The First Time Ever We Heard Her Voice: Deluxe reissue of Robert Flack’s debut album due out in April

SoulMusic.comA deluxe, expanded version of Roberta Flack‘s 1969 debut album, First Take, will be released on April 10 in honor of the record’s 50th anniversary.

First Take includes Flack’s classic cover of British folk singer/songwriter Ewan MacColl‘s “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” which topped the Billboard Hot 100 for six weeks during the spring of 1972 and went on to win Flack Grammys for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. The album itself spent five week at #1 on the Billboard 200.

The three-disc reissue will include a CD and a vinyl LP featuring a remastered version of the original eight-song album, plus a second CD containing 12 previously unreleased demos recorded in 1968. The first CD also boasts three bonus tracks — the non-album B-side “Trade Winds” and single edits of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” and “Compared to What.”

First Take also features a cover of Leonard Cohen‘s “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye” and two tunes co-written by Donny Hathaway — “Our Ages or Our Hearts” and “Tryin’ Times.” Hathaway and Flack went on to team up for the hit duets “Where Is the Love” and “The Closer I Get to You.”

The demos on the First Take bonus CD include covers of a selection of pop, blues and traditional tunes, among them “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out,” “Frankie and Johnny,” “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” and “To Sir with Love.” The disc also features a previously released 1968 live version of “All the Way.”

The deluxe reissue comes packaged in a hardcover book.  You can pre-order it now exclusively at SoulMusic.com. Only 3,000 copies of the limited-edition collection are being produced.

Here are the CDs’ track lists:

Disc One
“Compared to What”
“Angelitos Negros”
“Our Ages or Our Hearts”
“I Told Jesus”
“Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye”
“The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”
“Tryin’ Times”
“Ballad of the Sad Young Men”

Bonus Tracks
“Compared to What” (Single Edit)
“The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” (Single Edit)
“Trade Winds”

Disc Two
“All the Way” (Live)
“This Could Be the Start of Something”*
“Groove Me”*
“Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out”*
“Hush-a-Bye”*
“Afro Blue”*
“It’s Way Past Suppertime”*
“Frankie and Johnny”*
“On the Street Where You Live”*
“The House Song”*
“Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”*
“The Song Is Love”*
“To Sir with Love”*

* = previously unreleased.

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