The family business

The Pointer Sisters endure over three decades

For even the most casual music lover, the news this year was a shock and a surprise: June Pointer, an original member of 1980s R&B icons the Pointer Sisters, died unexpectedly in April. The world, of course, remembers the Pointers for the ’80s hits “Jump (for my Love),” “Slow Hand,” “I’m So Excited,” “Neutron Dance” and more. Now that memorializing the 1996 Olympics seems to be all the rage, Atlanta may also remember them for taking the stage in the games’ closing ceremony. Now, the trio, composed of sisters Ruth and Anita, along with Ruth’s daughter, Issa, continues the family business with all the challenges a family business presents.

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Not surprisingly, Ruth says, “Losing June was very, very tough.”

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It is also one of a few family tragedies — a niece died two years ago, and the sisters’ mother three years prior to that — that have added stress to the working relationship.

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In some respects, being a respected family singing group isn’t all that different from working in the family hardware store; when someone dies, takes ill or when tempers flare (as Ruth says certainly happened with the Pointers in a nearly four-decade career), you face dealing not only with a co-worker but with a family member.

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“It’s tough to work with family,” Ruth says by phone from Massachusetts, where she lives. “You really care about them, and it is not just something you can put behind you when you go home.” She can’t imagine what it must be like for families that literally grow up in front of the spotlight, like the Jacksons, with whom Ruth was in touch occasionally when Atlantan Janet Jackson was a little girl.

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What Ruth can imagine is how four sisters relate — or don’t relate — to each other after building a career that has made the group a household name. Ruth, the fourth sister to join, and founder Bonnie are on tenuous terms, and Bonnie is no longer a member of the group.

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Coming from a strict religious upbringing in the San Francisco Bay Area, Bonnie and baby sister June started singing as a duo in the 1960s. Anita soon joined and the Pointer Sisters were born, but not without a few stumbles. When they were stuck in Houston in ‘69 on their first attempt at the big time, David Rubinson, a producer on one of Bill Graham’s record labels, brought them back to California sight unseen and got them session work. Ruth joined the group, expanding it to a quartet before Bonnie left in 1977.

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The group had a string of 1970s successes, from being the first black female group to perform at the Grand Ole Opry (for Anita and Bonnie’s country-western-themed track “Fairytale”) to contributing to the Car Wash soundtrack before ’80s superstardom. Bonnie’s departure had brought a creative change in direction. Ruth, who takes the lead on the lower songs, kicked it off with a cover of a hit rock song from a singer the sisters claim they hadn’t even heard of before: Bruce Springsteen’s “Fire.”

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Issa added some stability five years ago as the group coped with June’s rock-star lifestyle. But it was a then-unknown illness — cancer, says Ruth — that would take her sister’s life.

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Issa adds the mother-daughter dynamic to the Sisters’ career. Ruth says having Issa along means she still has to be a mother, the shoulder to cry on when a boyfriend breaks up with her daughter. But, more important, it also means the group is reenergized. Ruth says her daughter has a youthful spirit that’s particularly helpful on the uptempo hits.

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“Sometimes,” she says, “me and Anita just have to stand back and look at her go.” While not currently working on a recording project, they are creating clones of their hits with Issa on vocals so they can own masters of their tracks featuring the current lineup.

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Issa singing in the group, however, is not the first time the kids have gotten into the act. Ruth’s kids were in the studio when the Pointer Sisters recorded the funkiest “Sesame Street” song to date, “Pinball Number Count.” Try counting to 12 without them.