Quote of the Day (Carina Del Valle Schorske, on the Painful Origin of a Pointer Sisters’ Country Hit)

“Anita Pointer wrote the first draft of the country song ‘Fairytale’ at a motel in Woodstock while she and her sisters were on tour singing backup for Dave Mason. She was still reeling from the revelation that her new boyfriend, a San Francisco radio DJ, had been married all along—a story so common she’d call it cliché if she didn’t have to plot the next chapter herself. That night she stayed up late running her favorite James Taylor tape on repeat, and the lyrics she wrote channeled his plainspoken style: There’s no need to explain anymore—I tried my best to love you, now I’m walking out that door. Once the tour was over, Anita’s baby sister Bonnie provided the bright and buoyant melody, as if to sustain the momentum of departure.”—Writer and translator Carina Del Valle Schorske, “Fairytale: The Pointer Sisters, the Great Migration, and the Soul of Country,” Oxford American, Issue 119, Winter 2022

I had just bought the latest issue of Oxford American this weekend when I heard about the death of Anita Pointer. The sad news brought back to me—as, I’m sure, it did countless other music fans—40 years and more ago, when she and her sisters embodied all the sass and ebullience of our collective youth.

The vocal harmonies of the Pointer Sisters began in youth gospel choirs in their parents’ church, before they would be heard, to joyous effect, across other genres: soul, pop, rock ‘n’ roll, and most surprisingly, as Ms. Schorske indicated, country.

(Not only did “Fairytale” win a Grammy for Best Country and Western Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group, but Anita would join sisters Ruth, June and Bonnie in appearing at the Grand Ole Opry—one of the first African-American acts to headline at that legendary venue.)

Alex Traub’s obituary for Anita in The New York Times stressed the versatility of her lead vocals: how, from her low register, she could “coo,” deliver “an earnest, imploring tone,” segue to a “huskier, sexier side,” but above all singing “with the speed and flavor of molasses.”

Although Traub’s piece sums up Anita’s protean vocal gifts, you really should read Ms. Schorske to appreciate what a cultural touchstone she created in “Fairytale”—a song that symbolized not only their musical restlessness, but also the larger movement that The Pointer Sisters represented as part of the Great Migration from the Deep South of the Jim Crow era. (Their parents left Arkansas for Oakland, Calif.)

Anita’s urge to remember the heritage of slavery and racism found an outlet in a collection of objects related to African-American history, a constant reminder to her that “everybody don’t love you and you have to prove them wrong.”

Remembrance was her private means of defiance, though the adoring public for her and her sisters will surely remember their public exultation in the face of everything, in hits like “Yes We Can Can,” “Jump (For My Love),” “Automatic,” “Fire,” and my favorite, “I’m So Excited.”

(For more on Anita Pointer and her sisters, you might want to listen to her interview three years ago with "Nasty" Neal Jones on the “Inside Your Head” podcast, promoting Fairytale, her memoir written with brother Fritz. In it, she discussed her sisters’ struggle starting out at Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, as well as the group’s appearances on Sesame Street, The Carol Burnett Show, and entertaining the troops with Bob Hope during the Gulf War.)

This Day in Pop Music History (Pointer Sisters Light Springsteen’s “Fire”)

March 10, 1979—He wrote it for Elvis Presley and saw it covered first by Robert Gordon, but it took the R&B trio the Pointer Sisters to convert Bruce Springsteen’s “Fire” into a hit, as it reached No. 4 on Billboard’s pop chart this day on its way to an eventual #2.

In a recent interview with Mojo Magazine (to which I alluded in a prior post), Todd Rundgren described how an album he produced, Bat Out of Hell, was meant to parody The Boss. But the over-the-top mini-operas Rundgren had in mind were from Born to Run and its predecessors.

By the time Meat Loaf was working on his album, Springsteen was already, at the urging of producer Jon Landau, crafting shorter, tighter tunes—a process that bore fruit in “Fire.”

If you want to see how much distance the pride of Asbury Park was putting between himself and his imitators, try this experiment: Play this anthem of thwarted lust in an automobile against Meat Loaf’s on the same subject, “Paradise by the Dashboard Light.” Rundgren notwithstanding, they could not be more different.

Think of it this way: Can you imagine anyone else besides Springsteen singing “New York City Serenade” or “Jungleland”? But, if you try to forgot other recordings of “Fire” you may have heard (and we’ll get to these in a minute), it’s still easy to imagine someone else taking a crack at this tune.

The Boss, mired in a lawsuit with former manager-producer Mike Appel, had a lot of time to cool his heels after his Born to Run tour ended, and he used the time to his advantage. Like other rockers, he had long cherished The King, even scaling the walls of Graceland in 1976 to see if his hero was around. (Security told Springsteen that Elvis was at Lake Tahoe, then escorted him off the premises, perhaps unaware that their visitor had just made the cover of Time and Newsweek in the same week.)

In May 1977, after having witnessed Elvis in one of his last, bloated performances—only a few months before his death—a disheartened Springsteen went home and, remembering his hero at his peak, wrote “Fire” for him. Elvis never had a chance to hear it, but Robert Gordon did and released his version in 1978.

One of the great might-have-beens of pop history is the possible spell Elvis could have created with Springsteen’s tune. It pulses with the sly sexual insinuation that was an Elvis trademark, from that hypnotic opening bass line to those lyrics that recall a Peggy Lee tune that The King covered, “Fever” (“Romeo and Juliet/Samson and Delilah…”)

Perhaps it was natural that this song, composed by an artist readjusting his music, would be embraced by a female group from Oakland, Calif., doing the same thing. Anita, Ruth and June Pointer had been unable to gain much commercial traction—attempts at country and R&B had floundered—until they hooked up with ‘70s superstar producer Richard Perry.

It was a shrewd move. Earlier that decade, Carly Simon, Ringo Starr, and even Leo Sayer had reached the pinnacle of their solo careers with Perry in the studio. For the next decade, he performed even more dramatic wizardry with the three Pointer Sisters (Bonnie left the group just before they hit it big), as he sustained their commercial success with nine albums and major singles like “Automatic,” “He’s So Shy,” “Jump (for My Love),” and (my favorite) “I’m So Excited.”

But it all began in 1978, when Perry nudged them away from their R&B roots toward a more pop sensibility, latching onto Springsteen’s single as part of the effort in making the LP Energy.

Two questions come to mind as a result of the cover of “Fire”:

1) Of all Springsteen covers, which is your favorite? I still cherish Greg Kihn’s version of “Rendezvous,” and Patty Griffin's “Stolen Car” is as searing an interpretation as you can get of one of Springsteen’s less-noticed works. But—call me crazy—the cover for which I have special affection is a bluegrass version of “Prove It All Night” on a 1999 CD called Pickin’ on Springsteen. It’s not only an unusual interpretation, with that duel among mandolin, guitar and banjo, but also, as an instrumental, shows that the song survives just as intact without Springsteen’s distinctive lyrics.

2) Which version of “Fire” do you prefer? As Warner Wolf might say, let’s go to the videotape! The Pointer Sisters’ live version is very, very fine. Springsteen’s, performed at the height of his ‘80s commercial success, is, as you might expect—particularly if you’ve been lucky, as I have, to see him in concert—inspired. But for a truly incendiary interpretation, there really is only one choice. Listen and gentlemen, I give you the One and Only, Elmer Fudd, as channeled by Robin Williams.