American singer Anita Pointer has just died at the age of 74. The group she formed with her sisters, the Pointer Sisters, rose to fame in the 1970s and 80s with hits like I’m so excited.
Anita Pointer, a member of the Pointer Sisters, a soul and R&B group she formed with her sisters in the 1970s and 80s, died Saturday at the age of 74 from cancer, according to her agent.
“While we are deeply saddened by the loss of Anita, we are comforted to know that she is now with her daughter, Jada, and her sisters June and Bonnie, and at peace,” her family said in a statement.
The group is famous in particular for the tubes I’m so excitedreleased in 1984 and won several Grammy Awards.
Growing up in Oakland, California, with her sisters Ruth, Bonnie and June, Anita Pointer had started singing as a child, in the church where their father officiated. Anita joined the group started by her sisters Bonnie and June in 1969, and the Pointer Sisters released their first record in 1973. This album, titled The Pointer Sisterscontains a first hit, the song Yes We can can.
“I was planning on continuing to be a secretary at a law firm, like I used to, when I heard Bonnie and June singing in the Northern California State Youth Choir, performing Oh Happy Day, and I just loved it. So I quit my job and told myself that I had to do that too“, she confided in 2019 to the magazine Goldmine.
Planetary tube
It’s with a cover of a Bruce Springsteen song, Firethat the Pointer Sisters reached the top of the charts in 1978.
The group then chained the successes during the following decade, of He’s So Shy in 1980 to Slow Hand in 1981 through Neutron Dance Where Jump (for My Love) in 1984, and Automaticthe same year.
I’m So Excitedthe tube which will become planetary, appears on the album So excitedreleased in 1982. The single, signed Anita Pointer, June Pointer, Ruth Pointer and Trevor Lawrence will be remixed in 1984. Entered into pop culture, the song appears in particular on the soundtrack of many films, from working girl with Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford and Sigourney Weaver at Passenger lovers by Pedro Almodóvar.
Their last title to rank in the American charts is Christmas in New York, in 2005. Still active, the group had lost June, who died in 2006, and Bonnie, who died in 2020 and continued with Issa Pointer and Sadako Pointer Johnson, daughter and little -daughter of Ruth.
Anita Pointer had lost her daughter Jada to cancer in 2003.
