Roberta Flack, RIP

Even if I can't stop tinkering with all the half-written posts I've started about our degraded country, at least I can give my respects to a building block of my life, Roberta Flack.

Since she has her champions and her music did get out to the world, more or less, to say she is among the most underrated luminaries in US music history can't be entirely right.

But it's not entirely implausible either. Make a list of our few hundred greatest musicians and she falls somewhere in the top 10%. But she's very much less appreciated than that. That's largely because much of what she's best known for was degraded by the music industry, which channeled her brand too much into easy listening formats instead of letting her soar.

Flack's breakthrough record First Take basically had no weaknesses**, and it had astounding heights and depths. Its most famous cut, "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," was not its highest high, but it might have been the best song in the country in heavy rotation at the time. Anyone from the legions who recognize the ground-breaking cultural work of Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, and Aretha Franklin during the years around 1970 should make room for Flack amid this select group.

It is almost impossible for me to choose which of First Take's three best cuts to feature. But since this one has her singing with the angels, let's go with it. It's going to build slowly, so calm down and pay attention.

Here are two more tied for first place, this and this.

Rest in peace, Roberta. If the race were to the swift, you could have been the trillionaire that Musk wants to become. But as Bob Dylan said about people like Musk, "I think you will find when your death takes it toll/all the money you made will never buy back your soul." No one was any more important for our culture's soul than you were at the peak of your powers.

**As I write, I'm listening through a far longer "deluxe edition" of First Take, and I'll withhold my superlative for that edition until I finish digesting it, but... what's the matter with this country that some of these bonus tracks were not released and promoted at the time? Just to try to create another pop diva? I hate it so much!