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Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway met each other while
attending Howard University in Washington DC. They became close friends and went on to create Great Music..both
separately...and together.
This week's “Great Song of the '70s” was, sadly, their last hit as a duet.
Donny suffered from crippling bouts of clinical depression, and when “The Closer I Get to You” was recorded in 1978, special arrangements had to be made for him to sing his parts at a separate studio in another city. The tapes were then mixed with Roberta's tapes...and, when released, the single was a huge success: #1 on Billboard's Soul Chart—as well as #2 on The Hot 100 and #3 on the Adult Contemporary Chart. Both Roberta and Donny were nominated for a Grammy.
A few months later, in 1979, Donny was in the middle of
recording another song, when he began to act strangely and started hallucinating. The session was called off, and a few hours later Donny committed suicide by jumping to his death from the 15th floor of the Essex House Hotel in New York City.
Roberta was distraught, but in an epic show of love, sympathy and charity, she announced that all money made from the song would be donated to Donny’'s widow and two children.
From 1978: “The Closer I Get to You” On Greatest hits, 98.1.
From 1978: “The Closer I Get to You:”
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