IN MEMORIAM

Bonnie Pointer

he Pointer Sisters debuted in the Top 40 in the mid-1970s on Tommy LiPuma’s Blue Thumb label. The Oakland, California siblings Bonnie, Anita, Ruth and June, who passed away in 2006, debuted with “Yes, We Can Can,” written by Allen Toussaint, which reached No. 11. The quartet, at the time sporting an old-timey look, achieved two more Top 20 hits on Blue Thumb, “Fairytale” and “How Long (Betcha’ Got a Chick on the Side)” which both included Bonnie and Anita as co-writers. The sisters’ composition “Fairytale” also reached country music’s Top 40 for The Pointer Sisters, and was covered by Elvis Presley on his 1975 album . In her 2019 interview with Anita said, “I was planning on continuing to be a secretary in a law office, which I was doing when I heard Bonnie and June singing in the Northern California State Youth Choir, performing “Oh Happy Day,” with Edwin Hawkins and Dorothy Morrison, and I just loved it, so I quit my job and said that I had to do this too.” Anita added about Bonnie’s passing, “Our family is devastated. The Pointer Sisters never would have happened had it not been for Bonnie.”