This used vintage piece of sheet music is titled The night the lights went out in Georgia by Vicki Lawrence. Dated 1973. No major tears.No writing. Pages are complete.
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The majority of our sheet music and memorabilia is from my music store. The items have been stored in file cabinets and are generally in unused condition. If there are any major flaws, they are noted in our item description.
I am the former owner of COLONY RECORD & RADIO CENTER in Times Square, N.Y.C. We have shipped, and served customers, all over the world from 1948 through September 2012 when the retail store closed.
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Includes unlimited streaming of The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia
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"Killing Me Softly with His Song" is a song composed by Charles Fox with lyrics by Norman Gimbel.
The song was written in collaboration with Lori Lieberman, who recorded the song in late 1971. In 1973 it became a number-one hit in the US and Canada for Roberta Flack, also reaching number six in the UK Singles Chart. The song has since been covered by numerous artists, including the version by the Fugees, which won the 1997 Grammy for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.
Lori Lieberman version and disputed origins
According to Lori Lieberman, who performed the original recording in 1971, the song was born of a poem she wrote after experiencing a strong reaction to the Don McLean song 'Empty Chairs.'[1][2][3] She then related this information to Gimbel, who took her feelings and put them into words. Then Gimbel passed the words to Fox, who set them to music.[4]
According to Norman Gimbel, Gimbel was introduced to the Argentinean-born composer Lalo Schifrin (then of Mission: Impossible fame) and began writing songs to a number of Schifrin's films.[5] Both Gimbel and Schifrin made a suggestion to write a Broadway musical together, and Schifrin gave Gimbel an Argentinean novel—Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar—to read as a possible idea. The book was never made into a musical, but in chapter two, the narrator describes himself as sitting in a bar listening to an American pianist friend "kill us softly with some blues".[5][6] Gimbel put the phrase in his "idea book" for use at a future time with a parenthesis around the word "blues" and substituted the word "song" instead.[7]
Don McLean said he didn't know the song described him and, when asked about it, said "I'm absolutely amazed. I've heard both Lori's and Roberta's version and I must say I'm very humbled about the whole thing. You can't help but feel that way about a song written and performed as well as this one is."
Nevertheless, Fox has repudiated Lieberman's having input into the song's creation, saying: "We [Gimbel and Fox] wrote the song and [Lieberman] heard it and said it reminded her of how she felt at [a Don McLean] concert. Don McLean didn't inspire Norman or me to write the song but even Don McLean thinks he's the inspiration for the song."[8]
Don McLean supported Lieberman both on his website and from the stage of a concert which he invited her to attend in 2010. However, the matter only reached an unequivocal conclusion when contemporaneous articles from the early 1970s were exhumed, all of them vindicating Lieberman. In an April 5, 1973 article in the Daily News, Norman Gimbel was quoted as follows: "She [Lori Lieberman] told us about this strong experience she had listening to McLean ('I felt all flushed with fever / Embarrassed by the crowd / I felt he had found my letters / And read each one out loud / I prayed that he would finish / But he just kept right on'). I had a notion this might make a good song so the three of us discussed it. We talked it over several times, just as we did for the rest of the numbers we wrote for this album and we all felt it had possibilities."[9]
Roberta Flack version
Lieberman was the first to record the song in late 1971, releasing it in early 1972.[10] Helen Reddy has said she was sent the song, but "the demo... sat on my turntable for months without being played because I didn't like the title".[11]
Roberta Flack first heard the song on an airline, when the Lieberman original was featured on the in-flight audio program. After scanning the listing of available audio selections, Flack would recall: "The title, of course, smacked me in the face. I immediately pulled out some scratch paper, made musical staves [then] play[ed] the song at least eight to ten times jotting down the melody that I heard. When I landed, I immediately called Quincy [Jones] at his house and asked him how to meet Charles Fox. Two days later I had the music." Shortly afterwards Flack rehearsed the song with her band in the Tuff Gong Studios in Kingston, Jamaica, but did not then record it.[12]
In September 1972, Flack was opening for Marvin Gaye at the Greek Theater; after performing her prepared encore song, Flack was advised by Gaye to sing an additional song. Flack later said, "I said well, I got this song I've been working on called 'Killing Me Softly...' and he said 'Do it, baby.' And I did it and the audience went crazy, and he walked over to me and put his arm around me and said, 'Baby, don't ever do that song again live until you record it.'"[13]
Released in January 1973, Flack's version spent a total of five non-consecutive weeks at #1 in February and March, more weeks than any other record in 1973, being bumped to number 2 by the O'Jays' "Love Train" after four straight weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100. Billboard ranked it as the No. 3 song for 1973.[14]
Charles Fox suggested that Flack's version was more successful than Lieberman's because Flack's "version was faster and she gave it a strong backbeat that wasn't in the original".[8] According to Flack: "My classical background made it possible for me to try a number of things with [the song's arrangement]. I changed parts of the chord structure and chose to end on a major chord. [The song] wasn't written that way."[15] Flack plays electric piano on the track. The bass is played by Ron Carter, the guitar by Hugh McCracken and the drums by Ray Lucas.[citation needed] The single appeared as the opening track of the album of the same name, issued in August 1973.
Flack won the 1973 Grammy Award for Record of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, for the single, with Gimbel and Fox earning the Song of the Year Grammy.
In 1996 a house remix of Flack's version went to number one on the US dance chart.[16]
In 1999 Flack's version was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.[17] It ranked number 360 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and number 82 on Billboard's greatest songs of all time.[18]
lyrics
I heard he sang a good song
I heard he had a style
And so I came to see him
To listen for a while
And there he was this young boy
A stranger to my eyes
Chorus:
Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
I felt all flushed with fever
Embarrassed by the crowd
I felt he found my letters
And read each one out loud
I prayed that he would finish
But he just kept right on
Repeat Chorus
He sang as if he knew me
In all my dark despair
And then he looked right through me
As if I wasn't there
But he just kept on singing
Singing clear and strong
Vicki Lawrence is an American actress, comedian, and pop singer known for the many characters she originated on The Carol
Burnett Show, where she appeared from 1967 to 1978, for the entire series run. One such character, "The Family" matriarch Mrs.Thelma Harper, later was the central character of the television situation comedy series Mama's Family on NBC and, later, in first-run syndication....more
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