The Tricks of Time

Roberta Flack : The Closer I Get To You

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On December 13, 1977 Robert Flack released her sixth album, Blue Lights in the Basement. It's a beautiful album that went gold in the US thanks to her hit single with her Howard University friend Donny Hathaway, "The Closer I Get To You". Hathaway had been suffering from clinical depression when Flack tracked down Hathaway in a hospital:

"I tried to reach out to Donny. That's how we managed to do the song we did last year. I felt this need because I didn't know what to do. I couldn't save him, I knew he was sick. But I knew when he sat down at that piano and sang for me it was like it was eight or nine years ago because he sang and played his ass off."

In January of 1979, Hathaway leaped to his death from the 15th floor of the Essex Hotel in New York City. Flack announced that "The Closer I Get to You" would forever be a dedication to Hathaway, and that all money made from the song would be donated to Hathaway's widow and two children