| Quiet Fire | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Roberta Flack |
| Cover: | Quiet fire (album cover).jpg |
| Released: | November 1971 |
| Recorded: | 1971 |
| Studio: |
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| Genre: | Soul, gospel |
| Length: | 41:37 |
| Label: | Atlantic |
| Producer: | Joel Dorn |
| Prev Title: | Chapter Two |
| Prev Year: | 1970 |
| Next Title: | Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway |
| Next Year: | 1972 |
Quiet Fire is the third studio album by American singer-songwriter Roberta Flack, released in November 1971 by Atlantic Records. It was recorded at Atlantic Recording Studios, Regent Studios, and The Hit Factory in New York City.[1] The album peaked at number 18 on the Billboard Top LPs & Tape, and its single "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" charted at number 76 on the Hot 100.
At the 15th Annual Grammy Awards, the album secured Roberta Flack a nomination for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female. However, the award went to Helen Reddy for I Am Woman.
In a contemporary review for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau gave Quiet Fire a "C", writing that Flack occasionally "sounds kind, intelligent, and very likable, but she often exhibits the gratuitous gentility you'd expect of anyone who said 'between you and I.'"[2] In a retrospective review, The Rolling Stone Album Guide (1992) gave it two out of five stars and claimed it "barely sparks at all".[3] AllMusic's Stephen Cook was more enthusiastic, giving it four-and-a-half out of five stars and calling it "one of Flack's best". He believed its "varied mix all comes off sounding seamless" while writing: "Forgoing the full-throttled delivery of, say, Aretha Franklin, Flack translates the pathos of gospel expression into measured intensity and sighing, elongated phrases."[4]
| Chart (1972) | Peak position[5] | |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. Billboard < | -- Billboard chart names when the album charted -->Jazz LPs | 5 |
| U.S. Billboard Soul LPs | 4 | |
| U.S. Billboard Top LPs & Tape | 18 |