Pointer Sisters - A Family Affair

The Pointer Sisters just like music, plain and simple!

Those are Ruth Pointer's words, describing her band to the audience at the Attic Nightclub in Greenville, NC, during a 1981 concert. There's no better way to sum up the art of the Pointer Sisters: four blood sisters, raised with a passion for dressing up, styling their hair and performing for anyone who happened to cross their path. From the family living room to neighborhood clubs, from the legendary Troubadour to the Grammy stage, their style shows a fresh, genuine and at times distinctly comic ease of execution, which never quite made the group a phenomenon on the level of other family-run clans like the Jacksons or the DeBarges, but which, in turn, granted them longevity and the ability to keep exploring new styles. Entire generations of listeners have found in the Pointer family's music the soundtrack to everyday life. Jazz, rock, funk, boogie, old Broadway musicals, r&b, dance, new jack swing and more: the Pointer Sisters' discography is a rich and varied cross-section of American music, packed with releases and studded with hits both big and small. Topped off by a late-career twist: a flawless pop album, arriving well into their career, capable of capturing moods both past and future and distilling them into ten dazzling, textbook songs.

So who are these fine ladies? Ruth Ester (1946) is the eldest of the sisters, the group's lowest, most androgynous and rock'n'roll voice, usually on backing vocals, but also the responsible figure who looks after the others and keeps the project on course — she'll be the only one to stay true to the band's name over the years and never launch a solo career. She will, however, go through no fewer than five different husbands: during a funny interview on Joan Rivers's talk show, the other sisters admit they've lost count. But her recent autobiography — "Still So Excited! My Life As A Pointer Sister" (2016) — shed light on a side of her private life that was anything but easy, especially when show business is involved: violent, failed marriages, nervous breakdowns, family quarrels, drug problems, the free abuse of diet pills (a phenomenon spiraling out of control in America at the time) — all while raising five children. Over time, Ruth has proven to have nerves of steel, and to this day she still leads the group's rare performances alongside her daughter Issa and granddaughter Sadako.

Anita Marie (1948), on the other hand, is quieter and more introverted by nature, but particularly striking both on stage and in the studio — she's the group's main voice, the one who delivers some of its most memorable performances thanks to an elegant, smooth tone full of pathos. For her too, being an absent mother was a bitter pill to swallow over the years, compounded by the stress of a career lived at full speed and a casual use of alcohol and drugs that would undermine her work later in life. Her passing, in December 2022, left a void that can never be filled.

Patricia Eve, known as Bonnie (1950), the family's stylish one, left the group after their fourth album in 1976 to pursue a brief solo career, still managing to release a couple of delightful records and a few memorable hidden gems for lovers of the sleekest, most elegant disco and funk. Her professional relationship with her sisters wasn't always the best, due to an underlying rivalry and a natural impatience with having to negotiate every decision among four people — Bonnie preferred going it alone, helped along by a naturally sexy presence and a voice full of jazz nuances. For her too, the price to pay would be steep, worn down by years of substance abuse and a life often lived on the fringes of show business. Her passing, in June 2020, was nonetheless a hard blow both for her family and for all the fans who never forgot her.

June Antoinette (1953), finally, is the baby of the family, the freshest and most spirited presence, the band's other main solo voice, always quick-witted and smiling. But hers was not an easy life; at just fifteen she was the victim of a gang rape, a situation her family tried to help her through as best they could, but, as Ruth recounted years later, psychological support for sexual violence in those days wasn't up to the gravity of what had happened. June never revealed the names of her attackers, carrying that trauma with her until her death. With money and fame came a casual use of drugs for her too, as was common throughout the record industry, but, unlike her sisters, she was never able to break free of her addiction, and in 2002 she had to leave the group to get clean. June died in 2006 at just 52, following a string of complications caused by health that had visibly deteriorated over time.

The Pointer household also has two older brothers: the eldest, Fritz, a professor who co-wrote the Pointer Sisters' official biography together with his sister Anita, and the second-eldest, Aaron, a professional baseball player who was quite famous in the 1960s with the Houston Astros.

In short, a family overflowing with characters and personalities, where things could tip into chaos in an instant. The parents had a strong sense of duty and discipline: the father, Elton, was in fact the pastor of the West Oakland Church Of God, while the mother, Elizabeth, was a devout believer. Together, the couple did everything they could to keep their children in line, taking them all to church every single Sunday morning to sing in the choir. A strict, highly protective upbringing, one that gave the Pointer clan a childhood unanimously described by all involved as "idyllic" – but one that didn't prepare them to face, as adults, a far more sordid and dangerous world. Between unexpected pregnancies outside of marriage, drug use and a poor grasp of the record industry, the Pointer daughters would learn the cost of life the hard way, scar after slap. That's partly why the best music in their catalogue is instinctively recognizable: it's steeped in a deep sense of complicity, as joyful as a happy childhood yet shot through with edgy mood swings – what else could possibly have come out of a family like that?

And all that jazz!: from vintage flea markets to funky get-ups – the exciting and fun years at Blue Thumb

At first it's the youngest of the family – Bonnie and June – who catch the music bug from singing in their father's church choir; as soon as they finish school they start performing in clubs around the Oakland metro area under the name Pointer, A Pair. But their musical education is a strange one, because at home they only have access to collections of old gospel standards, jazz and Broadway songbook tunes – they're absolutely forbidden from listening to rock'n'roll, the "devil's music". But one day, their mother Elizabeth unwisely lets June talk her into letting her keep the 7" of “All Shook Up” by Elvis Presley, only because the B-side has a song called “Crying In The Chapel”. The damage is done.

During one of the two Pointers' shows, among the audience is Anita, who by 1966 already has a daughter but is far from satisfied with her life: watching the younger sisters harmonize on stage convinces her to quit her job on the spot and join the group.

Finally, there's Ruth, who at the time is having a rougher time than anyone; she got pregnant at just nineteen without being married – her firstborn, Faun, is born in 1965: a scandal within the Church Of God community, to the point that the Pointer family's father is, for a time, pushed out of his own church, creating serious tension within the family. Within a year Ruth gives birth to her second child, Malik, but her partner is a distant, absent man with a drinking problem who often turns violent. Ruth soon finds herself single, alone and broke, forced for a while to survive by selling marijuana around the West Coast with two infants in tow. She too loves music, but joining her sisters' band in those years is mostly a matter of support and survival; her talent will gradually emerge within the group as her career develops.

Among the first gigs the Pointer Sisters take on as a foursome, at the dawn of the '70s, are backing-vocal jobs for people hardly associated with church music: Grace Slick, the future Queen of Disco Sylvester, a not-yet-famous Boz Scaggs, and bluesman Elvin Bishop. Through the latter, the girls land their first deal with Atlantic, but the relationship is short-lived. The two 7"s they record – “Don't Try To Take The Fifth” and “Destination No More Heartaches” – are tiny shards of raw power-soul, all strings and trotting rhythm, drawing on contemporary hits by Jackson 5, Labelle and Starlets, but success proves elusive for the Pointers. Curiously, the B-side of the second single – a short track titled “Send Him Back” – would go on to become a top-tier rarity in the British northern soul scene, thanks to its dramatic, emotionally charged groove, perfect for accompanying dancers' spins in Manchester and Liverpool. To this day, it remains a highly sought-after collector's item.

But with that first failure already under their belt, the need arises to give the group a makeover, and the choice is nothing short of peculiar: the girls raid West Coast thrift markets in search of 1940s-style dresses, hats, gloves and pearl necklaces, transforming themselves into a bizarre cabaret version of the Bronte sisters. A quirky, deliberately ironic look that catches the attention of club-goers, enough, in short, to land a deal with the eclectic and wildly unpredictable Blue Thumb, the independent label that would accompany them through the first stretch of their career. A meeting of minds that works brilliantly precisely because there are no rules: among the four sisters' labelmates at the time are the likes of Captain Beefheart, Love and Sun Ra, as well as the aforementioned glam-era Sylvester with his improvised Hot Band – a joyful, free-for-all jumble with no common thread, where there's room for everyone, as long as you've got imagination and the nerve to dive headlong into the psychedelic revolution.

