Roberta Flack, born in Black Mountain in Buncombe County on February 10, 1937, is a Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, and pianist renowned for her smooth, "velvety" voice. One of four children of Laron and Irene Flack, she was exposed to gospel music from an early age, as Mahalia Jackson sang at another church across the street from her house. Her musical style has been fluid, moving between jazz, folk, soul, R&B, and pop, and she won a total of four Grammys, all between 1972 and 1974. Flack has tended to avoid stylistic definitions, saying of her reputation as a jazz performer, "I don't enjoy being labeled as a jazz musician. I think it's limiting." In 2007 she founded the Roberta Flack School of Music at the Hyde Leadership Charter School in New York City, and in 2009 she was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame.