Questlove SupremeBlack Music Month QLS Classic: The Pointer Sisters
Remembering the late Anita Pointer and Bonnie Pointer for Black Music Month, listen back to Questlove Supreme's special 2019 episode with The Pointer Sisters. Anita, Bonnie, and brother Fritz tell Team Supreme about growing up in San Francisco, breaking barriers in Country music, and writing a new chapter for the group during the 1980s.
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
What Up, y'all, it's unpaid bill for Quest Love Supreme. As you may have seen throughout June, we are celebrating Black Music one by releasing an episode every day, So every day you either hear especially picked a QLs classic, and on Wednesdays we are dropping new two part episodes with Wayne Brady and the legendary Dance Poyser, both of which were filmed in the studio. Black music is deeply important to me and has been an influence throughout my entire career. It's also something we celebrate here at QLs. Today's episode is the Pointer Sisters from twenty nineteen. Like several of the interviews we are revisiting this month, this one has special significance as Anita and Bonnie Pointer have since passed. In this interview, they were joined by brother Fritz. It's a special.
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His name is Fritz. Yeah, I'm glad to be here. Yeah are you folks?
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Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme Surprises of bound ladies and gentlemen even for us. Yes, this is an amazing day we have Team Supreme.
Was nice anyway.
Shout out to Jesse Spiano. Yes, I thought you were going to go the obvious route to say it. I'm so scared.
I was going to, but that was too obvious.
I see no, no good good, good work there. Thank you.
What can I say, ladies and gentlemen, we have what I consider a dynasty, an absolute dynasty. Uh, in my opinion, one of the probably the what what I would call the the the ultimate metamorphosis in black music covering jazz, country, pop, rock, soul, R and B.
You name it.
Uh, this entire family and to have FONDI here is that? Wait even before we start, are you still good your esther Phillips imitation?
Oh for sure, I surround my ho.
I want to, I want to.
We want to welcome Bonnie, Anita and Fritz one of the porters and brother, Thank you, thank you, thank you for giving us the honor of celebrating uh, your book which is entitled fairy Tale a Pointered.
Sister or a Pointer Family. What's the complete title?
Fairy Tale the Pointer Sister's Family story, Okay?
And fairy Tale course named after your historic our.
Lives our first.
Country country, best country vocal by dual or group. Bye we were.
It was written by me and Bonnie and we went over the oak Ridge Boys and the Statler Brothers Great Country.
To Nashville, Tennessee. David Rubinson was our producer and he was just amazing and he had lived in Nashville, but he took us there to record it in Nashville with the Opry musician, all operate musicians.
All musicians, and they didn't know that we were black at first.
And they said and we got on stage, they said, hot, damn it. Them gals is black.
That was Opry. Yeah, the first black females to ever perform there, Charlie Bride.
It was a welcoming surprise.
Yeah.
They loved us. After we sang the song though a thousand times, they had us sing it three times. Really, yeah, kept saying silent again, girl.
Yeah.
It was funny. It was it was funny. I was far it was really surprising.
So this was a collaborative effort from all of you as far as like is it an oral history book or how how's the book format it?
It is a collaborative effort from all of us. My brother Fritz is the writer, okay, and we fed him information.
He's professor Fritz.
I just retired from Contracstal Coniversity. Yeah.
Yeah, I taught for thirty thirty five years.
Yeah university.
I taught. I was in the English department, but I taught African history and African literature, both oral and written African literature. And so I taught those courses for thirty three years here.
And we had to sit there and learn them. And it was such a wonderful teacher.
It was great because you know, growing up in Oakland, we got no history, black history in our schools. And when my brother came back from college and set up a center and we called it the Black Students Study Group, and he taught us history that we never knew, you know, important things that black kids should know to feel proud of themselves.
Yeah. I feel like a Grillo because you know, the Greo is someone who the grio is someone who you know, recites poetry and history and then but the grio needs, uh some sort of heroic act in order to write about. And so I consider my sisters the heroines in this and I'm the grio who records their heroic deeds. So yes, can I?
Can I assume one of my favorite songs by you guys when like I've been listening, like the like the back of my hand.
But uh, the the.
The intro to Steamed Heat where you guys talk about your So can I assume that was autobiographical?
Like just.
So it was really written? It was not what we experienced. We didn't have steam heat in Oakland. There was no stame heat in Oakland. And we were talking about the play. Was it a pajama game?
Tell us about it.
It was a pajama game that did in high school and to the group, and I started just sang that song to them a game and then I liked that song, so then I thought it today my sisters after after I graduated from school and started the Pointed Sisters.
So what was uh your early childhood, uh memories like growing up in Oakland?
What was the Oakland like back then.
I thought it was a great town.
I have fun a lot of.
It's different now, it's changed so much. And we lived right across the street from Defirmary Park. That's where all the Black Panthers would have their rallies. But even before those times, we used to play at that park every day. It was our babysitter school.
We went to cold School and go to Defirmary Park and play and.
Mother and guns.
There was charm school.
We went to charm school at defferm Charm School, cookie class, dance classes.
Yeah, because the only time we heard about that was Motown.
Oh yeah.
We had the Walkward books on our ass and hold our purses a certain way and.
Have certain clothes and gloves.
The mother made us do that.
Yeah. I think it's really good for women to have that. And Fritz talks about that too. With the importance of the parks.
Yeah, my brother now is Commissioner of Parks and wreck for the City of Tacoma, and it's an elected position. They have to vote him in every year, and he's been re elected for like three times. Yeah, and he's really concerned that the parks have seen a decline and they don't have the kind of upkeep and maintenance that they should have because when we were growing up, we could play basketball at night under the.
Lights and.
It was such a wonderful Oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah yeah, many.
A few pointers. I'm sorry, are there they don't know.
Whether some of you are.
Everybody?
Yeah, there are six children children.
Yes, mister Ruth.
Aaron is the professional baseball player as well.
Yeah.
He pad referee for many years and NFL referee for the NFL.
He was he played for.
The Chicago Cubs in Houston Astros and he was retired from and.
