Killing Me Softly Part 1

Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia

Slate Podcasts

Music, Music History, Music Commentary

4.8 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 26 March 2022

⏱️ 76 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The early ’70s was a great time for R&B queens on the charts: Roberta Flack. Dionne Warwick. Patti LaBelle. Chaka Khan. They had come through the ’60s—Dionne as a smooth pop-and-B star, Patti as a girl-group frontwoman, Roberta as a cabaret pianist—and found themselves in a new decade with limitless possibilities. Flack turned folk songs into chart-topping, Grammy-winning R&B. Warwick shifted from Brill Building pop to Philly soul. LaBelle threw her insane voice at rock, funk, and glam. And a relative newcomer, Rufus frontwoman Chaka Khan, followed in their footsteps, commanding the band and converting to disco, then electro. By the ’80s, all four women were ready for a major chart victory lap. Join host Chris Molanphy as he traces four parallel careers that expanded the definition of soul from the ’60s through the ’80s and beyond. These soul sisters, flow sisters, bold sisters…killed us softly, walked on by and were, finally, every woman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there, hit parade listeners.
0:02.9	What you're about to hear is part one of this episode.
0:07.4	Part two will arrive in your podcast feed at the end of the month.
0:12.0	Would you like to hear this episode all at once the day it drops?
0:16.6	Sign up for Slate Plus.
0:18.8	You can try it for a month for just one dollar, and it supports not only this show, but
0:25.0	all of Slates acclaimed journalism and podcasts.
0:29.2	Just go to slate.com slash hit parade plus.
0:33.7	You'll get to hear every hit parade episode in full.
0:37.7	The day it arrives plus hit parade the bridge are bonus episodes with guest interviews deeper
0:45.6	dives on our episode topics and pop chart trivia.
0:50.2	Once again to join that's slate.com slash hit parade plus.
0:56.0	Thanks.
0:57.0	And now please enjoy part one of this hit parade episode.
1:22.4	Welcome to hit parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate magazine about the hits
1:28.7	from coast to coast.
1:30.4	I'm Chris Malanfi, chart analyst, pop critic and writer of Slates Why is this song number
1:35.8	one series on today's show 50 years ago this week in March of 1972.
1:44.1	This song had just cracked the top 40 and was rising fast, which was remarkable because
1:51.4	three years earlier when singer Roberta Flack recorded the song, it had been largely ignored.
1:59.6	But thanks to its appearance in a Hollywood movie, just three weeks after cracking the
2:05.4	top 40, the first time ever I saw your face was the number one song in America.
	...

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