By Joan Cambridge-Mayfield- As the poet said — “I’m involved in mankind and therefore any man’s death diminishes me”. Consequently, I’ve mourned with the rest of us, Roberta Flack’s departure to join the ancestors. Not only was I captivated by songs such as The First Time Ever I saw Your Face — and fell in love while imbibing their heady effect— but for a while she was very much a part of my everyday life.
It was the early seventies when the whole world was enchanted by Roberta’s music; successive mellifluous renditions blending R&B, jazz, folk and pop… the inspiration of the radio format called Quiet Storm.
Linden Forbes Burnham, Guyana’s President at the time— like everyone else — was charmed by the diva’s music. He even played Roberta Flack in his Austin Princess car while campaigning on meet-the-people tours. My husband, Julian Mayfield was his Senior Political Advisor.
One day when I happened to be with them on one of these tours, while singing Roberta’s praises I heard the President say —“Mayfield do you know her? Will you arrange a visit to Guyana?”
Julian Mayfield promised the President — though he did not know the singer personally — there would be no problem at all… he definitely knew someone who could… thereafter he worked tirelessly to keep his promise. He immediately contacted his friend Woody King Jr. Woody — now hailed as “The Renaissance Man of Black Theatre” — was at that time building his reputation as a film-maker and director — among other accolades. I recall him being on the phone constantly entreating options to the Mayfield novel The Long Night.
These options were for either three or six months; as soon as an option expired Woody would be reaching out again offering US$500 for yet another one, with Julian insisting: “that ain’t gon cut it Woody” and Woody responding: “C’mon Julian — give a brother a break, will you? I suspect that the breaks Julian always gave his brother hinged on the quid pro quo: Get Roberta Flack to Guyana.
Julian Mayfield was continuously, alternately complaining: “What the hell Woody, why is it taking so long? This is embarrassing me man” — then trying to explain to an impatient President. And Roberta Flack never came to Guyana.
However, Woody King Jr. subsequently made a film of The Long Night, and another… based on the main character in that Mayfield novel, entitled: Steely Brown.
I met Roberta in the USA, many years later at Tom Feelings’s loft in New York — close to the Empire State Building. Tom Feelings is the renowned visual artist and author of the award-winning book of paintings entitled The Middle Passage: White Ships, Black Cargo… a monumental work exploring the horrific travesties of the Atlantic Slave Trade. It was Tom’s Open Letter to Julian Mayfield in Black World (May-Oct 1971) that brought African Americans to Guyana to help the Burnham Government in its thrust to Feed House and Clothe the Nation by 1976.
Roberta and Tom were significant others at the time. I remember her today — an amiable full-bodied Black sister wearing a large Afro hairstyle. I spent that very memorable day a long time ago (the one and only time I ever met her) in the aesthetically pleasing space that was Tom’s spacious gallery Roberta had helped him design to hang the artist’s impressive collection.
After I got over being starstruck, we talked about everything under the sun. I told her my husband and I had bonded over her music… learnt that she was not working at the time because her record label was paying her millions of dollars not to work — until a dispute was settled. Roberta invited me to visit her. I was welcome, she said, to select whatever I wanted from her overflowing wardrobe of beautiful clothes, all of which she could not possibly wear.
Looking back with hindsight I’m saddened that I allowed myself to be convinced (by a friend who was apparently envious) that it would be belittling to accept Roberta Flack’s old clothes.Naturally, I asked Roberta Flack what happened. Why didn’t she come to Guyana?
“I would have loved to come”, she replied — “but I wish y’all had asked someone else to invite me. I can’t stand Woody King!”
