Tracklisting:

1. In My Life
2. Hey Jude
3. We Can Work It Out
4. Let it Be
5. Oh Darling
6. I Should Have Known Better
7. The Long & Winding Road
8. Come Together
9. Isn't It a Pity
10. If I Fell
11. And I Love Him
12. Here, There, and Everywhere


Order Link:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00687XM22/?tag=imwan-20

From the New York Times (04/12/2010):

Roberta Flack Meets a Big Yellow Taxi
By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM

One rainy day last month, Roberta Flack, the smooth voice of 1970s soul ballads, stepped out of her recording studio in Chelsea, hailed a yellow taxi and threw a suitcase of CDs into the back seat. Arriving at the Dakota, her longtime home, Ms. Flack got out and hurried past the wrought-iron entrance gate, seeking cover from the downpour.

Then: “Panic! Panic! Panic!” Ms. Flack recalled on the telephone the other day. “I left the suitcase in the cab!”

In an instant, Ms. Flack had joined the ranks of world-class musicians (most famously the cellist Yo-Yo Ma) forced to grapple with a quintessential nightmare of New York transit. More than a year’s worth of work, including much of a new compilation of Beatles covers — tentative title: “Let It Be Roberta” — had disappeared to points unknown.

“It was priceless,” Ms. Flack, 73, said a few weeks after the episode. (The trauma still sounded fresh.) “I’ve been working on this album for a while. I had packed all of the stuff that had been finished, stuff that had not been finished, things I was thinking of approaching, things I was not thinking of approaching ever.”

The tracks, culled from hundreds of takes, would have taken ages to reassemble, and no artist wants unreleased masters running around in public. Flustered but focused, Ms. Flack marched upstairs to her apartment, which is on the same floor as John Lennon’s old place, and dialed up the city. At first, it did not go so well.

“I called 311 and got really no decent response,” Ms. Flack said. “They connected to me to some people who hung up on me. I said, I’m going down to the Taxi and Limousine Commission before they close.”

It was nearly 4 p.m., so the singer raced to 40 Rector Street, the commission’s downtown headquarters, where her plea received a warm reception. “They said, ‘Let’s find this guy,’ ” she said. “It was a very pleasant experience.”

Crucially, Ms. Flack had saved her receipt. The cab — medallion number 3D19, according to the singer — was located; its driver, Janardan Satish, was about to clock off his shift, but he drove to Rector Street instead. In the back seat, untouched: the suitcase.

“It was a wonderful thing,” Ms. Flack said. “I gave him a big, a huge tip. And he brought me back to the Dakota, and I paid him for that ride, and gave him a big, big, huge tip.”

How do you forget a precious suitcase in the first place?

“I got one of those big gargantuan cabs,” Ms. Flack explained. “The driver was very nice and he put it in the very back of the cab, and I got into the front part of the cab. When I got out, I was so anxious to get inside because it was raining.”

And, her mind was still focused on her singing. “I wasn’t thinking about anything but ‘Yesterday,’ ” she said, one of the tracks she would like to include on the album, which is due out late this year. She laughed. “And I’m still not happy with it!”

From Spinner back in February:

http://www.spinner.com/2010/02/03/rober ... k-beatles/

Roberta Flack Focusing on Beatles Tribute Album
Posted on Feb 3rd 2010 10:00AM by Steve BaltinComment (1)

Backstage at the 52nd annual Grammy Awards, soul icon Roberta Flack soaked up the adoration earned by her legendary status. As she talked with Spinner in the hallway, her duet partner on the night, Maxwell, walked by. "Can I get more sugar?" he asked as he leaned over a rope to hug her and kiss her on the cheek.

A moment later, Lady Gaga, rushing by with a full enoturage, called out, "Roberta!" "I just had my picture taken with her, she asked for it, so I feel honored," Flack told Spinner. "I love her. She's so talented."

Yes, Flack, who was afforded this sort of love when her song 'Killing Me Softly' was resurrected by the Fugees, is clearly back in her element in the spotlight. Fresh off her sterling Grammy performance, she is turning her attention now to the biggest-selling band of all time. "I'm doing a Beatles album for Sony, which will be out on the 21st of April," she says. "All Beatles covers -- they did 1,088 songs so I'm gonna do about 14 of them."

She said the record is coming together quickly. "I've finished about eight, so we're on our way," she says. "I have 'Here, There and Everywhere,' 'Here Comes the Sun,' 'Come Together,' 'Eleanor Rigby,' 'Let It Be,' 'Hey Jude.'"

In an interview last year with the San Francisco Gate, Flack told the paper she used to live in the same building as John Lennon and Yoko Ono and has a long history with these songs. "On every holiday and every special occasion that Yoko could think of, she was always sending me little personal [gifts]. She is a lovely person, very misunderstood," Flack said. "I did a lot of their songs when I was starting to make the transition from being a classical pianist to playing pop tunes in a restaurant and a club. I played a lot of Beatles songs for my newfound audience because they were so melodic."

And what will the album be called? "I don't know. Any suggestions?" she asked Spinner. "Somebody said call it 'Let It Be,' 'Roberta Flack, Let It Be' or 'Roberta Does the Beatles.' All of that is so commercial, I can't think about that. I'm too busy trying to figure out if I can sing 'Oh Darling,'" she said before singing a verse for us. The answer is yes, she can sing it.

Additional information from Billboard.biz:

I listened to the sample on itunes, and after having great expectations, I have to say that this is awful! The synthesized production is totally dated and an embarrassment. I was hoping that Roberta would be returning to the acoustic sounds of her early albums, but was sadly mistaken as this more in line with her godawful "Set The Night To Music" album...

That's probably a combination of her being 74 and not knowing when to quit and us expecting her to sound like she did 30 years ago.

...or sometimes a bad idea is really just a bad idea. I didn't see the point in this exercise anyway.

Actually Roberta herself doesn't sound bad, it's the production is so tacky...

...Because in her day, Roberta was a terrific interpretative singer...

I'm not disputing that, however, it's not her day and there really wasn't a need for this material to be done again. Still, I'm sure that the worst part is the tacky production.

I feel that way about pretty much ANY covers or tribute album, but it seems that originality is in short shrift these days in the entertainment industry.

As Walter just said, her day has long since passed. She hasn't done anything new in 8 years and then it's for a covers album. Her last couple of cd's have been bad, IMO. The synthesized production that you bemoan, I agree with, nobody wants to hear that from Roberta Flack, she needs to stick with what she does best, she isn't Patrice Rushen.

Added the god-awful cover image and pre-order link.

You can hear short snippets of all the songs on Roberta's page at 429 Records:

http://www.429records.com/sites/429reco ... aflack.asp

Amazon also has an exclusive version with 2 bonus tracks:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006OE7XH4/?tag=imwan-20

1. In My Life
2. Hey Jude
3. We Can Work It Out
4. Let It Be
5. Oh Darling
6. I Should Have Known Better
7. The Long & Winding Road
8. Come Together
9. Isn't It A Pity
10. If I Fell
11. And I Love Him
12. Here, There and Everywhere
13. I'm Looking Through You
14. Yesterday