He's the last professional baseball player to bat four hundred. No one has ever done that except our brother, and.
He stopped playing fifty years ago. Yeah, still record.
What an amazingly well rounded family.
Yeah yeah, yes, And we grew up in We grew up in a house with fifteen people and our cousins Paul Silas, and he's now he was a professional basketball player with the Boston Celtics and Uhlan.
Lebron James coach. Yeah, it was his first coaching with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Cousin Paul Silas.
Yes, yes, we have at first, Yeah.
You know what I mean? Then me okay, well, and then Ruth.
And then Ruth who's not here, and then Anita, then Bonnie and then June who was not here with us. Yes, but there we had a Oh god, we had an exciting childhood. I mean, there were so many jobs in Oakland. Oakland was just full of employment all everywhere, never worried about. And then all of a sudden, it just the you know, the offshoring and the you know, relocation of industry, and now it's just depleted. Was the main industry, well, I think the main industry was steel. They had a US Steel, but they also had a huge like I remember the Carrisco Company.
Was there, was there, was there, I never worried about.
Job was not an issue when we were growing up. You know, it just became that way, and oh god, last twenty thirty years, it's just because it becomes they just depleted just all the jobs left, and they put in liquor stores and crack of course.
And I remember going around the neighborhood collecting people's old magazines and then going back through those same neighborhoods selling them. Oh bood Nickel and that's three actually, I would usually get they were laughing. I had this magazine every time I got it from and I'll give it back to them. But we didn't worry about nobody shooting us or kidnapping us or you know. It was a great neighborhood, you know, where people were trusted. No guns, you know, no.
Not until we went to Arkansas.
And Bonnie went to Arkansas one year. I went three times. I went in the fifth grade, the seventh grade, and the tenth grade. The seventh grade. Bonnie wanted to come with me, so she came with me. And it was a hell of a trip to We rode all the way from Oakland to Arkansas and a big old transfer eighteen who.
People were were your back. I was in. We they had like a little apartments set up in the back of the truck.
And we left our family and and then Bonnie drove back.
To Arkansas in that truck. We spent about two hours as the whole trip because they were stopping.
I was I was like twelve or eleven or thirteen.
Yeah, well, this wasn't the visit family down south.
It was just grandmother. We were head at the grandma's house. They were saying they were shocked when that big old truck pulled up and here we have.
And then we wanted when while we were there it was it turned into Halloween, and we wanted to go tricky treating because we were from California, Okay, and we we thought we can go trick or treating, and they said.
My grandma just told us don't be out after dark. Right after dark, not past the city line where there was a city line where and we lived right grandma's house was.
Right across that line from that line.
White side of town was just on the other side of the street. We lived on the other side, right across the street where.
It was gravel on our side and it was paving on the on.
The white side.
Right all the roads on our side were gravel roads. All the streets on the white side were paved.
But it was probably good for you guys to see that and be exposed to.
Couldn't believe the conditions there when I went there, it was like I might have been going to a wild jungle somewhere, just you know, where people are living off the land and they didn't have indoor, indoor toilets.
And this is in the fifties, and I think that's where Anita got her country ye.
I kept doing it.
From Yeah, she kept going back and she would sit outside these speakeasies and listen to yeah right, Albert King and King and yeah. So that's I think she got her chops, her Southern nights, so her you know, country genuine, they're not.
Earl Thomas Conley. Yeah, yes, yeah, something like that. Yeah. And we went back to the Grand Ole Opry and we were presenters at the Country Music Awards that year, and they never said mention of.
That was I was how that came to me?
How was music officially introduced to the family, Like who's the first?
Was it?
Church?
Was it?
Yeah? Church?
And our mother was a singer. She sang at home all the time, saying to wake us up, you know, and singing to put us asleep. And she was a good singer, and she sang solos at church, and of course we be in the pastor's children. We got in the choir and we sang, and it really was good training for us.
I think so too, because I think that's where they learned to sing harmonically and also thing together because uh, you know, having having to audition for a position in the choir, then they place you in different places and so you begin to learn your voice and your your you belong and how to hold on to your own notes and how be in your own group. And so it was excellent training for uh for learning to sing, you know, and learning to sing group singing in particular.
Because they were like, don't get in my key, do not get in my notes? And then did you just get in my key.
Note?
Please mean to ask your sister Ruth, who's world famous for her based vocals.
Yes, yes, when did she developed that voice? Was that always?
There was so weird? How we all just had Yeah, she didn't.
Had it and she said she worked on it too, by screaming at our basketball games.
Yes, love to get to those games.
Yes, yes, because we had an amazing sports school, our school, mcclimates High School, so many.
Great basketball They never ever, ever ever lost a game.
Yeah. Yeah, the girls the fifteen years well actually it was like five years or so that we had didn't lose again fifty I wouldn't stay in high school that long.
But yeah, years year, five years they were.
They never lost the game. But some of the names like Bill Russell went to our school, Yeah, Frank Robinson lost. Kareean no, no, no, no, no, yes, but also Frank Robinson, the first Major League baseball coach, Bill Russell, considered the best basketball player ever, Wendell Hayes, Vada Pinson, all of these guys, Joe Ellis, all these guys became professional athletes, the Jewel. So they called us the School of Champions because we would just that was our thing, you know, winning, We love winning, and we did.
Him.
So that's how I was able to go to college on a scholarship scholarship. My brother and I both and my cousin went to a university on athletic scholarships. In fact, yeah, my, my, my fact, my my uncle and my father got together and said, uh, well, if you want my cousin, Paul Silas, because he was really the star, they said, if you want him, you got to take Fritz. And so that's how I got. They negotiated me and was already gone, yes, Aaron was already gone. But they said, if you want Paul, you got to take Fritz. Yes, yeah, yeah, So they took me out of reform school to go to play basketball.
So was what year was the beneficially started.
I didn't know that.
That that that that honor goes to Bonnie. She's the one who had the vision. She's the one who stepped out and said, we got I gotta do something. That Ruth and Anita were working jobs. You know, Anita was a secretary typing and Ruth was working as a key punch operator doing computer stuff and before computers, key punch and June was too young. But Bonnie said, hey, I want to do something different, and so she took that ride over to San Francisco and she and June I started singing together pointers a pair. They were called how.
