American singer Anita Pointer, who formed the successful pop group The Pointer Sisters with three of her sisters, died on Saturday at the age of 74. Pointer died of cancer at home in Los Angeles, report American media. Anita Pointer won three Grammys with The Pointer Sisters; seven of the group’s songs, in which the sisters jointly performed the vocals, reached the top ten of the US chart.
Anita Pointer founded The Pointer Sisters in 1969 with her sisters Bonnie and June. Later sister Ruth also joined the company. The first major success came in 1978, when the group had a big hit with ‘Fire’. In the Netherlands, the song – originally written and performed by Bruce Springsteen – was number one for four weeks. Until the mid-1980s, The Pointer Sisters then produced hit after hit, with singles like ‘Slowhand’a soul song with a very light country tinge, and it booming from the synthesizers ‘I’m So Excited’.
In 1987, Anita Pointer attempted to launch a solo career. She released the album Love for What It Is out, but it was not a great success. In the meantime she remained a member of The Pointer Sisters, who also disappeared from the top regions of the charts after ‘Dare Me’ (1985). In 2015, Anita said goodbye to The Pointer Sisters. She was already struggling with health problems at the time.
When The Pointer Sisters was founded, Anita, only 21 years old, had been married for four years and the mother of a daughter. The song ‘Jada’ on the group’s debut album is named after her. Although Anita divorced and remarried several times, Jada would remain her only child. Jada died of cancer in 2003 at the age of 37.
After Anita’s passing, Ruth is the only Pointer sister still alive. Bonnie Pointer, who left the group in 1978 to pursue her own music career, died in 2020. June Pointer struggled with drug addiction for a long time and died of cancer in April 2006, two years after she too left The Pointer Sisters. Ruth Pointer is still in The Pointer Sisters, along with her daughter Issa and her granddaughter Sadako.