State Senate’s Cities 1 committee will meet regarding a bill that would create a Neighborhood Small Business Rent Increase Exemption and another regarding tax abatements for rent regulated properties. More here.

Wednesday, Feb. 26 at 10 a.m.: The NYC Council’s Committee on Public Housing will hold an oversight hearing on transparency at NYCHA. More here.

Wednesday, Feb. 26 at 10 a.m.: NYCHA will hold its monthly board meeting. More here.

Wednesday, Feb. 26 at 10 a.m.: The NYC Council’s Subcommittee on Landmarks, Public Sitings and Dispositions will meet regarding land use applications for 1093-1095 Jerome Avenue, 2201 Davidson Avenue, H+H Operating Agreement, and Brownsville NCP. More here.

Wednesday, Feb. 26 at 12 p.m.: NYCHA will kick off a runoff vote at the Hylan Houses in Bushwick, to determine which funding model the campus will adopt. More here.

Wednesday, Feb. 26 at 6:30 p.m.: The City Club of New York will host an online conversation on the development of the Brooklyn Marine Terminal (BMT), a 122-acre, city-owned, waterfront parcel in Red Hook. More here.

Thursday, Feb. 27 at 12 p.m.: The New York State Legislature will hold a joint hearing on housing in the state budget. More here.

Friday, Feb, 28, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.: The Cooper Union and The Architectural League of New York will host a lecture featuring Anna Puigjaner, an architect, researcher, and co-founder of MAIO, a multidisciplinary architecture firm based in Barcelona. More here.

Monday, March 3 at 1 p.m.: The City Planning Commission will hold a review session; the agenda has not yet been posted. More here.

NYC Affordable Housing Lotteries Ending Soon: The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) are closing lotteries on the following subsidized buildings over the next week.

Shepherd Glenmore, Brooklyn, for households earning between $22,458 – $100,620

120 East 144th Street Apartments, Bronx, for households earning between $65,349 – $134,160

444 Graham Avenue Apartments, Brooklyn, for households earning between $100,800 – $181,740

222 Echo Place Apartments, Bronx, for households earning between $73,920 – $218,010

Pianist Senior, Queens, for households earning between $53,280 – $134,160

86 & 88 Marble Hill Avenue Apartments, Bronx, for households earning between $111,532 – $181,740

751 Crotona Park North Apartments, Bronx, for households earning between $82,800 – $181,740

The Smile – Waiting List, Manhattan, for households earning between $38,066 – $218,010

2605 Snyder Avenue Apartments, Brooklyn, for households earning between $117,360 – $218,010

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST and CHRIS MEGERIAN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorneys for federal workers said Monday in a lawsuit that billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk had violated the law with his weekend demand that employees explain their accomplishments or risk being fired.

The updated lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in California and was provided to The Associated Press, is trying to block mass layoffs pursued by Musk and President Donald Trump, including any connected to the email distributed by the Office of Personnel Management on Saturday. The office, which functions as a human resources agency for the federal government, said employees needed to detail five things that they did last week by end of day on Monday.

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“No OPM rule, regulation, policy, or program has ever, in United States history, purported to require all federal workers to submit reports to OPM,” said the amended complaint, which was filed on behalf of unions, businesses veterans, and conservation groups. It called the threat of mass firings “one of the most massive employment frauds in the history of this country.”

Musk, who is leading the Republican president’s efforts to overhaul and downsize the federal government, continued to threaten federal workers on Monday morning even as confusion spread through the administration and some top officials told employees not to comply.

“Those who do not take this email seriously will soon be furthering their career elsewhere,” Musk posted early in the morning on X, his social media platform.

He also escalated Trump’s demand for employees to stop working remotely.

“Starting this week, those who still fail to return to office will be placed on administrative leave,” Musk posted.

The latest round of turmoil began over the weekend, when Trump posted on Truth Social, his social media website, that “ELON IS DOING A GREAT JOB, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE HIM GET MORE AGGRESSIVE.”

President Donald Trump listens as Elon Musk speaks in the Oval Office at the White House, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Musk followed up by saying “all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week.” He claimed that “failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.” The directive echoed how the billionaire entrepreneur has managed his own companies.