The Pointer Sisters sees the light of day in 1973, produced by David Rubinson. The lead single “Yes We Can Can”, written by Allen Toussaint and originally recorded by Lee Dorsey for Chicago's Chess label, is a bone-dry funk jam driven by bass and a blues guitar that doesn't stray too far from the original, but with Anita on lead and the other three trading off their own parts, the track gains a dynamism that's instantly endearing. Thanks to a couple of performances at the famous Troubadour, and TV appearances on the then-popular “Helen Reddy Show” and the ever-present “Soul Train”, the song climbs the American charts to No. 11 – the first of thirteen singles that would grace the Billboard Top 20 over the course of their entire career. The other single, “Wang Dang Doodle”, also comes from the Chess catalogue via the gravel-voiced Howlin' Wolf (later also covered by PJ Harvey); here the four sisters romp through it freely and joyfully, turning it into another delightfully cult moment.

The Pointer Sisters is an album that fits easily into the West Coast counterculture of the early '70s, as shown by the other seven-minute tracks, the sour-edged jam “That's How I Feel”, and the Beatles-esque, reverb-laden ballad “River Boulevard”, originally written by Barbara Mauritz of Lamb, a freak-folk band well known around San Francisco. But between jazz moments like “Cloudburst” and “Jada” (the latter the only track written entirely by the sisters themselves, dedicated to Anita's little daughter), and musical-theatre numbers like “Old Songs” and “Pains And Tears”, where the girls huff and puff like locomotives and chase each other through the call-and-response lines like mischievous kids, The Pointer Sisters takes on a peculiar vintage slant that sets it apart from the conventions of the era. A likeable, warm record that doesn't necessarily win over the mainstream audience, but which captures that sense of freewheeling, boisterous freedom that must have filled the Pointer household when the girls, as kids, pushed the sofa against the wall and turned the living room into the stage of their dreams.

The sense of fun doesn't fade with the next chapter either, but now the girls sharpen their craft, Rubinson brings in a parade of musicians from the jazz world for the sessions (among whom a certain Herbie Hancock stands out on piano), and the result speaks for itself: That's A Plenty (1974) is immediately the finest chapter of the Pointer Sisters' entire Blue Thumb era.

The swing and bebop-flavored moments are simply a blast: “Bangin' On The Pipes/Steam Heat” – a medley built on a Broadway classic written by the famous Adler/Ross duo and choreographed by Bob Fosse – tells the absurd story of a malfunctioning radiator in the dead of winter, while “That's A Plenty/Surfeit, USA” blends a ragtime number with a famous traditional march into a joyful four-voice racket, with piano and drums blazing away at full tilt. Then there's a version of Dizzy Gillespie's nonsense tune “Salt Peanuts”, turned into a frantic surrealist vignette: the girls improvise a four-way dialogue highlighting their different vocal timbres, Hancock lets loose with a sparkling piano solo, and drummer Gaylord Birch indulges himself freely. It really does feel like being in some little Berlin club in the '30s, having a blast at three in the morning – a fascination with bygone times that was also experiencing a revival in those years thanks to “Cabaret”, the celebrated film for which the fabulous Liza Minnelli would win an Oscar.

But That's A Plenty is also something else; the pure Delta blues of Son House's “Grinning In Your Face” is reprised by the girls all in chorus, and there's no shortage of fine jazz excursions either: the self-penned “Shaky Flat Blues”, credited to June/Anita/Bonnie, and a murky yet deeply felt version of “Black Coffee”, a standard already made famous by singers of the caliber of Sarah Vaughan, Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald (and later also Sinead O'Connor, who would record a version brimming with pathos). Closing out the album is “Love In Them There Hills”, originally performed by '60s vocal group The Vibrations, which the sisters here transform into an eight-and-a-half-minute tropical-funk psychedelic epic, making the whole of That's A Plenty simply too curious and compelling a listen for even a modern listener to resist.

But that's not all; Bonnie and Anita write “Fairytale” on their own, a perfect stylistic homage to a classic country song of heartbreak, and for the arrangement Rubinson brings in musicians straight from that world: David Briggs on piano, Ken Buttrey on drums, Bobby Thompson on banjo and Weldon Myrik on guitar. The track is a big success (No. 13 on Billboard), partly because it's such a completely unexpected release for the Pointer Sisters – the girls are invited to play the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, and that same year, 1974, they pull off a total surprise by winning a Grammy for “Best Country Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group”.

Proof of just how good the band was in those years comes with Live At The Opera House, recorded in San Francisco on the evening of April 21, 1974 – the Pointer Sisters are the first act of popular extraction to play on that stage, kicking off a long tradition of crossovers between classical and pop (five years later, their friend Sylvester would record his sensational live album “Living Proof” on that very same stage).

The concert, divided into fifteen tracks spanning an orchestral ouverture ("Prelude To Islandia"), the sisters' entrance and exit ("Walk-On"/"Walk-Off"), vocal medleys and dialogue, highlights the palpable synergy between the sisters, packing the setlist with all the main songs recorded up to that point. The Pointer Sisters clearly seem to be having fun, but far from being a prim and proper quartet harmonizing in unison choreography like the Four Tops, the women embody instead the rawer spirit of rhythm'n'blues and Broadway musicals, blending it with the hippie attitude typical of the city hosting them.

"Salt Peanuts" is sheer, glorious chaos, "Cloudburst" is likewise a tumbling chase of voices and torrents of piano, and even "Jada", dedicated to their little niece, draws a genuine smile, especially in the finale: mama Anita and her three aunts give themselves over to the nonsensical sounds small children make when they can't yet talk but already seem to have plenty to say. There's never a lack of professionalism, though; the country of "Fairytale" and the enveloping "Black Coffee" are delivered with real emphasis, and the grand finale of "Love In Them There Hills" stretches out past nine minutes of dada-psychedelic jumble without ever losing its rhythmic drive, ending by wrapping band, singers and audience alike in a shared embrace of peace and love.

Live At The Opera House doesn't sell particularly well, but it remains a classic for fans of the group as well as an important document in their story: the Pointer Sisters prove they can command a stage with real nonchalance, and despite the ups and downs of record sales over the years, their live career will keep going strong with considerable success.

With the acquisition of Blue Thumb by the larger Abc label toward the end of 1974, however, things change quickly. The new management keeps the original imprint alive but asks the sisters to change their look and adjust direction, moving out of the 1940s and into the present. Still under David Rubinson's production, both Steppin' (1975) and Having A Party (1977) begin to set jazz and swing aside somewhat, focusing even more on r&b, funk and psychedelic jams. Gone too are the lace dresses and straw hats: the cover of Steppin' shows an acid-colored drawing of a pair of platform shoes more fitting for glam and disco, while that of Having A Party is a mini-Polaroid of the four singers against a plain white background with soap-bubble graphics.

It has to be said that the Pointer Sisters show zero trouble adapting to the change, after all between "Yes We Can Can" and "Love In Them There Hills" they'd already amply proven they have a rather weird soul. The gamble pays off, too: the first single pulled from Steppin' — a torrid, sensual jam penned by the group, running over seven minutes, called "How Long (Betcha' Gon a Chick On The Side)" — cracks the American Top 20, finding an audience among fans of Isaac Hayes, Parliament and other giants of soul, funk and psychedelic r&b.

Between a sweet, elegantly urban soul ballad co-written by Hayes himself ("Easy Days") and sweaty wah-wah workouts ("Chainey Do" and "Going Down Slowly"), Steppin' once again shows off the Pointer Sisters' ease at turning anything into entertainment. The album's more straightforwardly jazz moments — a maxi-medley of Duke Ellington songs built around "I Ain't Got Nothing But The Blues", "Save The Bones For Henry Jones" and a rendition of Burt Bacharach's "Wanting Things" — reveal a warmer, more enveloping instrumental backdrop, while the vocal harmonies are more careful, sparing and elegant.

Overall, another curious record, at times downright eccentric, but overflowing with both personality and the four sisters' sheer love of having fun. There's a rare, decent-quality video document floating around online from 1975, in which the Pointer Sisters perform some of their best-known songs up to that point — a scant half hour of a concert capable of putting the listener at peace with the world:

The new direction dictated by Abc is fully realized two years later with Having A Party, a record packed with elegant — and this time glossier — funk and r&b songs, where jazz is finally done away with entirely and things kick off right from the start with the blazing title track, a song originally sung by Sam Cooke.