How culturally different was San Francisco to Oakland and the late sixties? Because I know that people consider.
It totally different.
Really, so the the whole idea of this utopian uh love love thing that's happened.
I dontink I'm still dressed like that.
So that wasn't happening in Oakland at the time or was it? Just like.
Most Black Panthers, we were part of the Black Panther uprising in Oakland when it happened with Hugh in Newton and at the Black Church and then you know Panther Party.
But then on the other side of Francis, it was the hippie and all the love.
Yeah, it was rock and roll and so much of that in Oakland, but rock did see some of it in Berkeley. Yeah, you know, more about the colleges, they had a lot of you know, used.
To call it berserk.
And meskilline and things like that, living people living in commune drugs.
Oakland had a lot of political infrastructure when I returned from college. The Urban League, the nb A c P, the Nation of Islam, uh, you know, African American Association. Uh, all of these organizations were were doing work in Oakland, you know, and that was really a very political more political than uh than then San Francisco, you know, so we got meshed in that. We in San Francisco, we're part of the Northern California Black Panther Party before the before the Black Panther Party, for we were.
Talking about because they were talking about the whole establishment of Kwansa and whatnot.
Yeah. In fact, there's a filmer in the in the in the in the movie called the Panthers about our organization. When the Black Panther part of our self defense came from Oakland, San Francisco and shot up our party and said we should not call ourselves that name.
Anymore.
Yeah, So we said, okay, stole.
Our money, now you're okay, right, yeah, yeah.
Because we wanted to be aligned with Lounges County, Alabama and the Freedom Democratic Party at Fanny lou Hamer and so I know I needed that. We're talking about going to uh there to be a part of that movement, but with Stokely Carmichael. So we did a lot of work there, you know.
So I didn't poetry with Angela Davis. Time did back a couple of points with Angela Davis.
Really did you?
Guys?
Did you publish him?
Are they can?
You know?
I have them in my head?
Well, Huet Newton was hitting and tired of.
Being sick and tired lost in the wilderness of white America. Are the masses asses cool? Said the masses to the slave, no.
Problem, don't rob and still I'll be your driving will cool baby, And he willed us into three hundred years of black madness from hall guts, breaching, creams, promises and Uncle Thomas's to the streets to Watts to kill boom. Two Honkys gone, motherfucker, the police and Poxes the two black people tied, sick and tired of being sick and tired.
You were saying that Huey Newton used.
To hit in fact that, in fact that the night the night he.
Knew it was fine though.
Yeah, he was fine.
Beautiful brother had the center opened that we were having a party.
Yeah, and he came.
Yeah, and he tried to get Bonnie to leave with him, did I And she didn't go. A little while later, we get this pot call he's been shot. Yeah, so we all was glad. High in the hospital.
Yeah, we got We got a car caravan of about ten cars and went to the hospital just to stand.
Around because they had arrested him, staying he had shot a cop.
Yeah. Yeah, so we went there to just make sure that they didn't do too much harm to him.
The police let us know, you better get out of here. The game with their dogs their good.
You could hear them.
They stood in the line and everyone dispersed.
Yeah.
Yeah, and we ran away, ran.
Got away to live another day.
Oh yeah, jump.
Oh that was just at a crazy.
So that was one drive guy in my lifetime. We were in a drive by and that was in Oakland. Yeah, we were at a party in the backyard.
Marty and the guy had a fight with somebody back there and came by shooting, and we jumped the fence and and.
Get so far was that we got in convertible. It was a pink, pink convertible. We're trying to dugle on.
Oh my gosh.
So then you're already ready for this book to be the movie.
Yes we are. Yeah, it'll be out in February. It'll be out in February. February this coming year, February Black History Month.
Yeah, so black black, Yeah.
Get back up out a day.
Back when, back when it was Point as a pair. You guys were signed to Atlantic.
No, we weren't signed to anyone then. No, we were just singing all over over San Francisco and everywhere. And in June we became when Anita joined the group. Then we became the Pointer Sisters.
Okay, and was signed to Atlantic and signed to Atlanta. Terry Wexler saw we were playing at the Troubadour. We were backup singers, Me and Bonnie and June were backup seekers for groups in San Francisco, and we were.
Saying, I don't know on my Sevester records, I've seen your name.
Oh yeah, yeah, I have so much fun with them. We were seeing he had the best clothes, Like I know, you got flying chickens on stage, hoops, wo fire people jumping through the hoops, and just people on swings. It was just like a circus. And we had we could have come out there and be singing our hands off as high as we could go because his voice was high right, and he wanted us above him.
Our veins would be popping out of our next I.
Think you said, did you did you? Did you attend his wedding at first kind of the first game wedding in San Francisco, Funny went to wedding?
What was that in Golden Gate Park and Park?
I'm saying, what did they What was the first dance?
I don't I don't remember. We were too high, that.
Makes sense to me.
Tell you it was six was it seventy seventy two seventy one or something like that. Yeah, we all went to go.
It was like seventy two seventy one. Yeah, just before we did our finished our We were finishing our album at the same time.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we loved his clothes.
When when was the trip There was a trip where they took to I think Mississippi when they told you you couldn't sing. Uh, they had to sing you couldn't sing.
That was what when we did the thing with Elvin at the Whiskey of Go Go with Jerry Wexler was in the audience and he called David Rubinson and said, I want to sign these girls. And like the next day we were off to New Orleans and from New Orleans to be with Wardale Kazar and from there we went to Jackson, Mississippi. Yeah. Jerry Wexler Aretha's producer. Yeah, and they got there, they gave us like five songs to learn overnight.
How okay, Because of the intricacies of your presentation, First of all, when you're the point of Sisters, did you guys come out the gate?
In the.
Sort of filtered Andrew Sisters forties stick thing that.
Defined you guys.
For your first Blue Blue Note reclue, like was it, did you guys come out the gate? As in, Okay, our approach, it's going to be these forties harmonies with the dresses and we.
