
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, November 1, 1993                   TAG: 9311010007
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

FLACK RINGS LIKE A BELL WITH POPS

The music was good, the arrangements were right on the money, and, of course, the songs were great.

But it was the soft singing of Roberta Flack that really stood out at her Picnic With The Pops concert with the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra at the Salem Civic Center on Saturday night.

She was just so clear. Every note and every word that came out of her mouth was distinct from every other. Nothing was lost to the musical mix or the symphony's orchestration.

It was a real clinic in the soft and mellow pop singing that is Flack's trademark.

She doesn't showboat like Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston. Nor does she have the soul of Aretha Franklin. Rather, her strength is in her softness and in the rich, simple treatment she gives her songs.

Playing a grand piano, Flack opened her 90-minute show with one of her best-known songs, "Killing Me Softy With His Song."

She covered all of her hits, plus she threw in an occasional surprise, including a rousing version of Marvin Gaye's "Mercy Me."

However, she was better on the slower and more mellow material. When she turned up-tempo, her sound leaned a little to far toward generic middle-of-the-road pop.

On the soft numbers, there was none of that. Just Flack's soaring voice, so soft and so sad and emotional.

It was no surprise then that the evening's highlight was her encore song, "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face." Just beautiful.

A hard act to follow, too. It was surprising that she came back to encore again - and with results that didn't leave the same lasting impression.

Throughout, the symphony, particularly the string section, lent admirable support to Flack's song arrangements.

Indeed, the pairing of Flack with the symphony is about as ideal a match as you could want for a Pops concert.

For its part of the show, the symphony, led by conductor Victoria Bond, performed a program of "Famous Lovers" compositions.

On the slate was music from "Gone With The Wind," "Casablanca," "West Side Story," "Romeo and Juliet" and other lovers' stories.

by CNB