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The Pointer Sisters
Hits!
RCA
RCA 07863 69391-2
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1. FIRE (3:28)
(Bruce Springsteen) / Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP) / OJA5-8164 / Recorded 1978
Engineered by Dennis Kirk
Remix Engineer: Bill Schnee
2. HAPPINESS (3:58)
(Allen Toussaint) / Screen Gems-EMI Music Inc. / Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. (BMI) / OJA5-8163 / 1978
Engineered by Dennis Kirk
Remix Engineer: Bill Schnee
3. HE'S SO SHY (3:38)
(Tom Snow / Cynthia Weil) / Sony/ATV Songs, LLC / Mann & Weil Songs Inc. / EMI Blackwood Music, Inc. / Snow Music (BMI) / OJA5-8141 / 1980
Associate Producer: Trevor Lawrence
Engineered by Gabe Veltri
Remix Engineer: James Guthrie
4. COULD I BE DREAMIN' (3:31)
(Anita Pointer / Trevor Lawrence / Mario Henderson) / Anita Pointer Publishing / EMI Blackwood Music, Inc. / Tira Music (BMI) / Kerith Music Publishing Co. / EMI April Music Inc. (ASCAP) / OJA5-8140 / 1980
Associate Producer: Trevor Lawrence
Engineered by Gabe Veltri
Remix Engineer: James Guthrie
5. SLOW HAND (3:54)
(Michael Clark / John Bettis) / Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Co. / WB Music Corp. o/b/o Sweet Harmony Music, Inc. (ASCAP) / OJA5-8170 /1981
Associate Producer: Trevor Lawrence
Engineered by Gabe Veltri
Remix Engineer: Bill Schnee
6. SHOULD I DO IT (3:51)
(Layng Martine, Jr.) / Unichappell Music Inc. / Watch Hill Music (BMI) / OJA5-8175 / 1981
Associate Producer: Trevor Lawrence
Engineered by Gabe Veltri
Remix Engineer: Bill Schnee
7. AMERICAN MUSIC (3:58)
(Parker McGee) / Ensign Music Corp. / Parker McGee Music (BMI) / MJA5-9081 / 1982
Associate Producer: Trevor Lawrence
8. I NEED YOU (4:04)
(Nan O'Byrne / Richard Feldman / John Black) / Dale Kawashima Music / EMI April Music Inc. / Orca Songs (ASCAP) / NJA5-5832 / 1983
Associate Producer: Howie Rice
Remix Engineer: Bill Schnee
9. AUTOMATIC (4:46)
(Brock Walsh / Mark Goldenberg) / Fleedleedle Music / Songs of Universal, Inc. / Universal-MCA Music Publishing, a Division of Universal Studios, Inc. (ASCAP) / NJA5-5829 / 1983
Associate Producers: Glen Ballard and Brock Walsh
Engineered by Michael Brooks
Remix Engineer: Bill Schnee
10. JUMP (FOR MY LOVE) (4:23)
(Marti Sharron / Stephen Mitchell / Gary Skardina) Sony/ATV Songs LLC / EMI April Music Inc. / Anidraks Music Inc. (ASCAP) / NJA5-5828 / 1983
Associate Producers: Stephen Mitchell and Gary Skardina
Basic Track Engineered by Gary Skardina
Remix Engineers: James C. Tract and Michael Brooks
11. I'M SO EXCITED (3:53)
(Anita Pointer / June Pointer / Ruth Pointer / Trevor Lawrence) / EMI Blackwood Music, Inc. (BMI) NJA5-9076 / 1982
Associate Producer: Trevor Lawrence
Engineered by Gabe Veltri
Remix Engineers: James C. Tract and Gabe Veltri
12. NEUTRON DANCE (4:14)
(Allee Willis / Danny Sembello) / Universal Texascity Music, Inc. (BMI) / Universal-Unicity Music, Inc. (ASCAP) / NJA5-5832 / 1983
Associate Producer: Howie Rice
Engineered by Michael Brooks
Remix Engineer: Bill Bottrell
13. DARE ME (4:07)
(David Innis / Sam Lorber) / WB Music Corp. / Bob Montgomery Music, Inc. / Dave Innis Music (ASCAP) / OJA5-3140 / 11/1984
Engineered by Michael Brooks
Remix Engineer: Don Smith
14. GOLDMINE (3:51)
(Andy Goldmark / Bruce Roberts) / Bruce Roberts d/b/a Broozertones, Inc. / WB Music Corp. o/b/o Non Pareil Music (ASCAP) / RPA5-6260 / 1986
Associate Producers: Andy Goldmark and Bruce Roberts
Engineered by Michael Brooks
Remix Engineer: Bill Bottrell
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ALL SONGS PRODUCED BY RICHARD PERRY
COMPILATION PRODUCED BY PAUL WILLIAMS FOR HOUSE OF HITS PRODUCTIONS, LTD.
