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When they launched their debut album in 1973, The Pointer Sisters performed on the then-current nostalgia for the earlier technology. For Anita, Ruth, Bonnie, and June, it made sense: Their tight harmonies have been tailored for a revamp of Forties, big-band jazz swing. When critic Vernon Gibbs’ wrote a couple of efficiency by the group within the NME, he peppered the overview with phrases like “vintage” and “tradition.” Writer Ellen Willis noticed the identical present, and mentioned the group’s nostalgia was “fantasy that didn’t risk getting too real.”
For a minimum of a number of years extra, although, the Pointers discovered it helpful to maintain one foot within the Forties and one sooner or later. Their self-titled debut blended laments that “they’ve taken my memory lane and made it a six-lane freeway” and the New Orleans funk of Allen Toussaint’s “Yes We Can.” Their subsequent album, 1974’s That’s a Plenty, adopted the identical blueprint, with a number of harmonized jazz requirements (“Black Coffee”), slick R&B (“Love in Them There Hills”), and nation (the Grammy-winning “Fairytale”). But what are you able to be once you’re every little thing directly?
Listen to The Pointer Sisters’ “How Long (Betcha’ Got a Chick on the Side)” now.
That was the query that the Pointers tried to reply with their third album, Steppin’ (1975). As Ruth wrote in her 2016 autobiography, Still So Excited! My Life as a Pointer Sister, “The Pointer Sisters’ nostalgia act was starting to get a little stale.” They needed to point out the general public who they have been, “our own spirit,” as Ruth put it. And if you happen to’re going to point out them, present them.
That’s simply what they did on their first single from the album – “How Long (Betcha’ Got a Chick on the Side)” – written by Anita, Bonnie, and David Rubinson. This isn’t a tune that appears again. This is a novel model, combining all of the items of funk, R&B, and disco that make these genres nice. This is lush strings punctuating funky guitar. This is a beat that builds and builds, ready to blow up. It begs for dance flooring and home events. The signature harmonies that made them well-known are there all through, too. They present up once more within the whispered chorus, with Ruth’s deep alto holding down Anita’s lead. The result’s highly effective, assured. The tune would rating the Pointers their first (and solely) R&B primary.
They’d made one thing particular, they usually knew it. “The album was a mother,” Ruth writes. With songs written or co-written by Stevie Wonder (“Sleeping Alone”), Isaac Hayes (“Easy Days”), one other Toussaint (“Going Down Slowly”), and appearances by each Wonder and Herbie Hancock, Steppin’ tapped into one thing new for the Pointers, one thing that each artist and viewers might really feel. With the album, “We planted our flag as true song stylists,” Ruth writes. “We felt our days as a gimmick act were coming to a close.”
Listen to The Pointer Sisters’ “How Long (Betcha’ Got a Chick on the Side)” now.
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