There's a certain eroticism to "Don't It Drive You Crazy" and "I Need A Man", though these tracks still don't match the hottest-blooded spirits of the disco music that's building in popularity across the charts of the entire Western world. Then there's the charming "Waiting On You", which could pass for a Bill Withers song, and a run-of-the-mill slow dance number like "I'll Get By Without You", but this time not much else.

Having A Party is a pleasant record, well arranged and performed with skill by professionals, but one that doesn't always rise above the average funk-r&b of the period, and it ends up getting lost amid the market carousel currently being ridden by the far more pronounced successes of the likes of Nile Rodgers and Stevie Wonder. Wonder himself, in fact, co-writes a song on Having A Party together with Bonnie and Anita — the sweet ballad with electronic warmth and a samba rhythm, "Bring Your Sweet Stuff Home To Me" — but unfortunately it's never released as a single and remains largely unknown to this day. Much like Minnie Riperton, who that same year, 1977, is working similar territory with "Stay In Love", Having A Party receives little attention upon release, and over time has become one of the least-known records in the group's entire catalog.

Having A Party is also, in many ways, a final chapter. The youngest of the family — June — is absent for most of the recording sessions due to the stress of life on the road, and she'll rejoin the group starting with the next record. The real problem, though, is Bonnie: once she marries Jeffrey Bowen — a Motown bigwig — she leaves the group and launches a solo career under her husband's own label. With the exception of a few rare future appearances — including the ceremony for receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1994 — we won't see her on stage with the others again.

Following the modest success of both Steppin' and Having A Party, and with the lineup on the brink of collapse, the remaining Ruth and Anita bring their Abc/Blue Thumb contract to an end. This closes the first chapter of the Pointer Sisters' career, perhaps the one least known to the general public, but one that in truth conceals some of their most curious, bizarre, genuine and entertaining moments. Proof that, despite all the naif carefree spirit of youth, these four sisters truly have music in their blood.

And then there were three: in the swamps of the Delta — the early Planet years and a wicked, sinful Bonnie

Once June rejoins the ranks, the Pointer Sisters start over as a trio, signing with Planet, another mid-sized label with whom they'll release records up until their big breakthrough in 1983 — though to get there they'll have to wade through a handful of albums with decidedly mixed fortunes.

The new contract kicks off with Energy (1978), ten songs veering towards rock, blues and even glam under the wing of new studio producer Richard Perry. An altogether curious choice, but one that initially pays off in the right way: the lead single “Fire” – a cover of a song by Bruce Springsteenthat was left off his “Darkness On The Edge Of Town” – unexpectedly climbs to No. 2 on the Billboard chart (and hits the top spot in New Zealand), an excellent radio hit capable of bringing the Pointer Sisters' name to the ears of a whole new audience. Years later, June herself would reflect on the matter:

We'd had gold certifications for albums before that, but never for a single. We hadn't realized the importance of having a song in radio rotation, it opens doors you can't even imagine.

And indeed, riding the wave of “Fire”'s success, the girls soon set off on tour across America, buoyed by a single capable of getting the whole crowd singing along (and of carrying the entire Energy to No. 13 on the Chart, where it earns gold certification). Rumor has it that Springsteen was initially annoyed by the success of one of his songs performed by someone else – regarded more as an “album artist,” the Boss had not, up to that point, achieved such a chart placing with one of his own singles (he would have to wait another couple of years to finally taste the Top Ten with “Hungry Heart”, the single lifted from “The River“). In time, however, “Fire” would become one of his live warhorses, as well as a song much loved by his audience (a situation curiously analogous to the relationship between Prince and that “Nothing Compares 2 U” which Sinead O’Connor would turn into one of his biggest standards).

The rest of the music on Energy lives up to its title in terms of sheer volume of voices, guitars and drums – just listen to the bouncing, Marc Bolan-like entrance of “Lay It On The Line” – but in truth, as a piece of work, the record is a thoroughly standard product. With Bonnie no longer in the studio – she had usually handled co-writing duties on the original songs – the remaining sisters don't put their names on any tracks for now. Besides Springsteen, there's a string of covers of other people's songs – and what names they are: Fleetwood Mac (“Hypnotized”), Doobie Brothers (“Echoes Of Love”), Steely Dan (“Dirty Work”), Stephen Stills (“As I Come Of Age”), Sly & The Family Stone (“Everybody Is A Star”) and the Loggins/Messina duo (“Angry Eyes”). All well-played moments, performed with verve, but in the end they never stray far from the originals and don't show the kind of enthusiasm found in the swing and bebop covers of their early days. Sure, “Happiness” – a previously unreleased song written for them by their trusted Toussaint – shakes its hips happily over a rhythm close to disco, but even released as a single it fails to achieve the hoped-for success.

Energy is symptomatic of a very specific era in the record industry of the '60s and '70s: the era of physical record sales, when labels had steady revenue streams at their disposal and it was standard practice to book studio time whenever needed thanks to the support of an entire team of full-time salaried professional musicians. Even without having to shift millions of copies, a standard figure of 50,000 copies was enough to cover the costs of a mass-produced record, which is why so many performers in those years churned out album after album even when there probably wasn't much artistic need to. From Aretha Franklin to Diana Ross, from Barbra Streisand to Liza Minnelli, from Dusty Springfield to Petula Clark, from Cher to Tina Turner: legendary voices and multimillionaire popstars, with incredibly long careers and massive hits. But their discographies are often littered with a myriad of minor records released in quick succession, almost always made up of covers of other people's songs or mass-produced by the label's in-house team, almost always decent in craftsmanship but of little interest to modern ears, almost always out of print and forgotten by both the public and the performers themselves. A kind of graveyard of the old record-industry world, if you will, in which even the Pointer Sisters have their own headstones.

Now it's departed member Bonnie who piques listeners' curiosity, releasing on Motown, also in 1978, her solo debut Bonnie Pointer – Red Album (the “red” refers to the background of the cover photo, and it's still referred to that way today to distinguish it from the follow-up, which carries the same title but has a purple background). A record that doesn't sell much, quite the opposite, but one that shows a definite ear for sounds much more in step with the times: delicate disco music and intimate soul, strings, unison backing vocals and sinful, silk-veiled boudoir sensuality.

The outstanding “Heaven Must Have Sent You” was an instant cult favorite among genre fans, thanks to the way spirited vocal arrangements evoking the Ronettes and Supremes are set over a brisk, trotting rhythm, a track that would be remixed several times over the years – including an irresistible nearly seven-minute disco-mix. Along the same lines is another disco moment, this time leaning towards the erotic – its full title? “Free Me From My Freedom/Tie Me To A Tree (Handcuff Me)”, the kind of thing that wouldn't get greenlit today for any amount of money, but in Bonnie's mouth the song takes on a knowing tone that's certainly not without irony (helped along by that curious banjo solo tucked in the middle).

In just eight songs, Bonnie Pointer – Red Album is a perfect artifact of its era; fresh, watered-down funk ditties (“When I’m Gone”, “Ah Shoot”) but also touched by tropical flourishes – the evocative woodwind figure on “I Wanna Make It (In Your World)” – a couple of gentle acoustic ballads where Bonnie's timbre shows a delicate interpretive verve (“More And More”, “I Love To Sing To You”) and the grand finale of “My Everything”, which unfurls its butterfly wings over the chords of a melancholy yet hopelessly in love Billie Holiday.

Undeniably, Bonnie Pointer – Red Album remains a chapter forgotten by most, with a near-nonexistent legacy, partly due to the lack of reissues and streaming availability. But it still remains a listen that never stops surprising, soothing and entertaining, an exquisite artifact of its era that's always a pleasure to revisit.

Undeterred by Bonnie's romantic tenderness, the Pointer sisters keep hammering away at blues and rock, still under the guidance of Richard Perry, and so comes Priority (1979), yet another album of other people's songs covered, with southern-flavored tones ready to be sweated out in some Delta dive bar between a beer and a po' boy sandwich. This time the tracklist includes a song from the solo debut of Mott The Hoople's singer, Ian Hunter (“Who Do You Love”), the inevitable Rolling Stones (“Happy”), Bob Seger (“All Your Love”), another unreleased number by Springsteen (“She’s Got The Fever”), The Band (“The Shape I’m In”), Richard & Linda Thompson (“Don’t Let A Thief Steal Into Your Heart”) and so on. Another chapter where the energetic voices of Ruth, Anita and June aren't enough to make the record a truly memorable listen. This time chart success eludes both the singles and the album as a whole, making the project one of the most forgotten – and forgettable – entries in their catalogue.