Audio Restoration: Bill Lacey
Digital Transfers: Mike Hartry
Project Director: Victoria Sarro
Project Research: Jennifer Liebeskind
Photography: BMG Entertainment Archives
Art Direction: Frank Harkins
Design: JRJ Associates Inc.
Special thanks to Jon Bryant, Glenn Korman, Mike Panico, Rob Santos
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Putting on this collection of Pointer Sisters hits is a lot like twisting open the cap on a bottle of soda: the fizz is always fresh. It still feels like the first time you've heard them - which is just right for these songs because so many of them deal with a first time of a different sort. Fire, which leads things off here, is the perfect example: it's all about the delicious tension that builds before surrendering to passion. Many have sung about seduction, about the pleasures of what it's like during and the mellow mood that takes over after, but the Pointer Sisters' greatest hits are all about what's going down before it happens. That sweet suspended moment of hesitation, "Should I do it?" they ask with girl-group coyness, and even though we probably all agree on the answer, we like to linger on the question.
They're so excited. So are we.
And that's one of the reasons these tunes have unlimited shelf life. Sex will never go out of style, especially when it's got such a good beat, and you can dance to it. And the Pointer Sisters approached sex with a healthy sense of humor, along with the right amount of steaminess. Back in the day, a song like Slow Hand, which offered some helpful tips to the opposite sex, courted a bit of controversy, but the naughtiness was never explicit, and that was a big part of its appeal. The subtlety added to the sensuality. Their work was a logical progression from the Motown-style girl groups of the sixties. The Supremes may have confessed that Love Is Like An Itching In My Heart; the Pointer Sisters told you how to scratch it. But they always stopped short of the play-by-play.
Though these tracks were conceived and recorded in Los Angeles at the start of the eighties, when their producer, Richard Perry, was the reigning hit-maker and sought-after man-about-town, the Pointer Sisters' story starts farther up the coast, in the more bohemian atmosphere of late-sixties San Francisco. The four sisters who originally comprised the group - Anita, Bonnie, June, and Ruth - were raised in neighboring Oakland. Their parents were both ministers and, like many African-American singers, the girls got their start in church. In 1969, Bonnie and June decided to try their luck in the San Francisco clubs as a duo; they billed themselves as Pointers - A Pair. Anita joined them a year later, and they officially became the Pointer Sisters.
By the time Ruth became a member in 1972, the original trio was already well known in San Francisco and on their way to national recognition. The sisters had hooked up with producer David Rubinson, who was affiliated with legendary Bay Area concert-and-music-management impresario Bill Graham, and they were in demand as background singers on the still-lively local scene. On stage or in the studio, the Pointers backed up San Francisco stars like Boz Scaggs, Elvin Bishop, and Tower of Power. They even cut tracks with such unlikely collaborators as Alice Cooper and Grace Slick. In 1971, while the sisters were performing with Bishop at the Whisky-A-Go-Go in L.A., they were spotted by Atlantic Records producer Jerry Wexler, whose groundbreaking sixties studio work had helped bring unadulterated southern soul to the ears of mainstream America. Wexler offered the Pointers a deal and suggested sending them southward, literally and figuratively, to work with writer / arranger / producer Wardell Quesergue, who was a veteran of many Stax / Volt sessions in Memphis.
But the Pointers ultimately had more in common with Atlantic-labelmate Bette Midler, a rising star at the time, than their soul-oriented sisters on the label. Like Midler and her backup singers, the Harlettes, the Pointers favored vintage clothes and a retro sound that recalled big band or jazz-oriented vocal groups like the Andrews Sisters and Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross. But where Midler was known as much for her bawdiness as Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, the Pointers, despite their flirtation with camp, were more about the music - their jazzy, often funky material; their remarkable harmonies; and their dance moves. Though their Atlantic affiliation yielded the 1972 single, Don't Try To Take The Fifth, the Pointers wouldn't find their groove until they left the label. With Ruth finally on board, they signed with the smaller, more eccentric Blue Thumb, a subsidiary of ABC Records run by Bob Krasnow, who had great R&B ears, and Tommy LiPuma, who would become an esteemed jazz producer.
