Pointer Sisters heading to Oz
Anita Pointer is the first to admit that being in a girl group takes work. Speaking to the Star Observer from her Los Angeles home, the Pointer Sisters singer had a theory about why girl bands tend to implode more quickly than their male equivalents.
“Destiny’s Child, En Vogue — they’re all solo artists nowadays. And do you know why? Because girl groups are hard,” she cackled. “Keeping girls happy together on the road? That takes work, let me tell you!”
The Pointer Sisters story is testament to this. Formed in 1969 and performing during their heyday as both a trio and a quartet, the modern incarnation of the group retains only Anita and Ruth from the original line-up. June died of cancer in 2006, while Bonnie’s relationship with her surviving sisters has been weakened by her history of drug abuse.
Anita and Ruth are now joined on the road by Ruth’s 27-year-old granddaughter Sadako Johnson. This intergenerational line-up looks much less incongruous than one might expect, thanks to the eternally youthful visages of Ruth and Anita, now 65 and 63 respectively.
The trio will tour Australia later this year, in a show Anita described as “a revue with all of our hits — fun, happy and energetic. It’s a mutual lovefest between us and the audience.
“We also have a great band coming with us this time, and that makes such a difference — it makes you feel kind of cosy up there. Like you could just lay back in their arms.”
When asked what song she most enjoyed performing, Anita chose I’m So Excited — not the group’s biggest hit, but surely their most instantly recognisable.
“All our hits are fun to perform, but I have a special place in my heart for I’m So Excited. It’s our theme song.”
It’s also one of the group’s self-penned songs, but Anita said she saw no division between their original hits and the cover versions they’d made popular, such as their 1978 take on Bruce Springsteen’s Fire.
“I just wish we got publishing rights on all of them,” she laughed. “That’s the big difference! But they’re all our babies, and I think it’s our duty to keep them alive all these years later.”
Casual fans of the Pointer Sisters would know them best for their biggest album, the aptly titled 1983 multi-million seller Break Out. But before that sleek electro-pop record, they dabbled in a confounding number of genres.
During the 1970s, funk numbers like How Long (Betcha Got a Chick on the Side) topped the R&B charts, sweet girl group songs like He’s So Shy roared up the mainstream pop charts and the sisters even conquered country with the June-penned Fairytale, which landed them the 1974 Grammy Award for Best Country Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group.
“I remember our very first recording sessions in New Orleans, they laughed at the songs we had. They told us, ‘Black girls can’t sing that kind of stuff’,” Anita recalled.
“When we did Fairytale, there were people who protested it. There were people who were outside the Grand Ole Opry [the Pointer Sisters were the first black female singers to perform at the iconic country venue] with signs saying ‘Keep country music country’. They had to whisk us in fast to get away from all the protesters.
“The funny thing is, the song was such a hit on country radio, and a lot of listeners didn’t even know we were black.”
But it’s their mid-’80s hits — among them Dare Me, Jump (For My Love) and Neutron Dance — that are still being sampled and covered to this day. Anita said she looked back fondly on the fun (and fashions) of their peak era.
“Just recently we had a show at the Roxy in LA, and my nephew organised a Pointer Sisters memorabilia fashion show, with models wearing all our old outfits. It cracked me up, all the different styles we went through with the big ol’ hair, the big ol’ clothes, the big ol’ shoulder pads.
“It was so much fun, and so much of it was almost Lady Gaga-ish. I’m tellin’ you, it’s all been done before.”
And how does she look back on 1983, the year the group suddenly found themselves an ‘overnight success’ with the release of their 10th — yes, 10th — album?
“We really enjoyed it, but it was a whirlwind. Being the ‘hot new thing’ is a great feeling, but it comes and goes very quickly in this business. You don’t stay the hot new thing for long! We spent a few years there having dreams come true, but a lot of it was such a blur, because when you’re hot you’re hot, and they will run you to death.
“We didn’t mind though — our motto was that we could always do one more show. I guess that’s still our motto.”
INFO: Pointer Sisters, Palais Theatre Melbourne, November 7. Tickets through Ticketmaster. Enmore Theatre, Sydney, November 16. Tickets through Ticketek.
