Roberta Flack Releasing Beatles Tribute Album, Almost Loses It In Cab

Soulful crooner Roberta Flack is returning to the limelight with a Beatles tribute album. She has been working on the record for many months, and it was supposed to be released in April, but delays have kept the album under wraps. Back in February, when she performed at the Grammys, she spoke about the album.

I'm doing a Beatles album for Sony, which will be out on the 21st of April. All Beatles covers -- they did 1,088 songs so I'm gonna do about 14 of them. I've finished about eight, so we're on our way. I have 'Here, There and Everywhere,' 'Here Comes the Sun,' 'Come Together,' 'Eleanor Rigby,' 'Let It Be,' 'Hey Jude.'

Some of the idea to do the album came from sharing a building with John Lennon and Yoko Ono many years ago.

On every holiday and every special occasion that Yoko could think of, she was always sending me little personal [gifts]. She is a lovely person, very misunderstood. I did a lot of their songs when I was starting to make the transition from being a classical pianist to playing pop tunes in a restaurant and a club. I played a lot of Beatles songs for my newfound audience because they were so melodic.

But it almost didn’t happen. Apparently on April 12th, days before the album was to be released, Flack left the record in a suitcase, in a NYC taxi cab. She became panicked and called the cab company, frantic to find her lost masterpiece.

I called 311 and got really no decent response. They connected to me to some people who hung up on me. I said, I’m going down to the Taxi and Limousine Commission before they close.

Luckily, she had saved her receipt, which had the cab’s medallion number on it, so eventually they were able to locate the cab.

It was a wonderful thing. I gave him a big, a huge tip. And he brought me back to the Dakota, and I paid him for that ride, and gave him a big, big, huge tip.

Look for the album to be released on Sony Records in the coming months. Listen to Roberta on the 40th Anniversary show of Let it Be