Had the forties look, but we wanted to sing everything. And on the first but the first two albums we did stick with the jazz. We did a lot of jazz on the first two.
Albums Cloudburst yea nine, How did you guys rehearse that?
Because that's so intricate.
Start off slow and yeah yeah, but we worked on it for you know, weeks. We sang it slow. Everybody get their note and you sing it slow and every day you speed it up.
It's so hard for me to imagine that because, I mean, now with technology, I can go on the internet look up lyrics, you know, instantly repeat stuff.
But you know, like there's a lot of words in Cloudburst.
I know, so we got we got recognized in the Encyclopedia Britannica for singing five hundred words a minute.
Yeah, I know, Like, how how long did it take you before you mastered? Mastered it perfectly?
After we fainted in the studio.
A few times a week?
Two weeks maybe, Yeah, it would take working day for hours. We go to David's office and just had a keyboard player that would just play it.
You can tell like that that to me, like I feel like, whenever I want to put somebody.
Down, that was always oh no, no, no, I knew from first you were my love because that's new great clubbers.
My heart really flew.
Class the first I Found Your Love and that's clubs.
Yeah. Well, one of the things about that is that you know they were when they went to this southern event, they were told that they not supposed that they wanted to put them in a mold.
And with the yeah, and we went from Jerry Wexler's said he wanted to sign us. They sent us down there to Wardale because they're and we went in singing country songs and uh, what else we have?
Jada?
Do we have Jada? Then too, and some other songs, and they laughed in our face. They told us, you can't sing songs like that. You guys are black girls, and you gotta sing like.
The Jackson five. I want you to sound like the Honeycomb and he comes in the docks.
That's what they told us.
So then they gave me like the Honeycomb, a song called Don't try to take the Fifth on Me.
Yeah. They gave us some songs that we lord.
Yeah, yeah, we did them and they put them out.
They didn't do anything we knew. There wasn't us.
Objection, not gone well, not gone with.
Question and nature.
Okay, So.
It was very unorthodox though, because you guys were like the first throwback group. Even though throwback wasn't a thing back in the seventies, you know, like the whole nostalgia culture things didn't really wasn't a thing that you guys were even taking it before the fifties.
You were taking it to likewies and forties.
Yeah, oh yeah, How did you guys convince?
Uh?
Well, you're you're still at Atlantic with short you went to Bob was Bob cresnew president of uh huh? What made him see the vision of you guys and what you could be?
I think it was David David Rubinson. David Rubinson had a bit that thing. Yeah. Yeah, he was familiar with the catalog of jazz and Lambert Hendrickson Ross and Disica Lespie and Duke Ellington, and he wanted all of them. And when yes, and when they said, you know, we can sing anything, don't put us in a box, then David must have heard that and said okay, and then they able to do it. Yeah, yeah, and so what Yeah.
When we got the record back from New Orleans, that Wardale, because there did that we recorded in Jackson, Mississippi, David Rubinson took the record and threw it across the it was, this is not what I wanted you to do.
This is not what I wanted for your division.
Yeah, it wasn't what we wanted to do either, because they just you know, didn't let us do our music. They took one country song that we took to them, Tulsa County, Oh my god, count and they they took that song and you wouldn't recognize it. After they finished with it, they rearranged it into an R and B country song, so it didn't need the sound country anymore, saying man, you're black, you can't say no country music, right, right, And.
That reoccurred when they went to the Grand Ole Opry and they had signs out in the front greeting them saying keep country white, keep it keep yeah, yeah, keep country country, country country, Yeah, in front of the Grand Ole Opry.
That was the original makerber great again, right exactly exactly, say yes, same thing, that's right, that's right.
Yeah. So that was quite an event. And you know, the country western part of it, you know.
Yes we can't can, which was Alan wrote that for you guys Allan.
Lee Dorsey did it, Yeah, he did it first. How did you what was whose idea was it to cover that song.
It was a pointers says. We had the record at the Lee Dorsey album and we took it to Day but it said this is the message we want to get to the world. So then we wrote the vamp the end of the song. But Alan wouldn't give us any credits on it. He said the song was to my song, my song, I give you no writers credits, even though we wrote the whole end. Now the time all the people come together as an equal take the burden off your brother, got to love one another. How can you sit there like there's nothing to do, just like you don't care with this world is coming to so many needy, so many poor understanding is the key to the door, you know?
And you know for their first debut performance, what what club was that the built? Built?
Was it?
You know where you did the where the Klan was in the uniforms?
That was Bimbo and Ku Klex Klan.
Their debut performance. The performance the band was in a Ku Klux Klan uniform.
We were dressed like Billy Holiday. That was funny.
And the band was dressed in hoods and capes and and they were playing their guitars and playing in their Hoods that kind of funny now, But our own backup band was the klu Klux Klan.
Can you believe it? Can you believe it?
Like Billie Holidays and everything that was so wonderful.
I didn't even notice the band, didn't. We got off the stage and I saw pictures. Yeah, turn around, and then nobody turned once, so we did.
I was so nervous on the first show.
Yeah, I didn't even realize they wouldn't know that who the band was. I didn't know.
I didn't care because I wouldn't pan them no attention.
Yeah, those three sixties, that was our very first, our first American show.
Oh my god, Oh my god.
Did you have the Klan band too?
No? We did not. No.
Wow, So what what was the what was the touring circuit like for that specific period? Because I know that at least with the Summer of Love, like between sixty seven and seventy three. Uh, Bill Graham was into mixing, you know, Miles Davis and the Grateful Dead, Like would you guys fit in anything that was Bill grammish at all?
Or he was our manager managed the Fillmore West, Fillmore East. Yes, it was our manager, but he said.
He didn't be able to know that. He was always giving us money and he.
Think everybody that.
He did very meant so influenced our career and helped us along and to grow be what we are now today.
So would he promote you via the rock circuit or like we were doing backup.
Singing at the time.
We were back up going to feel More West singing with Evanship Maha Jefferson airplane and we lived right across the street from did not get in line, so we were always there. Bill Graham was our man. He loves.