With Priority, the Pointer Sisters confirm that they skipped the entire disco phenomenon altogether, despite the success enjoyed by their friend Sylvester and by so many other artists who, like them, had roots in funk and r&b, such as the Bee Gees and Chic, a church-raised Donna Summer, Anita Ward, Cheryl Lynn, Thelma Houston, the other sister group Sister Sledge, even a repeat offender of folk and psychedelic rock like Cher. Priority might pique the curiosity of rock fans who want to hear these songs re-sung by a female trio, but beyond that there isn't much else to be surprised by – also because, it must be said, the original songwriters and versions of these songs are hardly inferior. Despite its title, Priority is anything but a priority.

And here comes Bonnie Pointer again, who with a disco version of the Four Tops' hugely famous “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)” gets back in the game, half-naked and shaking her hips like a mischievous girl in the grip of her own wild spirits. Gordy's team is determined to rework the old Motown catalogue according to the fashion of the moment, and Bonnie Pointer – Purple Album (1979) should be the record built for that purpose – but it won't achieve much success, partly because by this point the phenomenon is already winding down, and within just a few months the Disco Demolition Night in America would quickly bring the whole circus to an end.

With only six tracks on the list, Bonnie Pointer – Purple Album plays it light, once again proving to be a fresh and pleasant listen. But this time it's very much a family affair; while “Nowhere To Run (Nowhere To Hide)”, originally performed by Martha & The Vandellas, gets a rhythmic treatment that turns it into a proto-house version certainly worth noting, the one for “Jimmy Mack” doesn't stray too far from the original. The same goes for “When The Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes” and “Come See About Me”, songs that had found success over a decade earlier through the Supremes. Another effective slow number – “Deep Inside My Soul” – makes the album a well-balanced work, but overall it still lacks some of that erotic/emotional tension that made the debut a much more intimate and personal piece of work.

Bonnie Pointer – Purple Album too has remained a cult record for enthusiasts; its impact was short-lived at the time of release, and to this day it remains out of print. A hard blow to Bonnie's ego, who shortly afterward ended her contract with Motown and disappeared from the scene for a good five years – we'll find her again further on, in a completely new guise.

Towards success and metropolitan elegance: the new genesis of a vocal group in the chaotic post-disco melting pot

The Pointer Sisters, on the other hand, climb back to prominence right at the dawn of the synth decade – the very decade for which they're still best remembered by the general public today. Credit is also due to their faithful producer Richard Perry, who proves immediately ready to abandon blues sonorities and helps the sisters put together a trio of albums in quick succession, capable of progressively putting them back on track during the confusing, fragmentary two years following the fall of disco – Special Things (1980), Black & White (1981) and So Excited! (1982).

Special Things kicks off straight away with the huge success of the single "He's So Shy", written specifically for them by Tom Snow and Cynthia Weil: no. 3 on Billboard in October 1980, still one of their best-known songs to this day. It's impossible not to notice a more precise, classic soul-pop structure, extremely effective at highlighting the sisters' strong suit: a lead voice driving the song (in this case June), with the other two providing just the right choral accents to shape choruses, bridges and key moments with perfect timing (Ruth in particular, with her lower, androgynous timbre, is perfect for the job). The girls also shoot a promotional video for the song, a tremendously simple clip that nonetheless shows off a newfound stylistic maturity, not to mention those three stunning silhouettes – Anita especially, who in that combo of orange, masculine-cut trousers and a bodice fitted like a second skin, looks straight out of a Vogue editorial. The Pointer Sisters have become Ladies:

Of course, the other single, "Could I Be Dreaming", co-written by June and sung by a dazzling Anita with the full vocal range she's capable of, is perhaps even better suited to illustrate the Pointer Sisters' new sound, with horn sections, caressing synthesizers and an ever-danceable rhythm.

In the studio, we now find a decent parade of musicians, from Burt Bacharach, who takes care of the arrangements, to the ever-present Paulinho Da Costa on percussion. Also symptomatic of the new direction is "Evil", a track that could easily be a blues number but whose arrangement replaces much of the guitar framework with sax and synth, adapting more gracefully to the sisters' vocal cords (though there's still room for a brief Fender solo in the bridge).

The Pointer Sisters may have skipped the disco phenomenon, but on tracks like "The Love Too Good To Last" and "Where Did The Time Go" (both written by Bacharach/Sager) and "Here Is Where Your Love Belongs" (written by Bill Champlin, future member of Chicago), they pounce without hesitation on its ashes: post-disco, soul-pop, whatever the right label may be, the songs on Special Things manage to carve out their own niche amid the contemporary chaos.

June also co-writes the title track of the album, a song which, along with "We Got The Power" and "Movin' On", comes across almost as a direct descendant of Stevie Wonder's immortal "As". Like the contemporary "Ladies Of The Eighties" by the Eighties Ladies, Special Things is a stylish, elegant album, fit for cocktails in a city club, but the sparkling, vital synergy between the performers keeps it far from being a snobbish listen.

With a literal black-and-white cover photo all legs and leggings, Black & White (1981) is also blessed with a hugely successful single, and this time the track really is among the best of their career: "Slow Hand" (no. 2 in America, but reaching the Top Ten across much of the English-speaking world, including Canada, Ireland, the UK and New Zealand) is so beautiful that it takes several listens to grasp its compositional grace. Written by Michael Clark and John Bettis (the latter already having worked with Karen Carpenter), the song unfolds with the pop purity of an Abba melody dipped in country and polished by Dire Straits: Anita delivers a lyric of intense, romantic desire, while Ruth and June join in with finely calibrated choral brushstrokes, helping lift the verse into the chorus without showing a single seam. The accompanying video follows the song's gradual unfolding, framing the girls in a series of long takes, a simple but damn effective device to underline the track's fluid nature:

As a counterpart to Anita's smooth performance on "Slow Hand", June unbuttons a fun bit of old-school rock'n'roll (written by Layng Martine Jr.) on the other single, "Should I Do It" – on the charts the track doesn't achieve the same success, but it shows the girls having fun in the studio as if the listener weren't even there.

Black & White as a whole isn't a transcendent record, but it's still another solid outing: that Stevie Wonder-style electric piano riff on "Sweet Lover Man" is as catchy as ever, Ruth carves out a rare solo moment on "Take My Heart, Take My Soul", and Anita and June co-write a couple of thoroughly enjoyable moments such as "What A Surprise" and the frisky "We're Gonna Make It" – the latter slipping in rhythmic funk-keyboard stabs that the world would soon learn to recognize as Prince's Minneapolis sound, and which also features Mike Porcaro of Toto on bass, among other things.

"Got To Find Love" is another smooth ballad in the vein of "Slow Hand"; at the production helm, Perry certainly doesn't skimp on guitars, but unlike the previous glam and blues workouts, he now favors a clean, crystalline sound closer to the touch of Mark Knopfler – a device that blends nicely with the synthesizers brought in to build the backing tracks alongside the usual bass/drums combo. Elegant as its cover suggests, with that quintessential black-and-white color pairing, Black & White is a good listen for genre fans, an album that's certainly symptomatic of its time, even if it isn't remembered on the same level as other works from the period (1981, for instance, is both the year of Rick James's famous "Street Songs" and of an extremely elegant underground post-disco classic, Gwen McCrae's self-titled album).

So Excited! (1982) is also, all things considered, a record that stays within the average of the period, built on songs with a modern soul cut, propelled by piano and drums. A vaguely childish radio single like "American Music" doesn't help the cause, and the dull remake of Prince's "I Feel For You" isn't all that exciting either, truth be told – it will be Chaka Khan who, two years later, turns this very song into a classic of her own repertoire. Better are "See How The Love Goes", with its sweet guitar lines woven throughout the track like a fourth voice, "All For You" and "Heart To Heart", both carried by Ruth's charismatic, androgynous contralto. Still, it's business as usual both for the Pointer Sisters and for Perry's production – by their ninth studio album, the group had by now gathered all the experience needed to push further.

