For fans of the Quiet Storm genre of soul, Roberta Flack’s and Donnie Hathaway’s vivid but fleeting collaboration transcends time, place, even life itself. The two shared a storied alma mater—Washington, D.C.’s Howard University—and a dedication to musical excellence that earned them enduring popularity. Flack, born in 1937, was the senior member of the duo. A scholarship student at Howard, she initially supported herself teaching music. Adapting her classical piano skills, expressive voice, and the churchly themes of her youth to the pop context, she delivered hits like “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” “Where Is the Love,” and “Killing Me Softly With His Song” that became radio staples. Hathaway, another choir kid, was raised by his grandmother, a gospel singer. Arriving at Howard in 1963, he and roommate Ric Powell, a drummer, forged a partnership that propelled them through all but their final semester of school and to Chicago’s Curtom Records as writers, arrangers, and session players. Flack, initially a freelance accompanist, snagged a residency at a Capitol Hill nightclub where she developed her trademark delivery and deepened her repertoire. Meeting artist Les McCann led to a contract with Atlantic. Flack debuted on vinyl in 1968 with the LP First Take. That collection included Ewen McColl’s “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” which exploded as when Clint Eastwood used it in his 1971 movie, Play Misty for Me. Rereleased, the single was Billboard’s top song of 1972. At Curtom, Hathaway emerged as a jack of all musical trades. In 1969, he signed with Atco. He and another Howard roommate, Leroy Hutson, wrote “The Ghetto, Part I,” included on his Atco debut, the now-classic Everything Is Everything. Besides bringing out his self-titled 1971 LP, he broadened his fandom singing behind Flack on her cover of “Killing Me Softly With His Song.” That runaway success led the pair into a series of what became beloved collaborations. For Hathaway’s third Atco release, they teamed on Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway, an LP of duets whose ranks yielded a massive hit single in “Where Is The Love.” In 1978 the pair returned to the charts with “The Closer I Get To You.” She and Hathaway were working on a second collection of duets when Hathaway, who, struggling against mental illness, took his own life on January 13, 1979. He was 33. Flack posthumously released Robert Flack Featuring Donny Hathaway. She was 88 when she died on February 25, 2025. – Michael Dolan

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