Roberta Flack’s Holidays, Out Today
Published
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Roberta Flack’s Extraordinary Legacy Continues
With the Release of Holidays
Out Today
Collection of Christmas Favorites
Newly Remixed and Remastered for Atmos
Arriving Digitally for the First Time Ever
Listen on Spotify HERE
open.spotify.com/prerelease/6hzCFwQSwInC1qroQ2au5u
Album Includes Previously Unreleased
New Songs “Eternally,”
“Cherry Tree Carol,” And “Let It Be”
Which Marks First Release
Since GRAMMY Award-Winning Artist’s
Passing Earlier This Year
Holidays celebrates Flack’s remarkable gifts with majestic performances of beloved holiday 
standards and original songs such as “There’s Still My Joy” (co-written by Beth Nielsen Chapman, Melissa Manchester, and Matt Rollings). Originally released in 1997, The Christmas Album proved among Flack’s most cherished and critically acclaimed works, with the New York Times naming it among the year’s Top 10 holiday releases, writer Ann Powers declaring, “Approaching the season in typically mellow style, the elegant Ms. Flack juxtaposes old favorites with reflective ballads about love lost and found during the season when pulled heartstrings hurt, or heal, the most.”
On the collection’s first focus track, “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire),” Flack’s acclaimed vocal style is highlighted on her recording of the classic song. The warmth and depth of her effortlessly smooth performance wraps listeners in the holiday spirit. The song and album are primed to become a quintessential addition to everyone’s holiday collection alongside offerings from artists like Nat King Cole and Bing Crosby.
artist credit: Corey Houlihan/SPCWMN
The new song, “Eternally” was written by Jerry Barnes and his sister, the late Katreese Barnes. Both were proteges of Flack’s who was so impressed with their musical prowess that she helped bring them to New York from North Carolina in the late 1980s. Flack often sang “Eternally” in concert and even recorded it with the Barnes duo and much of her band and background singers in 1997. While Flack said many times that she wanted to release the song, it never made it into an outgoing project.
Two more tracks included in the collection are also previously unreleased Roberta Flack recordings. On “Cherry Tree Carol,” her vocals ring with joyful anticipation on this traditional carol that tells the biblical story of Mary and Joseph arriving in Bethlehem for the birth of Jesus. For her performance on the Beatles anthem for peace, “Let It Be,” Flack’s poignant arrangement and performance allows each phrase to be fully expressed with a depth of emotions.
An unparalleled and deeply individualistic song stylist, arranger, and songwriter, Roberta Flack was a truly singular talent whose intimate music was unbounded by genre or even racial stereotypes and thus uniquely capable of crossing all international and cultural barriers.
Roberta Flack’s Holidays track listing
1. The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)
2. There’s Still My Joy
3. We Three Kings of Orient Are
4. 25th of Last December
5. Because This Child Was Born
6. When There’s Love
7. Little Drummer Boy
8. O Come All Ye Faithful
9. Eternally
10. Cherry Tree Carol
11. Let it be
Click Here to Listen to “ETERNALLY”
Apple Music | Spotify | Deezer
ABOUT ROBERTA FLACK:
Her incomparable body of work boasts such chart-topping classics as 1973’s “The First Time Ever I Saw Her Face” and 1974’s “Killing Me Softly With His Song” – both of which saw Flack make history as the first solo artist ever (and only to hold the record and for nearly five decades) to win two consecutive GRAMMY® Awards for “Record of the Year” – along with the #1 hit, “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” and hit duets with fellow artists including Donny Hathaway (“Where Is the Love” and “The Closer I Get to You”), Peabo Bryson (“Tonight I Celebrate My Love”) and Maxi Priest (“Set the Night to Music”).
Among her countless accolades, Flack was one of the first inductees into the Women Songwriters Hall of Fame and received such honors as the Jazz Foundation of America’s prestigious Clark & Gwen Terry Award for Courage, the Town Hall Friend of the Arts Award, the Black Girls Rock! Lifetime Achievement Award, the DAR Women in American History Award, and an honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music. A committed advocate of music education, Flack co-authored the autobiographical children’s book, The Green Piano: How Little Me Found Music (Random House, 2023) and founded the Roberta Flack School of Music at the Hyde Leadership Charter School in the Bronx, providing an innovative and inspiring music education program to underprivileged students free of charge. Additionally, her Roberta Flack Foundation supports animal welfare and helps children, especially girls of color, with their education. One of the greatest songstresses of our era, Roberta Flack left us on February 24, 2025 but her timeless music and remarkable life story will surely continue to inspire and move generations of listeners to come.
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