First Take by Roberta Flack

First Take, Roberta Flack's debut album, came out on Atlantic on June 20, 1969, and it announces a singer and pianist in no hurry whatsoever. The shelves filed it under vocal jazz, but Flack's ballads always blurred the lines between R&B, jazz, folk and pop, and here she lets them unfold slowly, leaning into every word until it aches.

The record's slow-burning jewel is "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face", which went all the way to number one on the Billboard Hot 100. That hushed, emotive way with a ballad helped give birth to the quiet storm radio format, and in 2020 Rolling Stone ranked First Take 451st among the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.