Roberta Flack wanted to record it again.
Clint Eastwood did not think she needed to change a thing.
Years later, Flack recalled their conversation in an interview with Rhino. Eastwood had heard her version of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” while driving on a Los Angeles freeway. The music made such an impression that he stopped his car.
Then he called her.
He wanted to use the recording in his film “Play Misty for Me,” in a scene about love. Flack agreed, but she had one request: another chance at the song.
To her ears, it was too slow.
Eastwood disagreed. The recording stayed as it was.
It had already appeared on Flack's 1969 debut album, “First Take.” The film helped bring it to a much wider audience, and in 1972 it reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100.
Flack told Rhino she could hardly believe it. She had recorded and released the song three years before it became that enormous hit.
Listening now, it is hard to imagine hurrying her. The pauses are part of the feeling. Her voice leaves room for each phrase to settle before the next one arrives.
In that same interview, she remembered the intimacy of performing at Mr. Henry's in Washington, D.C., and trying to tell stories that touched the people listening. “First Take,” she explained, had bridged those club performances and her recording career.
This recording carries that closeness with it. No rushing. No need to fill every quiet space.
Sometimes the quality an artist questions is the very thing another person recognizes as beautiful. Here, a phone call helped leave a beloved performance exactly as it was.