And indeed, that very same year, the adult contemporary landscape is graced by another group of veterans well past their prime but apparently indestructible: having already helped Barbra Streisand craft a bestseller like "Guilty" and the mega-classic "Woman In Love" a couple of years earlier, Barry, Robin & Maurice Gibb lend a hand on "Heartbreaker", the 22nd studio album by a revitalized Dionne Warwick, a work that brings her back into the spotlight through a sparse, elegant set of songs, including that immortal single called, fittingly, "Heartbreaker".

There are, however, a couple of pivotal moments that make So Excited! a key chapter in the sisters' career. The first is of course "I'm So Excited", a song written by Ruth, Anita and June together with saxophonist Trevor Lawrence, destined to become one of the group's signature songs in the years to come. It couldn't be otherwise, the track is perfect: galloping along from the very first notes over a tapping piano line with Anita on lead vocals, the song unfolds through a powerful verse that builds in the bridge and then bursts forth with impact into a textbook, propulsive chorus – but it's all set over minor-key harmonies, giving the party-themed lyrics an unbearable sense of looming melancholy, much like certain tracks from the glory days of the Beach Boys and Elton John (the latter in particular would achieve very similar results with "I'm Still Standing" a year later). A simply irresistible track, one that alone would be worth an entire career:

Released as the second official single, "I'm So Excited" doesn't initially do much business (No. 30 in America), but a year later, in a slightly remixed version, it gets tacked onto the reissue of the band's next album, climbing into the Top Ten in both America and the UK and turning into a classic for the group even in today's streaming era.

There's another notable track on So Excited! that gets released as a single, though without much success: "If You Want To Get Back Your Lady" is a pure boogie moment built on a dense electronic foundation punctuated by a teutonic drum machine, a perfect club artifact of its time, forever fizzy and steeped in an almost pre-house ecstasy, able to keep pace with the most original boogie releases of the day – that same year, Evelyn "Champagne" King put out "Get Loose" (an album containing the celebrated "Love Come Down"), Sharon Redd released the dazzling "Redd Hott" (featuring the futuristic "Beat The Street"), and Patrice Rushen gave us "Straight From The Heart" (bolstered by the irresistible cult favorite "Forget Me Nots").

In the funk-pop realm of the time, the solo debut of the Pointer family's youngest, June Pointer, isn't bad either, also released on Planet: Baby Sister (1983). The songwriting isn't yet the sharpest on the scene, but the album's nine tracks flow tightly and without major lulls, amid blasts of synthesizers, electric piano parts, and June's fizzy performances, always balanced between heartfelt and playful.

"Ready For Some Action" opens with nocturnal electronic arrangements and a typical beat kept steady by the drum machine, but soon turns into a stylish street-level funk track with interlocking strings and synths – between the musical material and the suggestiveness of the lyrics, little June isn't so little anymore by now. Next comes the Prince-indebted "I Will Understand," another track that was by now fashionable following the release of a certain "1999," delivered here with real conviction.

Granted, not the whole album sticks exactly to that electro groove: there's room for a conventional ballad ("To You, My Love"), a few midtempo numbers by now typical of the three sisters' joint style ("Always"), a Motown-style breakdown ("Don't Mess With Bill"), and a couple of piano-driven stompers in the vein of Elton John/Stevie Wonder ("I'm Ready For Love," "New Love, True Love"). And doesn't that rhythm guitar pattern opening "My Blues Have Gone" bring to mind "Get Lucky" by Daft Punk?

Like the rest of the Pointer Sisters' Planet catalog, Baby Sister too has survived the contractual squabbles typically surrounding copyright between the old guard and the digital era, and is available on the major streaming platforms – rediscovering it today is still a pleasure for anyone who loves the genre.

Anatomy of a perfect pop album: chronicle of an unannounced success

With a decade of activity behind them by now, and one sister lost along the way, the 1983 edition of the Pointer Sisters aren't exactly the hottest name on record executives' lists, and the ups and downs in their album sales are like a roll of the dice. Ruth, Anita and June will certainly prove themselves to be tenacious career performers, but they're also mothers (often absent) and wives (at various stages of falling in love and/or getting divorced). In the early months of 1984, thirty-seven-year-old Ruth even becomes a grandmother for the first time. Their likeable, boisterous, family-run image doesn't exactly carry the star power to pull in huge young crowds, and on paper work on the new album proceeds with the same routine as before, with Perry once again behind the boards.

And yet, it's precisely thanks to these mundane, unlikely ingredients that Break Out now slips out of everyone's hands and streaks across the early-80s record industry like a glittering comet: it sets off from Stevie Wonder, passes through the Prince of "Dirty Mind" and "Controversy" and arrives at Rick James and Michael Jackson, not before getting jostled by Human League and Eurythmics and taking a few slaps in the face from Cyndi Lauper and Duran Duran. Et voilà: Break Out is the album that manages to capture the neuroses of the dancefloor and the most synthetic strain of funk and blend them with the arrival of the Second British Invasion, all filtered through a solid, thoroughly African-American adult-contemporary melodic sensibility. Ten songs that sum up the mixed-race hot-bloodedness of the early 80s, orphaned by disco music. An album that feels rather like a prism through which white light splits into a rainbow.

In October 1983, "I Need You" shows up on record store shelves; it's a stylish soul-pop number with which producer Richard Perry intends to relaunch the Pointer Sisters onto the American R&B charts. Led by all three sisters in canon form, playing on the contrast between their different vocal timbres, "I Need You" unfolds with passionate elegance over a melody of timeless catchiness and a boogie-slow rhythm. The production in the background is like a cocktail by moonlight, with delicate guitar arpeggios, a thread of strings, gusts of synth and drums aided by a drum machine for a thoroughly modern touch that doesn't detract from the vintage charm of the atmosphere.

On the scene, "I Need You" doesn't do too badly either, but mainstream radio only has ears for another track on the album, the effervescent "Automatic": amid layers upon layers of keyboards weaving their timbres together, shifting from robotic to quicksilver, that bass line underscoring the shifts in the songwriting, and Ruth's contralto driving a lyric of intense erotic obsession with an androgynous allure somewhere between Grace Jones and David Bowie, the track immediately falls into line alongside the most dazzling funk productions of the period (it would go on to win a Grammy for "Best Vocal Arrangement for Two or More Voices").

Within a few weeks "Automatic" becomes a hit that spills over from America into the rest of the English-speaking world, as had already happened with other Pointer songs, but this time its success is immediately matched by another irresistible single that takes over everywhere around the middle of 1984: "Jump" – later retitled "Jump (For My Love)" in future editions – is pure fun, built on a bouncing, squared-off rhythm like a contemporary European production inspired by Kraftwerk, with that iconic surrounding synth riff and the sisters working themselves into a frenzy over it – the transition from verse to chorus happens via a crescendo that winds up like a spring before leaping into the air. It's impossible to sit still in the face of the girls' excited performance, and even the Grammy jury takes notice, awarding the track "Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal":

You couldn't find a more prophetic title for an album, but the beauty of Break Out is realizing that, beyond the singles, every song on the tracklist flows by, each one more exquisite than the last.

There's the synth-rock swagger of "Baby Come And Get It" and "Operator", both polished with layers of keyboards but propped up by aggressive guitar work: the first has a midtempo boogie groove but is carried by a sturdy hard-rock guitar that launches into a solo during the bridge amid the sisters' ecstatic squeals, while the second skids and bounces along like a race car from an old video game. And that's not even mentioning "Dance Electric", which opens with gloomy nocturnal hints only to suddenly light up like a spaceship in the pitch-black of space, amid robotic blips, Ruth's voice leading the track, and Anita and June joining in at just the right moment to accent that cavernous refrain which then resolves into a goofy, pirate-like chorus.

Written — among others — by Glen Ballard (better known in later years as a collaborator of Alanis Morissette), first recorded by Michael Jackson for "Thriller" and later re-recorded by Randy Crawford, "Nightline" is the most futuristic moment on the album, and the Pointer Sisters' version is surely the definitive one: a fizzy, electric(ronic) tension that's jittery and nervous, backing-vocal echoes engineered for maximum effect, a brash synth-and-guitar riff creating a curious harmonic jolt to announce the verse's arrival, sizzling pinwheels of Minneapolis sound, a drum machine bouncing off the linoleum, an irresistible concentrate of the 80s that couldn't be more 80s.