The Office of Personnel Management sent out its own request afterwards.

“Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager,” the message said. However, it said nothing about the potential for employees to get fired for noncompliance. The deadline was listed as 11:59 p.m. EST on Monday.

There was swift resistance from several key U.S. agencies led by the president’s loyalists — including the FBI, State Department, Homeland Security and the Pentagon — which instructed their employees over the weekend not to respond. Lawmakers in both parties said that Musk’s mandate may be illegal, while unions threatened to sue.

One message on Sunday morning from the Department of Health and Human Services, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., instructed its roughly 80,000 employees to comply. That was shortly after the acting general counsel, Sean Keveney, had instructed some not to. And by Sunday evening, agency leadership issued new instructions that employees should “pause activities” related to the request until noon on Monday.

“I’ll be candid with you. Having put in over 70 hours of work last week advancing Administration’s priorities, I was personally insulted to receive the below email,” Keveney said in an email viewed by The Associated Press that acknowledged a broad sense of “uncertainty and stress” within the agency.

Keveney laid out security concerns and pointed out some of the work done by the agency’s employees may be protected by attorney-client privilege: “I have received no assurances that there are appropriate protections in place to safeguard responses to this email.”

Democrats and even some Republicans, including Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, were critical of Musk’s ultimatum.

“If I could say one thing to Elon Musk, it’s like, please put a dose of compassion in this,” Curtis, whose state has 33,000 federal employees, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “These are real people. These are real lives. These are mortgages. … It’s a false narrative to say we have to cut and you have to be cruel to do it as well.”

Newly confirmed FBI Director Kash Patel, an outspoken Trump ally, instructed employees to ignore Musk’s request, at least for now.

“The FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of all of our review processes, and will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures,” Patel wrote in an email confirmed by the AP. “When and if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses. For now, please pause any responses.”

Ed Martin, interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, sent his staff a message Sunday that may have caused more confusion.

“Let me clarify: We will comply with this OPM request whether by replying or deciding not to reply,” Martin wrote in the email obtained by the AP, referring to the Office of Personnel Management.

“Please make a good faith effort to reply and list your activities (or not, as you prefer), and I will, as I mentioned, have your back regarding any confusion,” Martin continued. “We can do this.”

Officials at the Departments of State, Defense and Homeland Security were more consistent.

Tibor Nagy, acting undersecretary of state for management, told employees in an email that department leadership would respond on behalf of workers. “No employee is obligated to report their activities outside of their Department chain of command,” Nagy wrote in an email.

Pentagon leadership instructed employees to “pause” any response to Musk’s team, according to an email from Jules Hurst, the deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness.

The Homeland Security Department, meanwhile, told employees that “no reporting action from you is needed at this time” and that agency managers would respond, according to an email from R.D. Alles, deputy undersecretary for management.

Thousands of government employees have already been forced out of the federal workforce — either by being fired or through a “deferred resignation″ offer — during the first month of Trump’s second term. There is no official figure available for the total firings or layoffs so far, but the Associated Press has tallied hundreds of thousands of workers who are being affected. Many work outside of Washington.

Musk on Sunday called his latest request “a very basic pulse check.”

Elon Musk speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC, at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025, in Oxon Hill, Md. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

“The reason this matters is that a significant number of people who are supposed to be working for the government are doing so little work that they are not checking their email at all!” Musk wrote on X. “In some cases, we believe non-existent people or the identities of dead people are being used to collect paychecks. In other words, there is outright fraud.”

He has provided no evidence of such fraud. Separately, Musk and Trump have falsely claimed in recent days that tens of millions of dead people over 100 years old are receiving Social Security payments.

Meanwhile, thousands of other employees are preparing to leave the federal workforce this coming week, including probationary civilian workers at the Pentagon and all but a fraction of U.S. Agency for International Development staffers through cuts or leave.

Peoples reported from New York. Associated Press writers Byron Tau, Ellen Knickmeyer, Matthew Perrone and Tara Copp in Washington and Valerie Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas, contributed to this report.