Monday 14 December 2009

Music Monday: The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face by Roberta Flack

Another of my favourite songs of all time: Roberta Flacks's haunting yet beautiful version of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face".

In 1957 the English folk singer/songwriter Ewan MacColl composed the song for his then lover and later wife, Peggy Seeger. She has asked him to pen a tune for her to use in a play she was touring with at the time. Because of his left-wing political views, MacColl could not travel to the United States, so he taught Seeger the song over the telephone.

In 1969. soul-singer Roberta Flack recorded a version of the song for her début album First Take. Two years later, her version was used in Clint Eastwood's psychological thriller Play Misty for Me. The exposure the song received through the movie persuaded Atlantic Records to release a cut down version of the song as a single in 1972. It reached the number one spot in the Billboard Hot 100, giving Flack her first hit. The popularity of the song resulted in MacColl winning the Grammy Award for Song of the Year.


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2 comments:

Nin said...

Oh, cool, I didn't know the song was written by Ewan McColl. The guy's ace!

Borkiman said...

Nin: It came as a surprise to me too. I thought the song would have been written by Holland, Dozier and Holland, or someone like that.