Of course, a perfect pop album wouldn't be complete without the classic slow moments. Alongside the single "I Need You" there's the smooth, velvety "Easy Persuasion", which glides along on a sparkling, steadily-paced bass line, with the girls harmonizing in unison before splitting off into a placid, love-struck sweetness.

It's hard to pick a favorite song from the whole collection, but that italo-disco keyboard riff on "Telegraph Your Love" is like a pinch of nostalgia to the heart during a sunset beach stroll in the height of summer; the girls' melody line melts like warm butter, yet the relentless drum-machine rhythm underneath never lets up, giving the track an ecstasy of eternal melancholy you wish would never end.

It's impossible not to say a word or two about the famous "Neutron Dance" as well; written by Allee Willis and Danny Sembello with the intention of being included in the film "Streets Of Fire" (a sort of apocalyptic post-atomic musical), the song is like 50s rock'n'roll reshaped for 80s synthetic tastes, very fun yet pervaded by a strange frenzy. At first Ruth isn't convinced by the lyrics: the references to Cold War nuclear tensions are an unusual theme for a pop song, but it's precisely the oxymoron between the fizzy backing track and the biting lyrics that makes "Neutron Dance" such a fine treat. The original version of the song never ends up in "Streets Of Fire", but the Pointer Sisters' version is used in the famous film "Beverly Hills Cops" during a curious, comic chase scene, lending the whole thing a tragicomic flavor. Helped along by the film's massive box-office success (the biggest of the year), "Neutron Dance" shoots into the American Top Ten in early '85, keeping public interest alive in an album that was by then over a year old.

But the whole of Break Out gets reissued as early as '84, swapping out "Nightline" for "I'm So Excited", a single taken from the previous album that even back then deserved far more recognition: presented here in a slightly remixed version, "I'm So Excited" tears back into the Billboard Top Ten in no time, stylistically aligning itself with "Jump" and "Neutron Dance" as a pounding dance track straddling vintage vibes and urban anxieties.

With three million copies sold in America alone, a total of four Top Ten singles, two Grammys and two American Music Awards under their belt, Break Out is one of those rare, fortunate moments where the quality of the work is matched by immediate public success and quickly cemented in the American popular imagination. Future generations are left with the chance to listen to an album of enviable craftsmanship: ten textbook songs written, produced and performed with real professionalism, yet imbued with a futuristic spirit of adventure that seems never to age. Hundreds of vocal groups over the following decades will try to recreate its magic, and some will even succeed without much trouble, proof that the formula isn't so stubbornly untamable after all — it just needs to be understood and adapted to its exact historical moment.

From success to downfall – the years of a merciless Rca and the new solo adventures of Bonnie, Anita and June

Striking a dominatrix pose with an intense stare, a scandalous fuchsia-pink bodysuit cut close to the skin, and a rather suggestive title: If The Price Is Right (1984) is Bonnie Pointer's unexpected return a full five years after her last album. Jealous of her sisters' unexpected success? Quite possibly. At first glance, in fact, Bonnie's third solo album is the most "pornographic" moment ever produced by a member of the Pointer family, the classic vampish turn of a beautiful singer crawling around in search of attention.

Unfortunately, even If The Price Is Right fails to achieve the hoped-for success. The record is released by Private-I, a subsidiary of Epic specializing in dance and contemporary pop — LaToya Jackson and Matthew Wilder were among the label's biggest names at the time. But the label's offices show little initiative in organizing any media promotion beyond simply trading on Bonnie's family surname; years later the label's own director — Joe Isgro, a well-known industry figure — would be investigated for corruption, giving the impression that the whole Private-I operation was more a money-laundering front than a record label devoted to promoting its artists. After this latest disappointment, Bonnie puts an end to her recording career for almost thirty years.

And that's a shame, because in its pompous, epic swagger If The Price Is Right is a solid piece of early-80s dance-pop. An album that's at times crowd-pleasing and lacking in authorial subtlety, much like its cover photo, but still well made, seductively feminine, and not yet smothered by that brash, vulgar fashion for electronic production that would take hold in the second half of the 80s.

The single "Premonition", for instance, is a perfect pop confection for the tastes of the moment: a classic dance anthem somewhere between Olivia Newton-John and Jermaine Jackson, with a snappy verse and a chorus wrapped in arena-sized backing vocals, making for a surely radio-friendly combo. The other single, "Your Touch", isn't bad either: a romantic orchestral opening over which Bonnie pines like never before, but after a whiny, vampish little squeal the rhythm breaks into a trot on a dated disco groove à la Bee Gees. More typical r&b-tinged midtempo numbers follow ("Johnny", "Under The Influence Of Love") along with more overtly pop-leaning songwriting ("Tight Blue Jeans" — sadly nothing to do with the Hi-NRG-flavored tight blue jeans of Divine). The obligatory ballad is of course present — "Come Softly To Me" — laid over admittedly sugary tones, but one on which Bonnie once again shows off a hazy, captivating vocal timbre — forget the bodysuit and leg warmers, she could have been a great jazz singer.

Unlike the two previous records released under Motown, If The Price Is Right has fortunately survived the contractual disputes and has landed on streaming platforms. The 2016 reissue also adds a handful of extra tracks to round out the period: "The Beast In Me" (a synth-rock behemoth with epic kitsch overtones, made for the soundtrack of the sweaty aerobics drama "Heavenly Bodies"), "Heaven" (another 80s stomper saturated with guitars and keyboards), and a series of solid dance and dub remixes of the main tracks. All in all, a chapter definitely worth a listen.

Launched by the fun little single "Dare Me" and a quirky music video in which the Pointer Sisters appear dressed as men training at a boxing gym, Contact saw the light of day in July 1985 and quickly went platinum in America, ranking as the second best-selling album of original material in their catalog. "Dare Me" itself reached No. 11 on Billboard, their last appearance in the Top 20.

On the management side, things had changed once again; Richard Perry, who had overseen their studio production since 1978, had already sold the entire Planet Records to RCA back in '82, and after a few years of keeping the original imprint alive — partly thanks to the Pointer Sisters' surprising success — RCA was now retiring the Planet name and taking the reins to squeeze as much as it could out of the sisters' success.

With Perry still at the helm, Contact veers toward the new, more bombastic and radio-friendly electronic pop, retaining the elegant balance of the previous record only in flashes. Shuttled around the world, in demand everywhere, worn down, away from their kids and husbands for months at a time, battling various addictions (cocaine for June, alcohol for Anita, and barbiturates for Ruth), and constantly rushing from stage to TV set, the Pointer Sisters in the studio simply performed whatever was put in front of them without a word of complaint. The result, unfortunately, is a record of ordinary routine, formally well executed according to the chart-pop standards of the time, but decidedly anonymous. In the space of just a couple of years, the magic of Break Out had already evaporated.

The most enjoyable moment on the whole of Contact is the other single, "Twist My Arm", a nervous, frantic burst of galloping synth-dance whose curious echoing backing vocals push the track almost into house territory, making it a real dancefloor highlight. A video that's rather symptomatic of the era — sets built in-studio against pastel backdrops, towering hair held up by tons of hairspray, and earrings as big as curtain drapes — adds to the effect, handing down to posterity one of the last truly memorable moments in the Pointer Sisters' discography:

In the same vein as the dance-electronics of "Twist My Arm" are "Pound Pound Pound", built on a British synth-pop fabric somewhere between OMD and Eurythmics, "Back In My Arms", and "Bodies And Soul". A six-minute slow-burner with vaguely exotic flavors in the style of Peter Gabriel, "Freedom", closes the album on a note of calm: it's certainly not the best ballad of their career, but overall it helps give Contact a much-needed moment of reflection.

But by now the Pointer sisters were fully woven into the fabric of American mainstream pop of the 80s; they were among those invited to the recording of the hugely famous "We Are The World", conceived that same year by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, singing backup alongside a massive lineup of the era's biggest popstars, and the album containing that track features a (forgettable) B-side donated specifically for the cause: "Just A Little Closer". A full-blown trend, in other words — these were the years of pompous charity all-star singles, of Live Aid and Bob Geldof, of massive stadium shows and arena rock, and on Contact we find "Hey You", a crude pacifist soul-rock number as rhetorical in tone as it is nauseating in its overall instrumental execution.