Really So was it just like mere seconds to learn a song or like just.
Going to make up our own backgrounds with them?
Oh?
Yeah.
We did a lot of background singing on record and we would go in and they would play the track and they say, now what would you put what background would you put on this man? So we would make up the background parts.
The situation for David Sessions.
Yeah, we did with some. Betty she was funny. She was really around.
She is actually.
The documentary stepping in her mail the shoes. Yeah, Betty was cool.
So was that just a regular day? I mean, because she's so uh mysterious with her you know, her life and everything that this documentary is finally our first glimpse into really was there anything notable about those sessions at all? Or I was just like, all right, we woke up one day, who Betty Davis looking.
Pants?
And she wrote that song about I mil shoes.
I find out?
All right, I want I'm gonna skip to seventy five when you guys did the Stepping album speaking of shoes. Yeah, I think the very first song I ever learned to play on drums was I bet you got a.
Chick on the side, Get out of here.
I mean, by that point I was big enough to actually fit on my dad's My father's a German drummer.
No, no, no, he was.
My father was an oldiest singer. But his band, uh, you know, I used to always sneak on the drum set and.
So sen of you for a minute, let's see what's going on.
But I'll say that, uh, the Stepping album, especially with I sleeping alone and what's the other Stevie's yeah, bring.
Yeah.
What were those sessions like working with them?
Oh? They were just heavenly. I don't hardly remember. I was sing off Stevie.
Sing but you're gazing into space?
And we wrote together.
We went to the condos and we were living in Saucelito, and he came over to Scalyo to our condo and we rode and then we went back to David's studio and we went to Wally Hiders studio in San Francisco, and it was just magical.
You know.
I was just happy to were working with him. I loved him with all my heart. And then to be able to work with him too and write some songs. And I noticed we got we got credit on baby Bringing Your Sweet Stuff Home to Me, and and we wrote another one with him called Sleeping Alone, but we didn't get any credits on it. So, Stevie, if you're out there, tell me.
I said the same thing on ourselves.
You know, I wrote the whole into that song. It can give me some credits.
Come on, Steven, wait on that.
I'm sure he's not addling the publishing, you know himself. So and those people that do, they're all about the money. They don't care about nothing.
Else, right Unfortunately, So with the the having a Party project, it was the approach was less about the forty what what means you guys?
Just stylistically to modernize the group and not yeah forty sing anymore.
Whose decision was that?
Well, I guess a joint decision of us and producer. But we have been doing these songs, you know, and getting gold albums and but it it made no difference. You know, they barely would hear them on the radio. The songs wouldn't be played just.
Like now huh.
But once we got a gold single, everything changed, and I guess that's what we were headed for. We didn't get it with David with having a party, but we got some nice fun stuff on that record and great musicians.
It's weird because for hip hop, that's an album that a lot of hip hop produces gravitate towards because of you know, there's hip hop producers hear things different, so it's like like if there's a good four bars, there four bars, you know, that's sort of things. So, yeah, a lot of notable hip hop classics were you know, the foundation of a lot of the musical backdrop. That's an album to go to, you know with like drum loops and whatnot. That's good, but for you, you didn't particularly enjoy that album or that project or.
That was the last project with David we did have the train station in La Union. It was just a crazy day. I remember it's working so hard and sweating, and.
I don't remember it.
Was hot.
It was oh god, it was a fun day.
Though. I enjoyed the video.
I enjoyed it, Okay. So how uh.
As far as like the four of you concerned? I mean, because you know, it's family members sometimes agreeable, sometimes they bicker or whatnot. But like, how is it like is it truly always an agreeable atmosphere? Like how do you guys settle your differences and you're together all the time and you know how.
Respect Yeah, and knowing each other as we grew together, you know, we just seemed to know what buttons not to push, you know, and when it'll be quiet.
Me being the shortest and that one of the youngest. I believe me. I wasn't pushing no button nobody else's but not the tall people ain't too tall.
No, she got tougher because she was the smallest, the biggest mouth, always ready to to get somebody. And Jack was the baby, so she was always handled with kid gloves. She was always kind of fragile, she really was, you know, And we kind of took care of her as much as we could.
So you eventually went to Motown in seventy eight, seventy six, seventy eight with you released what Heaven must have sent you.
I think I gotta say that all all.
Of your soul training appearances, we're legendary because you and Don's flirt game.
How much speak of Sea Ones, I'll.
Hook you up. I got you on that you and Don's flirt game was really really I'll say that.
I don't I don't know what it was, but you know, there, I always felt like there was a lot of inside jokes whenever he would talk to you, like he would flirt with you the most.
I'm keeping my mouth ship, so I would like.
To know.
Boss Bill and I for about maybe four or five years, we did a course as quasi professors at.
N Y Youth and.
One of the main themes of our class was the idea of what the eighties represented as far as uh for black groups transitioning too, what what lay ahead, or the idea of For some reason, the idea of crossovers seemed like a four letter word, But you know, I always explained to our class. There's a scene in film and Luiz where the very last scene. I don't want to spoiler alert.
Did you see the movie, you know, the Cliff on the Cliff, But for.
You know, for a lot of black artists that were notable in the seventies, uh, the eighties represented a cliff jump, and either some group's idea was to okay, well, the lead singer has to go, so I you know, Richie leaves the common doors and Michael Jackson eventually his way out of his family to go solo. And then some other groups kind of had a do or die situation, which is like either roll with the punches or you know, get left back into nostalgiaville. And I'll say that you guys, probably out of all the acts that attempted, that jump fared the best. Uh you know, Earth went and fired trying to make that jump cool in the gang, same situation. What when you guys went to Planet Records. I don't know what label that was under, but yeah, I know that you guys work with with Freddie Perrin Bridger parent par.
Uh.
What what was the trust situation between him as a producer and the group as far as.
Convincing you guys to like see things my way? And I'm gonna put push you in a different direction, which.
We kind of went to him wanting a different direction, and he liked our ideas. We took songs to him and uh, what were the songs? Everybody is a Star? It was one of the songs we took and let's see.
