Awarded Song of the Year in 1976, it was written by Stephen Sondheim for the musical play A Little Night Music. It was Judy Collins that had the hit with her incredible interpretation when she covered it in 1975 and it was her version cited for the award. This helps to demonstrate my point I had made in an earlier post about the cover versions being responsible for the writer winning the Grammy. To take nothing away from the original from 1973.

The play opened in New York in 1973. The song was sung beautifully by Glynnis Johns playing the character of Desiree Armfeldt, both in the play and on the Original Cast Recording, released in April 1973. Glynnis just past away on Jan 24, 2024, she was 100 years old.

The song was first covered by Frank Sinatra in 1973, Collins would be the eighth version and there are now 487 recordings.

“Killing Me Softy with His Song” was recorded by Roberta Flack and released in January of 1973.

Roberta was on a plane and reading a brochure of the inflight song selection and was curious about the title. She was immediately struck with the lyrics of the song and listened to the recording by Lori Lieberman five times before the plane landed.

The story in the last post on Flack’s cover of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” has quite the back story and this song is no different. But lets get the basics out of the way first.

Roberta would repeat her 1973 win in 1974 with her version of “Killing Me Softy with His Song” and be awarded Record of the Year. She used the same producer Joel Dorn who had successes with other artists such as Bett Midler, The Allman Brothers Band, The Neville Brothers and several Jazz musicians. His two Grammys were with Roberta Flack. She was the first artist to win back to back and not only that she also won Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Roberta had made several chord and other changes, along with that incredible voice.

Based on the Robert Flack cover the song would also win for Song of the Year, the award going to the credited songwriters, Norman Gimble and Charles Fox.

Gimbel and Fox were very successful songwriters and music entrepreneurs. While they have separate credits for many songs, together they wrote “I Got a Name” by Jim Croce which was released after his death and reached #10 on the Hot 100. The also wrote songs for Barry Manilow, Rosemary Clooney and Jenifer Warnes to name a few. Gimbel wrote the English lyrics for “The Girl from Ipanema” and a number of other foreign language songs that were very successful.

You may be aware there is some controversy over the origins of the song. This is my understanding. Lori Lieberman was contracted to Gimbel and Fox’s publishing company as a singer-songwriter. Her side of the story is that she was inspired to write some basic lyrics to the song after listening to a Don McLean performance. She wrote the words on a bar napkin and would later reveal them to Charles Fox.

For Fox and Gimbel’s side of the story they said she had nothing to do with the song, and they wrote it for her to record. They say her story is revisionist history and discredited her as someone who wanted to cash in on the success of Roberta Flack’s version. However published articles from 1973 were later found and would reveal that Gimbel referred to Lieberman’s “strong experience’ after seeing McLean and another referenced Lieberman, Gimbel and Fox as a songwriting team.

Unfortunately, Lori did not have the napkin nor a written copy of the lyrics. She was just 19 at the time and unaware of the potential pitfalls of the publishing business. She has never claimed she wrote the song, just that she contributed the concept and some of the words. Though her story seems quite credible to me and more importantly to Roberta Flack and Don McLean, the official song credits have not changed. Many sources cite her as an uncredited Songwriter. She continues to perform and write songs and has had a moderately successful career.

I have not found any evidence Lieberman has received any payment or royalties from the song. Gimbel’s estate was said to be worth more than 35 million dollars when he died in 2018. As for the song The Fugees would release a version in 1996, though not a single in the US, the album sold 22 million copies worldwide. The song was #2 on the Hot Airplay chart and as a single, it was a smash hit in Europe selling a reported 15 million copies. I did read a reference The Fugees said their version generated some 8 million dollars in royalties to the songwriters, this to me sounds like an an accurate estimate.

“The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” by Roberta Flack, was released in June of 1969.

Flack’s version would win the songwriter Ewan MacColl the Grammy for Song of the Year in 1973. It would also win her Record of the Year, produced by Joel Dorn (remember that name for the next post).

The story of the song is best told with slides and a flow-chart but I will do my best to keep it short. “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” was written by Ewan MacColl for his then mistress American Folk singer, Peggy Seeger. They had started a relationship in the mid 1950’s while he was married to his second wife, ironically named Jean Newlove with whom he had singer Kirsty MacColl (1959–2000). Seeger’s work permit was about to expire in the UK so they came up with a plan for Peggy to marry British Folk singer Alex Campbell in 1958 thus allowing her to stay in the Country and continue the affair with MacColl. The two would eventually marry in 1977 and remained so until MacColl’s death in 1989.

After being serenaded by Ewan so often, Peggy began singing the song on the Folk Music circuit in the late 1950s. Enter Canadian Folk singer, Bonnie Dobson. She heard Peggy singing it and by 1960, several others began performing it at Folk Festivals as well. Bonnie made an album in 1961 and she added “The First Time”, unknowingly the very first to record and release it. I cannot find a clip of it anywhere. The then-very famous The Kingston Trio put it on an album next.

Finally, Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl recorded and released it in 1962. On YouTube there is a video of the song labelled as 1957 but it is actually this same 1962 recording I have included below. It was recorded with various titles by over 20 singers before Flack put it on her 1969 debut album.

“The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” vocals by Peggy Seeger and released with Ewan MacColl.

Up to this point, no version of the song had reached the charts. In 1971 after hearing it on his car radio, Clint Eastwood used the song in the movie Play Misty for Me. More people liked the song and began requesting it on the radio. They re-released a shorter version of the song late in 1971. In 1972 it was #1 (for six weeks) on the Hot 100 and The Easy Listening chart, #4 on the R&B chart, #1 in Canada and Australia, #17 in New Zealand and #14 in the UK. It ended 1972 as the #1 song on the Hot 100.

There are currently 328 versions.

“Little Green Apples” was first recorded by Roger Miller released in February 1968. The song reached #6 on the Country and #39 on the Hot 100 Charts.

This was the Song of the Year winner for 1969. Written by Bobby Russell who also wrote “Honey”, #1 for Bobby Goldsboro and “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” a #1 hit in 1972 for his wife, Vicki Lawrence.

The cited recording for Song of the Year was the version by O.C. Smith, the fourth of 30 versions in 1968. Smith’s rendition would reach #2 on the Hot 100 and finish the year at #12. It also went to #2 on the R&B chart. There are now 219 recordings of the song.

“Little Green Apples” in the same year would win Best Country Song but Roger Miller’s original was the recording cited. In the same category, Bobby Russell was also nominated for the Bobby Goldsboro version of “Honey”, originally recorded by Bob Shane of the Kingston Trio (1968).

1968 is the first year the same Cover Song won for both Record of the Year and Song of the Year. Written by Jimmy Webb who was just 21 years of age at the time and he would go on to win two more Grammys. The song was produced by Marc Gordon and recording artist Johnny Rivers who was the founder of the Record label, Soul City Records. The Wrecking Crew was the backing band, quite often the recipe for success for any song.

It would also win for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals, Best Performance by a Vocal Group, Best Performance by a Chorus and Best Contemporary Song. Six Grammys in all, incredible.

Imperial Records had every intention of releasing the song by The Sunshine Company but got beat to the punch, The 5th Dimension song was immediately a smash hit that reached #7 on the Hot 100 and they never bothered to try it as a single. It appears on the album, Happy Is The Sunshine Company. Happier still had they had the success. “Early bird gets the worm as they say”. Still Six Grammys for a song that peaked at #7, wow, that is something!