hypersongs

First Take

Her debut: eight songs recorded in three days, with Ron Carter on bass and Bucky Pizzarelli on guitar.
Roberta Flack, 1969

The songs are "Compared to What" (Gene McDaniels), "Angelitos Negros", "Our Ages or Our Hearts", "I Told Jesus", "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye" (Leonard Cohen), "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" (Ewan MacColl), "Tryin' Times" and "Ballad of the Sad Young Men". Flack played piano and sang, with Bucky Pizzarelli on guitar, Ron Carter on double bass, Ray Lucas on drums and percussion, horns and strings arranged and conducted by William S. Fischer, and William Arlt engineering. The singles were "Compared to What" with "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye" on August 14, 1969 and "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" on January 24, 1972.

It reached 3 on the jazz albums chart and 47 in the UK. A 50th-anniversary deluxe edition came out on July 24, 2020.

Track listing

  1. Compared to What5:16
  2. Angelitos Negros6:56
  3. Our Ages or Our Hearts6:09
  4. I Told Jesus6:09
  5. Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye4:08
  6. The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face5:22
  7. Tryin' Times5:08
  8. Ballad of the Sad Young Men7:00

More from Roberta Flack

Chapter Two (1970), Quiet Fire (1971), Killing Me Softly (1973), Feel Like Makin' Love (1975), Blue Lights In The Basement (1977), Roberta Flack (1978), Bustin' Loose (Music From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (1981), I'm The One (1982), Oasis (1988), Set The Night To Music (1991), Stop The World (1992), Roberta (1994), The Christmas Album (1997), Friends: Roberta Flack Sings Mariko Takahashi (1999)

Sources

  1. First Take (album), Wikipedia
  2. Roberta Flack, Wikipedia