It's impossible not to notice, in the grooves of Contact, the rise of a new musical taste that split the American Eighties almost perfectly in half, a watershed that created new popstars while simultaneously putting many of the past's most authoritative voices out to pasture.

A few examples? A diva's presence, a model's face, legs for days, a voice of extraordinary tone and power, a barrage of hits all over the world, and twenty million records sold with a single debut: Whitney Houston's arrival on the 1985 record market was a seismic jolt capable of reshaping the entire concept of the soul Diva for years to come. Her manager, Clive Davis, saw it coming from a mile away; the more upbeat tracks are arranged with a battery of thick, cardboard-flat Roland keyboards engineered to storm every radio frequency without mercy, while the romantic ballads lean on an unbearably syrupy sheen — but none of that matters, because Whitney, the Diva Absolute, could leap from the most heartfelt gospel to the whitest dance-pop with staggering ease, uniting millions of listeners under one roof. If the 80s were already well disposed toward the idea of the egocentric, billionaire solo popstar — from Michael Jackson and Prince to George Michael and Madonna — Whitney Houston, with a single record, immediately spoiled the party for hundreds of female vocalists.

But that's not all: almost as an exact stylistic counterpart to the Houston revolution, the second half of the 80s was also shaped by what's often called the "Teddy Riley sound", new jack swing: a bombastic, coldly synthetic fusion of dance, funk and R&B, built on driving rhythms and thunderous hooks — hardly elegant, but terribly catchy to young ears. What's more, new jack swing is no easy beast to tame, because what it demands isn't vocal range so much as a sharp sense of rhythm, a style better suited to dancers than to great singers as such. There are New Edition (featuring Bobby Brown, Whitney's future husband), but above all there's Janet Jackson with her third album, "Control", a collection of energetic, snappy songs built on tight dance routines and vocal interlocking of geometric precision — even without a great voice, the youngest Jackson sibling glides over those massive keyboard lines with enviable fluency. New jack swing demands of its performers exactly what RuPaul demands of her drag queens: charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent. Drowning in it is all too easy.

In a climate like this, RCA simply pushed the Pointer Sisters to follow the dominant trends of the moment, and it's here that things take a qualitative nosedive with Hot Together (1986) and Serious Slammin' (1988).

There's really not much to applaud on Hot Together. By now the relationship between the sisters and their team of collaborators was simply a family affair, with no need for words: songs were gathered following the usual standard themes of popular music (love/sex/empowerment), the Pointers sang, and Perry led the usual army of musicians cooking up arrangements that followed the era's conventions without much imagination.

The assortment of ethnic-flavored sound effects on "My Life" and the smooth, mystical aura of "Mercury Rising" are quite pleasant, and the vocal chemistry between Ruth, Anita and June remains an added value. The single "Goldmine" is certainly well executed, with the usual textbook chorus and a horde of brass as garnish, though by this point in the decade songs of that kind were being churned out by the dozen, and the Pointer Sisters' now-trio lineup lacked the star power needed to command the big youth audiences. The moment keyboards, gated reverb and electric guitars take over ("Say The Word", "Hot Together", the dreadful "Sexual Power" and "Set Me Free"), Hot Together immediately sounds like a product of its era, the very era that later made the second half of the 80s a rather difficult period to reassess with a fair critical ear.

That same year, the great Tina Turner released "Break Every Rule", an excellent late-career album on which the old rock'n'roll star rides, with real energy, through a decidedly popular songbook that's nonetheless written and arranged with passion and attention to detail (and which counts on the support of David Bowie and Phil Collins, among others). Also that year, the great Chaka Khan released "Destiny", a horrendous mess of rare sonic ugliness that sounds as if it was mixed with a gnu's hooves — an inexplicable lapse in taste and a total loss of good sense from an artist who certainly lacked neither presence nor experience (just two years earlier, "I Feel For You" had presented her as one of the most dynamic survivors of the market's endless churn). But that's how popmuzik works, a constant tug-of-war between innovation and compromise, and Hot Together falls more or less halfway between Tina's and Chaka's records, a forgettable chapter that has indeed, for the most part, been largely forgotten: peaking at just No. 48 on the American charts, it's clear the formula wasn't working the way it once had.

What actually caught the public's attention, in January 1987, was the Pointer Sisters' presence on "Respect Yourself", a single taken from "The Return Of Bruno", the Motown debut album of actor Bruce Willis, on which June plays the female counterpart while the other two sisters provide backing vocals. The track is exactly what you'd expect from a blues number originally performed by the Staple Singers in 1971 and now reworked with an 80s sensibility, all bar-room machismo and weathered-rocker posturing that Willis himself borrows from Springsteen. But the equally charming and ridiculous accompanying video played constantly on MTV, and the song climbed to No. 5 on Billboard, giving the sisters another dose of popularity to keep their career moving. Of course, Bruce Willis the singer would never earn much critical praise, but the decent commercial success of his record would still be followed by another album two years later.

But Anita Pointer's solo debut — Love For What It Is (1987) — is often disappointing. The group's lead voice and most refined presence, and the one who usually signed off on the original material, could by now have joined the ranks of the romantic, elegant interpreters of the adult contemporary scene, artists like Anita Baker of the gorgeous "Rapture" (an album that, incidentally, was a massive success in those months, shifting over four million copies in America alone) and Phyllis Hyman of "Living All Alone" (a certainly less famous album, but a solid testament to the genre, thanks to production of rare elegance).

Instead, under RCA's wing, Anita Pointer ends up conforming to the usual chart-friendly pop-soul, steering clear of the livelier moments she typically sang alongside her sisters in favor of midtempo tracks – though the gist stays more or less the same. The single "Overnight Success" and the plasticky confections of "Beware Of What You Want" and "More Than A Memory" are fairly symptomatic of this.

There's also no shortage of a syrupy duet for all the lovestruck hearts of the era – here paired with former Earth Wind & Fire voice Philip Bailey – echoing that romantic-comedy sentiment just as so many others did at the time, not least Whitney Houston herself, already a veteran of pairings with Teddy Pendergrass and Jermaine Jackson. Granted, if we ever needed to send a track into space to show aliens exactly what late-80s pop-soul tasted like, "Love For What It Is" would be an excellent candidate: between the rhythm, the melody and the sax solo, the song plays out like a living stereotype.

Even Love For What It Is fails to find much success, and unlike the other tracks under RCA, it remains out of print and absent from streaming to this day. Still, it finds a place at the close of the tracklist with "Temporarily Blue", a ballad with delicate country touches on which Anita's voice reveals the full range of her sparest and most emotive interpretive gifts. The track doesn't go unnoticed; a year later its singer is invited to record a duet with Earl Thomas Conley titled "Too Many Times", and nearly fifteen years after the "Fairytale" with which the Pointer Sisters, then a quartet, had scored an unexpected country hit, Anita returns to the Hot Country Songs chart at No. 2.

With Serious Slammin', however, the Pointer Sisters truly start scraping the bottom of the barrel, and the nosedive in quality is matched by a nosedive in popularity – No. 152 on Billboard, a resounding flop that puts a definitive end to the partnership with Perry and to the relationship with an RCA that by now has completely lost interest in them. Squeezed dry like lemons across fourteen albums in fifteen years of career (plus June's and Anita's solo outings), the Pointer Sisters have by this point become an empty shell coasting along on sheer inertia without even asking why. Anyone complaining about the production on Michael Jackson's "Bad", released the same year, has clearly never listened to Serious Slammin', an album that pairs the saturated, robotic sound of new jack swing with crude, utterly predictable dance-r&b songwriting, stuffed with tired sexual innuendo that often lands completely out of place.

Up against the youthful energy of the new popstars of the moment – like former Shalamar voice Jody Watley, now going solo, and the bubbly dancer Paula Abdul, who admittedly aren't exactly churning out masterpieces either – the Pointer Sisters come off looking like aunts scrambling to hold onto their place in a market where, frankly, it's barely worth showing up anymore. Of the album's ten tracks, perhaps only "My Life" and the synthetic blues of "Pride" manage to stand out; the rest is less than business as usual. Even a ballad penned by Diane Warren – "Moonlight Dancing" – ends up sounding empty and tired, melodically watered down into a dirge lacking both a verse and a chorus – a truly astonishing result, given whose name is on the credits.