I remember you did ah well Fired?
Yeah?
Yeah, but.
No, I'm just saying that, Oh, well, do you revealed to me that you guys went to him? In my mind, I'm thinking usually when we ask people that come on our show, usually it's a thing where it's like, yeah, the label told us we have to do that, we have to do that, and always wanted to know because you're you're probably the first act that really has four stages, you know, Lias a singing act, four stages of.
Life, as I had the list of the songs on my first album because there were a few that we brought to him. But he liked what we our ideas and we wanted to get away from the nostalgia thing because we didn't want people to compare it to what we used to do. We wanted to do something totally different and also more commercial. We ended up with Fire getting our first goal single and it made such a difference. We had gold albums and we never had a goal single before. But once we got that goal single, everything just shot up. Everything just went hey, it went crazy. You know, I wish I written that song.
Bruce song to you guys are like Howard Songs presented to you.
Richard Perry brought it to us and I heard it was originally recorded and written for Elvis Presley. But because when they brought it in and played it for it, so it's like I'm running in your car, wait turn on the radio. And I said what I said, maybe Ruthy should sing it. He said, I want you to sing it, and that nice, So I said, it is our first gold single.
Well that was a kind of another kind of a mold breaking experience too, because there you ran into like you did with the country music. Black girls don't sing rock and roll, right, that was a crazy idea. I don't know where he got that from, but that's what I read that.
Yeah, because with Richard Perry that second album, Priority, we had such successful the first album and then Priority we put that and it was like all rock and roll, it's so good. I love it, and they wouldn't play it the radio.
Said, they refused to play it because there's no such thing as black rock and rollus.
Can you imagine that a rock and heart? What do they think started it?
Really? Where did?
The ones who copied it from the black radio couldn't play it either.
They just weren't allowed to play it because you know, they owned by the white folks.
It's to go to the bathroom.
Fan, Okay, I love it, well, I love I love the fact that your label wasn't discouraged or.
Yeah, I got another chance because.
Because our producer loved rock and roll. I mean he, I mean he was friends with Tina Turner and you know, Rod Stewart and all of them would always be at his house and stuff, and he loved it. And he felt that from getting that first album through with all the you know, the things that were on there, and he figured, well they and if plus he was producer of the year okay, he was that olser of the year. He got awards, accolades all and so he figured, I can do this, you know, and Noll accept it from me, and they did. He said, no, I'm a rock and roll guy too, and you know, and they did. They didn't they wouldn't accept it.
Dang, it's still hard for him too. So yeah, yeah, progress been slow for.
The Special Things album. I know that the burying Cynthia, right, he's so shy. I know Cynthia. Well yeah, okay, I gotta look.
He's so shy. Was Tom Tom and Cynthia.
Yeah, Barry became a songwriting partner. Tell you guys, how was that song?
Oh?
It was so much fun to was he We worked with him before on something else. I can't remember what song, but when he brought us, he's so shy, and we just loved the song and it was easy to sing, and people loved it and and I think guys loved it because we could sing to them, you know, and most guys are shy.
To me.
Happened on the Love Book with Isaac.
And you went to school with him.
I went to high school with Ted. We were we were in plays all the time. His mother had a radio show there.
Yeah, was militant.
We had a great drama teacher, mister Wayne. And we still keep in touch with him and Ted are still writing things, and I get in touch with them every now and then. We're not in touch like we should be. But I loved Ted and we went to high school together, and we were in all the plays together in high school. I really thought I would get into acting more than singing, because I really liked it. But once I started auditioning, I said.
Oh no, this is not for me.
I forgot car washing.
Oh yeah, that's true. Car Wash was so much fun. Oh god, that was so much fun working with Richard Pryor. I'm a kidney. He had us laughing all the time.
It was hilarious.
We went to his house and hung out with him there after, you know, the show shooting and stuff, and.
Was on the road with him at that place and was that in New Jersey?
Were we're open for him?
At?
Uh?
That place in back East and I can't remember. And he would get out on See.
The US won't get me. Know.
I love the I love them, but they won't give me.
What was it like working with Norman Whitfield? You gotta believe what was he like in the studio.
He was wonderful, He loved us. He know we should have had the hit song the war songs that he was his group Rose roy So and they did a fabulous job and they were wonderful, but he know that should have been our song.
He wanted us to sound like the Female Temptations.
We were I was up at Ruthie's apartment. Gary Stromberg, I think it was, who was one of the producers, was AT's house, remember AIDA's house, And we went down there and Gary Stromberg was there and he said he's doing a movie. And we said, well, put us in the movie. You know, if you're doing a movie. We were hot at the time. We had hit songs and on TV and all that stuff. So he did. He called us the next day and say we got We wrote you in And it wasn't a big part, but it was a fabulous time. It was yeah.
With Bill Rich.
Yeah you got to believe in something.
Yeah, wellhy not believe in me? Yeah that was too much.
But how many days did it take the shoot? Was it just like a one day shoot or no?
It was like a week?
Yeah?
Yeah, a week because yeah, it was fun. And the last day of shooting we had our own little rat party. We were all so happy that it was over. Oh my god. And then we got to call the next morning saying we need close ups. I thought I was going to die close up today all night.
It's crazy. I ran into Rose Royce and Beijing. Wow, really she's performing over there?
I wonder, Yeah, were you lecturing?
No, No, my wife and I were just visiting Beijing, and of course you and of course she didn't. She wasn't very friendly. And then I found out the backstory and found out that that that they had been brought into the studio by normal I think to say, sing it like the Pointer sisters.
And.
That's a long time to hold I know.
She said that.
Yeah, No, she didn't say anything out why she was so unfriendly to us because I introduced myself.
They were very rude to Rose Royce while we were in the studio.
Wow, were that.
Norman Whitfield was tough and he wanted to show that he was was you know, sing it again and sing it about. You can sing it better than that.
Wow, pu's it up there?
Come on? And it was really just hard on them. I couldn't understand because I never had a producer talk to me that way and he didn't. No, he didn't talk to us that way at all.
They sing it at all.
We got it.
We don't want to.
Us.
