Happy Anniversary: Roberta Flack, Feel Like Makin’ Love

41 years ago today, Roberta Flack released her fifth solo album, an endeavor with a title cut that provided her with her third #1 single on the Billboard Hot 100.

After the tremendous success of her 1973 album Killing Me Softly, all eyes – and ears – were on Flack to see if she could match the material that had won her the largest audience of her career to date, and she did not disappoint. The title track of the album is easily the best-known song on Feel Like Makin’ Love, and it’s a composition by a man who’d been contributing to Flack’s albums from the very beginning: Gene McDaniels, the writer of “Compared to What,” “Reverend Lee,” “Sunday and Sister Jones,” and “River.” Not only did McDaniels compose the title track of Feel Like Makin’ Love, he also wrote “Old Heartbreak Top Ten” and co-wrote “Feelin’ That Glow” and “Early Ev’ry Midnite” for the album.

As far as its album sales, Feel Like Makin’ Love was a disappointment compared to its predecessor – it didn’t even go gold – but it’s hard to complain about any album that results in a #1 hit, and by the time Flack returned in 1977 with her next album, Blue Lights in the Basement, she was back to gold-record status as well as back in the top 10 of Billboard’s Top 200 Albums chart.