When Celine Dion hit the stage for this classic performance, she told the crowd that she loves singing the next song because of its beautiful lyrics, but “most of all because of the spectacular singer who originally recorded it.” She then dedicated her performance of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” to the late American R&B legend Roberta Flack. The delicate acoustic ballad was just made for Dion, and her emotive vocal performance perfectly accentuated the romantic lyrics.
The Music Man can tell that singing Flack’s hit meant a lot to Dion, and she really gave the song a heartfelt treatment. Aside from her incredible voice, one of the keys to Dion’s chart-topping success is her understanding of dynamics and musicality. She showed that off to great effect here, at first singing in a whispery low register, and bringing the song to an exquisite climax in the bridge, before expertly paring it back down to a delicate finish.
Dion released the cover as part of her February 2001 video release All the Way… A Decade of Song & Video. Dion re-released the classic performance in high definition on YouTube in 2024. Fans were loving the throwback, and added comments such as “Not too many vocalists have the skill and talent to perform a Roberta Flack song and do it justice! Celine Dion did it!” and “I would challenge anyone to match that perfection. There is no one who could do that. Such control and legato, dynamics, etc. Just wow.”
Dion has quite the studio output to her name, but the Music Man always believed that the real Dion experience comes with her live show. One of her greatest live moments came when she performed the ballad “The Power of Love” on her Taking Chances World Tour. The song was originally co-written and recorded by Jennifer Rush, but Dion’s smash hit version has become the definitive version for many pop fans.
British singer-songwriter Ewan MacColl wrote “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” for Peggy Seeger, whom he later married. Seeger said that MacColl demoed the song for her, and she performed it live several times. Although Dion claimed onstage that Roberta Flack originally recorded the ballad, this is not actually the case. One of the earliest commercial recordings of the song was Bonnie Dobson’s 1961 version. Flack did, however, popularise it with her 1972 recording of the song, which topped the Billboard Hot 100.