Killing Me Softly – this arrangement is by Bob Hooper.
Norma Gimbel wrote the lyrics of Killing Me Softly with his Song for Lori Lieberman, and the music was written by Charles Fox. First released in 1972 by Lori, it ended with a soft fading instrumental.
Roberta Flack heard Lieberman’s version and was so impressed she released her own version on Atlantic Records in January 1973. It went on to spend 16 weeks at Number One. Roberta had done a lot of work changing parts of the chord structure and gave the ending resolution when she changed it to a major chord.
Killing Me Softly With His Song won three Grammys in 1974 – winning Record of the Year for Roberta and Joel Dorn as Music Producer, Song of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female. Later, in 1999, Roberta’s version was inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame.
In 1995 Lori Lieberman re-recorded it beautifully for her album “A Thousand Dreams”.
It is currently Number 369 on the Rolling Stone’s list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and is Number 97 on Billboard’s Greatest songs of all time too.
Killing Me Softly also reached Number One in the charts for the Fugees in 1996 with their Hip-hop version sung by Lauryn Hill.