We got it right.
Yeah.
It was a great honor to work with him. He's such a legend and the world another borl.
Will Miss Bonnie studied under Cecil Brown, who did a biography of Richard Pryor at that kind at Merritt College in Oakland. Yes, he did a biography of Richard Cecil Brown. He wrote some wonderful books stagger lye and you talking about dancer, You mean a book a book? Yeah, yeah, but he wrote a biography.
Did you study Bonnie Oakland Mills College, Miracle?
What did you study there?
Art?
Visual art?
Yes, Pa, we got to get.
Got to get a new easel and I got.
What was it like doing? Well, how did y'all get the call? I guess for the pinball thing?
Oh?
Yes, I love call this so I don't know how they they called and asked us to do it, and we went over to San Francisco and we took our kids. I had Jada was there and fun and Malik I think she gone and Nandi were there to I don't know. I think so princes kids.
My kids were very cool working.
In the studio with Herbie. Was he there at the time?
What the pinball machine?
Handcock?
No, the pen Mam machine is the sesame street.
Music wise, we always told that Herbie Hancock did the music.
Really well, we weren't there.
I don't even know we did it. We did sing one to the four, five, eleven, twelve.
Always a different times.
Yeah, well that's that's the and we did the ab school cool crazy swinging alphabets.
Okay, Well, it's interesting to when they talk about how the technology has developed and how when they were singing earlier on they didn't have this looping protos.
We were twelve times.
We had the twelve hundred times we would be in the studio till our hands fell, like.
One of one of our usually it's six of us and one of our members. Uh, unpaid Bill is.
Unpaid Bill, that's his name.
He's now the Joe Roposal of Sesame Street.
He like, oh wow, beautiful.
He was going through all the.
Old tapes and realized that you guys had to do twelve individual versions of that song.
And wow, I didn't even know that. I don't remember. Wow about eleven twelve, I get it.
I'm glad it wasn't. Yeah, it could have been twenty.
That's what I like it.
At the studio.
Yeah, what time is that we have to be there?
Now?
Finished? Thirteen?
I have a question because I know that you always wanted to know you wrote on the Special Things album.
Could I be dreaming?
Yeah?
Can I ask you something? How much have influenced the Jackson shake Your Boy Down to the ground half on that song?
You know what?
I didn't think a minute enough to ever come to you. But the thing is, the track was done by Trevor Lawrence, my friend. He brought me the track. I wrote the lyrics. I never never even entered my mind anything about Michael Jackson or the Jackson's And when a friend played it for a friend and she told me that I wanted to pop her in the what just like Jackson's what you're talking about?
Witness?
It was so hard. I'm like, this is one of the best songs I ever wrote. I love it.
The thing was.
When radio first started playing it, Jackson.
And That's something A minute, Wow, that was? That was really cold, you know, because I'm sorry, thanks for bringing that up to say that, you know, And there are songs that sounded like.
Out there all the time, I know, and they wouldn't play mine.
Here's the thing.
Here's the thing though, because you're a Nita Pointer and you're black, You're not a Jackson.
We just we just had Randy Jackson on the show for him and for him, he admitted that shake your body down to the ground was basically his version of Teddy Pendergrass, Get up, get down.
Believe me, you know what.
We take some songs all the time, but I swear to God if when I was doing that song, I had no there was no inkling, no thought about the Jackson song at all. We've had songs that we've taken from John Lee Hooker, you know him, that we've done, and we you know, did some things from his.
We did that on it was bet you got to check on the side, really.
Say that. But I believe me, I'm proud to say, whoever, because that's what music is all about, going round and round and you know, coming back backing in and and so I would never not get him that. But I took the Jackson song for for Could I be dreaming? Because I never thought about the.
Jackson the thing that, yeah, the music I would that narration.
I wanted to be heard, and they won't even play the damn song and they think.
So we're gonna flap somebody, Yes.
It's released.
How things like that happened? Like when I was writing the song man with the Right Rhythm. Janet came out with Rhythm Nation, and.
Even when I did, uh, when I did, could I be dreaming? Jermaine or one of the brothers came out with tell Me I'm not dreaming?
You know, keep your mouth.
That when I was, Oh my god. John Bettison, marcou Jacko, Michael.
Clark, human Nature.
Yeah, that became like the women's national anthem. You know, I called it the American female anthem because it certainly speaks to today's hashtag me too, beneath the man.
A company.
That slower reminds me of just being a kid, and like hearing that on the radio and kind of like a kind of like a country count.
I used to look like that.
Nashville writers John Bettison, Michael Clark.
Okay, yeah them. I just remember hearing that song and like Crystal Gale.
And like all those that was.
Like all the.
But that's easy to for you to digest and accept other songs like the Kenny Rogers, the Dolly Partons and whatnot.
I loved it. I thought it was a great song. I'm glad to sing it.
You know what, not many people know that a lot of people I believe that I'm So Excited debuted on Breakout, not knowing that.
Two years beforehand.
It was I'm so excited, it was excited.
What was what was the reasoning behind re releasing it for Breakout?
I begged Richard Perry because I said, this song is a hit. It's a shame too much. Let this song go to waste, and it's a great song. And they just made me sick not listening to us, and they put it on the first album and then put out American Music as the single. You know, we're all patriotic and Hayden, yeah, I'm telling you. And then I said, David, come on, you know we rode with all our hearts and this is a great song and you can't let it go. We want this on the next album, and he did it. I didn't know. I didn't know if that had ever been done before, but I said, you got to do this. You got to save this song and get it back out there. It was on the Breakout album, it was on the So Excited album. The album was titled and it still wouldn't play it.
That's ridiculous, you know.
And then it put it on the next album and coming out as an instant hit.
So you're telling me that because again, I mean, I was listening to black radio exclusively like when I was a kid.
But it wasn't like I was taking the charts to the billboard, none of that stuff. But I heard it a lot.
But you're saying that from your perspective in eighty two when it first came out on So Excited album, it wasn't a hit. It wasn't a hit hit like across the board in your eyes, or it was number is wise.
It just wasn't right right, not until it got on the breakout album.
