Anita Pointer, the famed Sister Act’s frequent lead singer, died at the age of 74.
She was the main vocalist on all three of the Pointer Sisters’ early Top 40 successes, and she helped establish the group’s pop sound in the 1980s.
Anita Pointer, the lovely and occasionally sensuous lead vocalist on several Pointer Sisters hits in the 1970s and 1980s, died on Saturday at her home in Beverly Hills, California. She was 74 years old.
What was the cause of death of ANITA POINTER?
According to her publicist, Roger Neal, the cause was cancer.
The Pointer Sisters inhabited a space in pop history between the Ronettes’ doo-wop innocence and Destiny’s Child’s stilettoed lady strength.
That had a lot to do with Anita’s voice. She sung with the molasses-like pace and taste. Though she possessed the virtuosity to trill prettily, she sang too quietly to be dominant. Anita cooed in “Slow Hand,” a love tune with a soft-focus music video that hit No. 2 on the pop charts in 1981.
Her sisters offered a melodic line on background vocals while she sang lead vocals on that song and others, and the women regularly harmonized, building their groovy ’70s sound along the lines of a barbershop quartet.
The Pointer Sisters began with four members: Anita, Ruth, Bonnie, and June, and became a trio when Bonnie left to pursue a solo career in 1977. Anita sang lead on all three of the group’s original Top 40 successes, including the smash hit “Yes We Can Can” from their debut album, “The Pointer Sisters” (1973). That year, it peaked at number eleven on the charts.
What are the debut Songs of Anita Pointer?
Anita sang the song live with a toothy smile and an earnest, begging tone that she may have gotten from hearing her father, a pastor, preach.
Some of the Pointer Sisters’ early work, like as “How Long (Betcha’ Got A Chick On The Side)” (1975), was fast-paced and groovy, but the group’s antiquated vibe was intentional. The Pointer women dressed in discarded clothes that could have been worn to church in the 1940s, and they frequently got their outfits from their mother’s church acquaintances.
They received their first Grammy in the best country vocal performance by a duet or group category for the 1974 song “Fairytale,” written by Anita and Bonnie.
Working outside her family band in 1986, Anita had a rare crossover hit with “Too Many Times,” a duet with country artist Earl Thomas Conley.
Mr. Conley was surprised when the two performed the song on the R&B television show “Soul Train.”
When Bonnie left the Pointer Sisters, they set off on a new path. Its 1978 cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Fire,” which charted at No. 2, was transitional: old-fashioned honky-tonk piano lines, but with Anita as lead vocalist delving into a huskier, sexier side of her low voice.
With “I’m So Excited,” the ensemble had established a largely new sound by 1982. Anita sounded joyful on lead vocals, shouting out come-hither lyrics about “those delights in the night,” and the ensemble followed up with a steamy music video. The song was on the Hot 100 chart for 40 weeks.
Awards and Achievements for Anita Pointer
Anita sang backup on several Pointer Sisters successes, including “Jump (For My Love),” which won the Grammy for duo or group pop performance in 1985, and “Automatic,” which won the Grammy for vocal arrangement for two or more voices that year.
“That’s something I’d always hate to witness — somebody trying to out-sing the other person,” Anita stated in a 2015 YouTube video about her career. “Everyone gave it their all. Onstage, I never felt like we were competing.”
Anita Marie Pointer was born in Oakland, California on January 23, 1948. Both her father, Rev. Elton Pointer, and mother, Sarah Elizabeth Silas Pointer, served a tiny church. Throughout their childhoods, the six Pointer children participated in choir, obtaining vocal training that would help the girls harmonize when they started their own group.
Anita fell in love with her grandparents’ home in Prescott. Where she attended fifth, seventh, and tenth grades, after Elton and Sarah moved there from Arkansas. She went to a racially segregated school. She was forced to sit in the movie theater’s balcony, and once plucked cotton for money.
School and Education of Anita Pointer
In 1965, she graduated from Oakland Technical High School and began working as a legal secretary. She witnessed Bonnie and June perform in front of a throng in San Francisco in 1968. “I just lost it,” she said in 2015 to Collector’s Weekly. “I sat in that audience, crying and singing along. And i resigned my job the next day. “I told myself, ‘I’ve got to sing!'”
The sisters quickly formed a backup band for San Francisco musicians such as Taj Mahal. They were were cautioned not to overshadow a musical artist they were meant to be supporting. They started making their own songs.
Also read the bio of Issa Pointer
Anita amassed a noteworthy collection of artefacts charting Black American history, including artifacts of slavery, segregation, and racist caricature, in addition to music.
“It reminds me that not everyone loves you and that you have to prove them wrong,” Ms. Pointer told Collector’s Weekly. “You’re not a moron. The artists attempted to portray Black people in a derogatory manner. But I think big lips and huge booties are lovely.”
Both of Ms. Pointer’s marriages ended in divorce. Her first marriage’s daughter, Jada, died of cancer in 2003. Bonnie died in 2020, and June died in 2006. Ms. Pointer leaves behind her sister Ruth, brothers Aaron and Fritz, and a granddaughter.
Ms. Pointer never grew tired of her old music, blaring it in her car and singing along. The band continued to perform long into the twenty-first century.
“It’s not a vulgar show, so you can bring your grandmother and your children,” . Ms. Pointer told the French news outlet Metro News in 2007. “They aren’t getting a corset in their face.”