With June Pointer, released by Columbia in 1989, the baby of the family delivers a second solo chapter of contemporary pop that neither hits the mark nor sticks in listeners' memory – following disappointing sales overall, it will be her last solo effort.

Sure, there are moments where the songwriting manages to shine through even above the rather unrefined production: "Keeper Of The Flame" is a perfect cinematic hair-rock moment that wouldn't sound out of place in the mouth of Cher (who, incidentally, is riding high those very months with "Heart Of Stone"). "Fool For Love" is Prince circa "Lovesexy", and its lean, minimal skeleton of synths and drum machine makes quite an impact. However dated they may now sound, showing every sign of their age, the straightforward pop-rock of "Love Calling" and "How Long (Don't Make Me Wait)" aren't bad either, weaving between synthesized brass and chunky, plasticky Fairlight programming touches. But from there it's a short step down into the trite: "Tight On Time (I'll Fit U In)" sounds like a crude striptease theme complete with a rapped breakdown, "Parlez moi d'amour (Let's Talk About Love)" churns through plastic gimmicks and predictable erotic innuendo, and "Why Can't We Be Together" is as classic as it is unimaginative, a textbook pop-soul duet alongside r&b singer Phil Perry.

June Pointer may sound noticeably better realized than the last couple of records released under the Pointer Sisters name, but June on her own still isn't enough to revive the family name's fortunes.

These are now the months of "Foreign Affair", yet another big success for Tina Turner, proving she knows how to ride 80s guitars and drums with just the right amount of energy. Among younger listeners, meanwhile, what's confirming itself from its very first weeks as one of the best-selling records of the entire new jack swing wave keeps cleaning up: Janet Jackson's "Rhythm Nation 1814". Even Janet's choreographer, Paula Abdul, manages to land a massive hit single: "Straight Up". And then there's Manchester's own Lisa Stansfield with "Affection", an album that, also in 1989, blends all the smoothest, most sensual charm of chamber soul with dance and house productions already looking well ahead to the 90s. All territories in which the Pointer Sisters – alone or as a trio – no longer seem able to find their footing.

From the Nineties Onward: A Modest Conclusion

Joining forces with a Motown stuck in the mire after years of bad decisions should have felt like an almost spiritual union of purpose for the Pointer Sisters, but the resulting Right Rhythm (1990) is yet another dud.

The three singles pulled from it fail to bite; "Friend's Advice" rides aggressive hip-hop beats in the De La Soul style that was all the rage at the time, but the track lacks a real melodic hook strong enough to give the sisters the push they needed to become memorable. The slow soul ballad "After You" is pure radio-friendly syrup, and despite a lovely vocal performance from Ruth's contralto, neither the verse nor the chorus has the elegance needed to make the song work the way certain admittedly saccharine but always impeccable tracks released around the same time under the Simply Red banner managed to.

More curious, if anything, is the house-rock-hop blast of "Insanity", with jabbing keyboard stabs and aggressive vocal crescendos of the kind that would, a few years later, make the fortunes of Backstreet Boys and N'Sync – but once again the sisters seem to be straining to keep up with the beat, and the result isn't as fun as it could be. Up against the dance records currently coming out of Europe, like Coldcut, Adamski and Neneh Cherry, "Insanity" passes completely unnoticed (though it's worth noting a series of club remixes of the track done up in house and techno flavors, where the blend at least achieves the desired effect).

Right Rhythm doesn't offer much else; between "Man With The Right Rhythm", a blatant innuendo set to plasticky funk flourishes, bluesy shouts and repetitive vocal samples in a Pet Shop Boys vein, a forgettable cover of Millie Jackson's "You Knocked The Love (Right Outta My Heart)" (which already sounded crude in its original version), and the closing thank-yous of "(We Just Wanna) Thank You", there's really nothing essential worth digging back up.

With Only Sister Can Do That (1993), we finally arrive at the last chapter of the Pointer saga. The label this time is SBK Records, recently founded out of a CBS acquisition and home to a number of mainstream chart names of the period, Vanilla Ice chief among them (though SBK would also release "The Divine Comedy", the cult album by actress Milla Jovovich).

Under the guidance of Peter Wolf and Keith Forsey in the studio, the three sisters update their sound once again as they head deeper into the heart of the '90s: rhythms bolstered by aggressive Synclavier and Roland programming, electric guitars, very little in the way of authorial subtlety, and an emphasis on simple, radio-friendly choruses. The result is a record that threads its way between the bombastic backing tracks of Terence Trent D'Arby's "Symphony Or Damned", the Beloved's sound, certain stadium-sized flourishes worthy of U2 and Bryan Adams, and the standard template of American '90s female pop-rock, running from Julia Fordham and Paula Cole to Meredith Brooks and Billie Myers (remember "Kiss The Rain"?).

The single "Don't Walk Away", led by Ruth, certainly hits straight at the nostalgia nerve, with its horribly '90s beat, guitar riffs and fading backing vocals engineered for effect to prop up the chorus, while "Lose Myself To Find Myself" sounds snatched right out of Tina Turner's mouth.

But the rest of Only Sisters Can Do That is the usual parade of stale rock tropes ("It Ain't A Man's World"), radio fodder ("Feel For The Physical") and even a certain vulgarity ("Sex, Love Or Money") that help make the record just another impersonal, assembly-line chapter, a typical product of seasoned popstars who no longer have all that much to say. On a couple of the album's tracks, backing vocals come courtesy of Issa Pointer, Ruth's daughter, who would go on to become a full-time member of the band's live shows.

The sisters' recording career ends here, but in 2002 June is nonetheless forced to officially step away from the group's ranks to try once again to get clean from her drug addiction, though she will never make it back: following complications from cancer and health that had grown increasingly fragile over the years, the youngest of the Pointer sisters passes away in 2006, at just 52 years old.

Closing out the story is Bonnie Pointer's final solo outing, Like A Picasso (2011) — a little-known collection of unreleased material put out independently through Platinum Trini, with which the fourth sister delivers the only Pointer-family release of the new millennium. By now weakened by years of drug abuse and a life spent on the margins of the music business without ever managing to claw her way back up, Bonnie appears visibly worn down by life, and the rare interviews from the period portray her as a somewhat confused woman, almost caught off guard by the presence of a camera (we also see her in "Jewel's Catch One", a documentary recounting the history of the famed LA LGBT venue Catch One, often described as "the Studio 54 of the West Coast").

Bonnie's voice on Like A Picasso is pained and raspy, and the production certainly has a homemade quality to it, caught between simple country-pop-rock guitar progressions, dated bursts of emphatic keyboards, and programming that instead sounds like it stepped straight out of the '90s of Morissette's "Jagged Little Pill" — ingredients that make the record a strangely timeless work, and also a deeply American one (the guitar riffing of "Desire" and "He Don't Like Love", the single "Strangest Day" recalling early Sheryl Crow). None of this detracts from a certain decadent charm in Bonnie's performances: the dense, almost anguished backing of "Like A Picasso", the heartfelt ballad "Genius Of My Heart", the furious "Hey Harley", the melodramatic "You Will", the inherent sadness of "Don't Expect A Rose", a "Just Cried Tear" that sounds like it could be sung by Macy Gray — all tracks steeped in a sense of desolate loneliness that, precisely because of this, make for a particularly heartfelt listen.

The choral tolling of "Answered Prayer" sounds like a gospel mass and recalls Whitney Houston's "I Look To You", another woman torn apart by her own inner demons and desperately clinging to a faith that always stubbornly slipped through her fingers.

Bonnie passes away in June 2020, also as a result of complications from cancer. Tributes pour in from her sisters and from all those Pointer Sisters fans who never forgot her.

Our story ends here, after almost forty years of music lived wholeheartedly and often at a sprint, between huge hits and forgotten moments, popularity and stress, satisfactions and personal dramas — a concentrated dose of Life itself, distilled through the art of the seven notes.

Ruth, Anita, Bonnie and June Pointer did their job with passion and professionalism, entertaining generations of listeners with a family-run little theatre that will forever remain in the hearts of everyone who — at least once in their life — felt themselves caressed and swept onto the dance floor by one of their songs.

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