Their 1973 debut, POINTER SISTERS, produced by David Rubinson, yielded a Top Twenty pop hit, Yes We Can Can, written by New Orleans great Allen Toussaint. The Pointers' vocal harmonies were well suited to the percolating Big Easy rhythms, and the result was both very hip and very commercial. (And it suggested that Wexler had been on the right track; he just hadn't taken the sisters far enough south.) Their follow-up album, THAT'S A PLENTY, contained another of their early showstoppers, Bangin' On The Pipes / Steam Heat, as well as their most surprising success, Fairy Tale, a tune penned by Anita and Bonnie that became a country hit and even won a Best Country Single Grammy® Award. The sisters not only broke new chart ground with the hit; they became the first African-American women to perform at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. Their run of hits at Blue Thumb climaxed in 1975 with the chart-topping R&B side, How Long (Betcha' Got A Chick On The Side), written by June and Ruth with producer Rubinson.
After that, the Pointer Sisters' mid-seventies career was marked by legal disputes with their label and management, as well as by more personal travails. June suffered a nervous breakdown in '75 and left the group for three years. Bonnie decided to go it alone and signed a deal with Motown, taking a more dance-oriented approach that was briefly successful. By the time June was ready to return, the sisters had signed a new deal with Los Angeles-based producer Richard Perry, who had a custom-label, Planet Records, affiliated at the time with Elektra Records.
Though Perry had a quirky career in the late sixties, producing such artists as Captain Beefheart and Tiny Tim, he had legitimately become a mainstream pop star in his own right by the mid-seventies. He produced glossy, career-making hits for Art Garfunkel, Carly Simon, and Ringo Starr and worked with Harry Nilsson, Barbra Streisand and Diana Ross. His style was slick and he liked to bring bold-faced names to his sessions. (Remember Carly's You're So Vain with back-up vocals courtesy of Mick Jagger? That was a classic Perry production.) And though his work sounded big and expensive, it was truly the best that money could buy, and it came across brilliantly on the radio. And critics didn't turn their noses up at it either.
With the Pointer Sisters as his muse, Perry constructed a funkier sound, influenced by Chic-style R&B, the synth-heavy approach of new wave, and disco. He brought in some of the more happening pop songwriters of the day - like Allee Willis, Danny Sembello, Bruce Roberts and Tom Snow - along with Brill Building vet Cynthia Weil and Allen Toussaint, who supplied the Pointers with another ebullient number, Happiness. The sisters themselves kept a hand in composing too, co-writing Could I Be Dreamin' and I'm So Excited, among others. And, of course, there was the Bruce Springsteen tune that launched the Pointer Sisters' on the pop charts and reached No.2, a tune he himself had never gotten around to recording, though rockabilly singer Robert Gordon had taken a stab at it a few years earlier. (Though Fire became a staple of Bruce's live shows, the Pointer Sisters had decisively made it their own.) This mix of writing, producing, and, above all, vocal talent resulted in songs that were instantly appealing and remain as much fun today. Despite the studio sheen, there's real excitement in these tracks. The Pointers had traveled far from their retro-pop origins, but their vocal interplay was just as inventive, just as soulful, just as thrilling.
The Pointer Sisters reached the peak of the Perry years in 1983 with the aptly titled BREAK OUT, a double-platinum smash that included three Top Ten hits, Automatic, Jump (For My Love), and Neutron Dance. Also included in the album was a remix of I'm So Excited, a two-year old tune that dance-floor deejays had rediscovered and practically forced onto the charts. There were more notable singles and Perry productions, including Dare Me in '85 from the platinum-selling CONTACT and Goldmine in '86 from the subsequent HOT TOGETHER, and the Pointers maintained their major label career for another decade. In more recent years, they've reverted to their roots, donning vintage threads and breaking out the dance moves for a touring production of Ain't Misbehavin', a musical-theater compendium of Fats Waller tunes.
From the freewheeling musical scene of late-sixties San Francisco to the star-studded studio sessions of eighties L.A., the Pointer Sisters managed to find their own, inimitable groove, bringing playfulness and passion to all their work. You'll find their greatest from the eighties here, but there's really no need to get specific because it all sounds like right now. Some things can feel like the first time over and over again.
- Michael Hill
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