Anita Pointer (The Pointer Sisters) was born on January 23, 1948 in Oakland, California, the fourth of six children to Sarah Elizabeth and Reverend Elton Pointer. Though she was born in California, Pointer’s parents were natives of Arkansas. As a result, her family traveled by car almost yearly from California to Arkansas to visit Pointer’s grandparents who lived in Prescott.
At one point in time, her mother allowed her to stay with her grandparents to attend fifth grade at McRae Elementary, seventh grade at McRae Jr. High, and tenth grade at McRae High School. While in Prescott, she played alto sax as a member of the McRae High School band. In 1969, Pointer quit her job as a secretary to join her younger sisters Bonnie and June to form The Pointer Sisters.
The Pointer Sisters group was initially two sisters, June and Bonnie, who performed as a duo in the late 1960s. Anita, the second oldest, and Ruth, the youngest, subsequently joined. They worked for awhile as backup singers for Taj Mahal, Boz Scaggs, Elvin Bishop and others before releasing their self-titled debut album in 1973, and the Anita-led song “Yes We Can Can,” a funky anthem calling for unity and tolerance, became their breakout hit with another 11 spot on Billboard Hot 100.
They followed up with “That’s A Plenty,” which featured an eclectic mix of musical styles ranging from jazz to gospel to pop. The quartet brought a unique fusion of funk, soul and 1940s-style jazz, scat and pop to their act, often dressing in a retro style that resembled their forerunners the Andrews Sisters.
In 1974, Anita Pointer’s writing talents helped the group make music history when “Fairytale” became a hit on the country music charts (a Grammy Nomination for the Best Country Song of the year in 1975) and enabled The Pointer Sisters to become the first black female group to perform at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville.Â
Bonnie Pointer left the group in 1977, signing a solo deal with Motown Records. Her three sisters, Anita, June and Ruth, nearly disbanded when she quit, but instead regrouped, shed their retro image for a modern pop sound, and became one of the biggest acts of the 1980s with huge hits including “He’s So Shy,” “Jump (For My Love)” and “Neutron Dance.” They not only kept on but then reached stratospheric commercial success in the 1980s with top 10 hits that also included I’m so excited, Slow Hand, He’s So Shy and Fire, the last one written by Bruce Springsteen.
In 1983, the trio’s album Break Out reached multi-platinum status and won the group two more Grammy Awards. Their song Neutron Dance became even better known when it was used in the Eddie Murphy film Beverly Hills Cop to the opening and spectacularly crash-filled chase sequence.
Returning to country in 1987, Pointer found chart success with country superstar Earl Thomas Conley on the song “Too Many Times“, which reached no. 2 on the country chart. Though she continued to sing with the Pointer Sisters until her retirement in 2015 due to health reasons, she released her first solo album Love for What It Is in 1987. Her album’s first single “Overnight Success” reached no. 41 on the Billboard R&B chart.
A second single from the album, More Than a Memory, also charted, reaching No. 73 R&B in 1988. In 1994, Pointer and her sisters received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and in 1998, Anita Pointer was singularly inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame.
The Pointer Sisters won three total Grammy Awards and had 13 US Top 20 hits between 1973 and 1985.
In February 2020, Anita released the book, Fairytale: The Pointer Sisters’ Family Story” which was co-written with her brother, Fritz Pointer. The book chronicles the Pointer family origins and history as well as finding themselves as young black women in the San Francisco Bay Area during the Civil Rights and Black Power movement of the late 1960s. As well, it describes the difficulties and successes they encountered throughout their career and shares their chart history, discography and other surprises along the way.
Anita Pointer died from cancer at her home in Los Angeles on December 31, 2022, at the age of 74.
