The cost was the pace and the pressure to maintain an impossibly high standard. Flack did not rush her albums. She released six studio albums in the 1970s, each polished to a level that most artists could not afford. She won four Grammys, including three consecutive Record of the Year awards -- a feat that no other artist has matched in the history of the awards. The pressure to keep delivering at that level shaped every decision she made in the studio.

Killing Me Softly with His Song is the one. The song originated as a poem by Lori Lieberman, set to music by Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel, and Flack's vocal captures the feeling of being seen so completely by a stranger that it aches. The Fugees covered it in 1996 and introduced the song to a new generation. Flack's influence on female R&B vocalists who came after her is enormous. She proved that singing softly was not a weakness but a deliberate strategy, that the quietest voice in the room could be the one everyone remembered.