Roberta Flack

A former night-club singer, Roberta Flack used her unflappable vocal technique to perfect a nuanced melange of soul, jazz, gospel, and folk music. Her sophisticated approach would reach its commercial and artistic zenith with the 1973 chart-topper "Killing Me Softly With His Song." Although the decades that followed weren't quite as kind to Flack, her work in the '70s remains some of the finest of the era and a huge inspiration to an entire generation of female R&B singers.

• pop
• r&b/soul