Bonnie Pointer

Patricia Eva "Bonnie" Pointer (July 11, 1950 – June 8, 2020) was an American singer and songwriter, best known as a founding member of the vocal group the Pointer Sisters. Pointer scored several moderate solo hits after leaving the Pointer Sisters in 1977, including a disco cover of the Elgins' "Heaven Must Have Sent You" which peaked at number 11 on September 1, 1979.

Born the third of four sisters, Pointer co-founded the Pointer Sisters in Oakland, California, in 1969, with the youngest sister, June. She established the group's trademark 1940s-influenced vocal style and fashion sense. The duo expanded to a trio then became a quartet after sisters Anita and Ruth joined. With Bonnie in the group, the Pointer Sisters recorded four studio albums and one live album from 1973 to 1977, earning two Gold record certifications in 1974 for The Pointer Sisters and That's a Plenty. Collaborating with Anita, Pointer co-wrote the songs "Fairytale" (1974) and "How Long (Betcha' Got a Chick on the Side)" (1975), the former winning the group the Grammy Award for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.

Pointer left the group in 1977, signing to Motown Records. She recorded four solo albums from 1978 to 2011. Her first two albums, Bonnie Pointer (the red album, 1978) and Bonnie Pointer (the purple album, 1979), both hit the Top 40 on Billboard's R&B album chart, but her later albums did not chart. Her version of "Heaven Must Have Sent You" was a dance club hit in the US, Canada, Belgium, New Zealand, and especially in Mexico where it topped the pop chart in 1979. She was married to Motown producer Jeffrey Bowen from 1980 to 2016.

The Pointer Sisters continued without Bonnie to experience their greatest success in the 1980s under producer Richard Perry. Bonnie and Anita teamed up to write a few more songs together, and Bonnie joined her sisters for public events in 1994 and 1996. She appeared as herself in the 2010 film Road to Nowhere, and she was interviewed for the 2016 documentary Jewel's Catch One about the L.A. disco scene. Pointer's solo career tapered off after 1980, and she struggled with alcohol and drug addiction. She died at home of a heart attack on June 8, 2020.

Bonnie Pointer and her younger sister June began singing together in their father's West Oakland Church of God in Oakland, California. They were the first two of the sisters to pursue a professional career, the Pointers (otherwise known as the Pair) in 1969. After Anita joined the duo that same year, they changed their name to the Pointer Sisters and recorded several singles for Atlantic Records between 1971 and 1972. In December 1972, after several singles had been released, oldest sister Ruth wanted to join the group and afterwards, the four released their debut album as the Pointer Sisters in 1973. Their first album, The Pointer Sisters, yielded the hit "Yes We Can Can". Between 1973 and 1977, the Pointers donned 1940s fashions and sang in a style reminiscent of the Andrews Sisters. Their music included R&B, funk, rock and roll, gospel, country and soul.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.