You taunt me with memories

Here's a good one - how to combine birthday celebrations for a revered Diva with a sort-of-ongoing "meme" (#adecadeago - see here, here, here and here)...

It is the 82nd birthday today of the divine Roberta Flack [she shares the celebrations with that "national treasure", classic-era Blue Peter host Peter Purves (who blows out 80 candles!), with Leontyne Price (92) and with Robert Wagner (89); today would also have been the 109th of Joyce Grenfell].

Needless to say, ten years ago I also did a blog post to mark the occasion [there having been a long-standing "mystery" over her date of birth, at the time I had it as being her 70th...], and I did similar a month later for the birthday of Aretha.

It is from the latter rather than the former blog, however, that I have chosen to lift this classic "supergroup" performance [out of which line-up Miss Flack is sadly the only surviving member] - it's long overdue another airing, methinks...

Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan, Aretha Franklin and Roberta Flack - Ain't Got Nothing But The Blues/Rocks In My Bed/I Got It Bad (and That Ain't Good)/In My Solitude/Mood Indigo/Azure (Tribute to Duke Ellington, 1973)

Utter perfection.

Flack Facts:

• In her early career Miss Flack accompanied opera singers at the piano, but was "discovered" a few years later in the early 1970s as a performer at a jazz cabaret club.
• Her big break came when Clint Eastwood chose the song The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face for the soundtrack of his directing debut Play Misty For Me and it became the biggest hit of 1972.
• She was once the neighbour of John Lennon and Yoko Ono when they all lived in The Dakota apartment building in New York.
• She was the first artist to win the Grammy Award for Record of the Year on consecutive occasions – in 1973 for The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face and the following year for Killing Me Softly (With His Song).
• Her Roberta Flack School of Music in the Bronx provides free music education to underprivileged students.

Many happy returns, Roberta Cleopatra Flack (born 10th February 1937)