Anita Pointer Memorial
Anita Pointer, Frequent Lead Singer of Famed Sister Act, Dies at 74
She was the lead vocalist on all three of the Pointer Sisters’ Top 40 hits in the group’s early years, and she helped define its pop sound in the 1980s.
Anita Pointer, the sweet and occasionally sultry lead vocalist on many hits of her family band the Pointer Sisters in the 1970s and ’80s, died on Saturday at home in Beverly Hills, Calif. She was 74.
The cause was cancer, her publicist, Roger Neal, said.
The Pointer Sisters occupied a middle point in pop history between the doo-wop innocence of the Ronettes and the stilettoed girl power of Destiny’s Child.
Anita’s voice had a lot to do with that. She sang with the speed and flavor of molasses. Though she commanded the virtuosity to trill prettily, she tended to sing too softly to sound overpowering. In “Slow Hand,” a love song with a soft-focus music video that reached No. 2 on the pop charts in 1981, Anita cooed.