So in your minds, unless it's a pop hit officially like covering all bases of the black charts and pop radio, then it's like, okay, it's satisfactory or well.
When you get the numbers, the ratings from people buying the album, you know, that's the main way to judge it, I guess. And then the requests for playing your songs. I don't know. It's a whole different market now though, with Instagram and stream and music, and people don't buy it, they just stream it.
And download it.
That counts work they downloaded, and but they pay for.
That, right, Well, that that's One of the things that David mentioned too, is that it was alternative radio that really promoted the point of Sisters early because black radio wasn't playing them, and they still have problems playing the point of Sisters for whatever. I don't know. At least they.
Can't get don't hear nothing.
They was definitely playing I'm So Excited on w.
D S and Philly, So those two, at least I'm so excited I.
Would jump that was excited.
Well, yeah, I mean Breakout was just short of thriller. They had seven singles on it. So were you shocked at the at the mass excepstance of Breakout the album and how.
Shocked and thrilled? Happy, just elated? Yeah, it was wonderful to have an album go triple platinum.
So we had Ali Willis on our show, have Anita pointer or.
Okay, so we heard or.
She explained to this that that song almost didn't make Beverly Hills cop Like the way that was discovered by the producers was kind of an accident.
Yeah, were you guys are aware of how it was added last minute? Like by accident?
Somewhat? I don't. I don't remember the whole story, but I remember there being some conflict with the lyric and thinking of neutron bombs and you know, yeah song about war and some people. I'm so happy, she said, yes, it is.
I think there's some deep irony in there, though she's been very sarcastic, deeply sardonic. I mean, it's not just you know, she's she's really saying, you know, you really just put where you want the world to go? Can you can you really you know, deal with.
I don't want to take it anymore exactly, I'll stay here locked behind the door, right, so it has stop.
And get away where it is now, I can't separate it from a truck chase.
And I also said somebody actually stole tried to steal her brand new Chevrolet.
That's right, that's the lyric.
Yeah, yeah, and the redom I have no.
Yeah, that was good.
We go back to uh, the So Excited album for a second.
Huh Yeah, go ahead, You guys covered one of my favorite songs in that record, Princess, I Feel for You?
Where did that I do from?
You?
Guys?
Cover that from Richard Pry He brought it to us and we love Prince. Prince had come into the studio too to watch us record one time, and and so uh, he invited us to come to Paisley Park and do it there. And that's what we did. What we did. What was that Like he had all his his factory upstairs where they made all his clothes, close, shoes, everything to match. And and he had like a cave area where he had the purple Rain motorcycle. And it was a whole big room there with pillows on the floor. I'm just trying to envision it. I haven't been back so long. With pillows on the floor and and you know, silk.
On the walls, and and the eyes watching you.
From the painting, there's too many murals of his face with the eyes watching that.
It was like the Three Stooges, like like you walk one way. And after they did the big remodel for the for the kids, Well, no, I went before and after.
Oh, but I thought the.
Eyes went up there until after they after they remodeled, Well in two thousand was that?
That was after ninety six is when they remodeled.
Oh, yeah, we were there before that.
Eyes were watching, watching, eyes were definitely watching.
Yeah.
With breakout, Uh, you know, it's it's just unprecedented that six album, six singles from one album.
Oh yeah, I'm short of thriller. That's this is unprecedented. Then, Like what was it? What was the label's reaction to you guys as far as like were you there? Priority?
Were you there?
They were happy?
That sounds happy.
We got by that time, I mean, having such a huge record, where was the biggest source of income coming from.
Records? And did the tour money go up?
Like you got to hit that help the tour money up?
Yeah, we got good tourings and and as the years go up, the publishing gets better.
Yeah.
I've seen you guys twice doing that period. That was like the only non Jackson's Prince show that I've ever seen. So you guys once at a Universal Amphitheater.
Yeah was that line over?
Uh no, the year after you guys were at Universal Amphitheater by yourself.
All I remember is, uh.
Was June came out in a crazy outfit to do our solo song about the piano or something.
Oh yeah, like give me a fucking break, guys, Like it was. She had great common time.
As he did that doctor doctor bit on stage. I don't know if that was the one dressed like a nurse and piano and.
Hey, are you guys aware of Jeremy's second life in the sort of the euro d M world.
No tell me about the baby making.
Yeah, like it's yeah, it's it's sort of uh, how can I describe it? Like, uh, I forget, I don't know if it's skrillics or like someone that's big in the dum world, the electric electric dance, music dance and music world sort of like kind of took there me and sort of remade it. And it's it's weird because when I spend the original in clubs now, like the audience store, like, and then when I get to the hooks, they're like, oh shit, you know, like they get where it comes from. Like it's a it's a it's a big sample in the medium world.
I didn't know that. So or is it?
Oh?
Good?
So? Is that? Is that still in the current lineup? As far as your songs? Like that you do now? Or is it? Do you do? Dear me?
Well, I don't.
I'm not on the road anymore.
Oh, I didn't know it not till this morning.
Ruth, my sister, Ruth and her daughter and her granddaughter Sedaco are traveling as the new the new point. Okay, and I retired in twenty fifteen.
I'm enjoying it and start working on this book.
Start working on the book, and your exhibition another working Champagne King and.
People like, oh man, how was she doing? How was Evelyn doing?
Great?
Good?
Yeah, I deal with you know, Fandelais and a lot of the old rock and rosters and disco shall I say disco stars mm hmm yeah.
I also I'll say that I also believe that.
You guys deserve to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
I do, and they would, you know, from my mouth to their ears, right right right, that should happen. So the book comes out in February.
Comes out in February. Yeah, we're just so excited about that. We're going to have books signing up in Oakland. And Anita's working on another book of exhibitions. She's been saving their costumes for the last what thirty years, and she's got all of them. She has all of them, and she's now created a book because she's sorry. Up to ninety person told me over one hundred pages now of costumes that they want to do.
This is a many we have a big book. That's that just gives you a few of the things that we have.
But how are you whoa you do?
Okay, this is official how to our listeners out there. I'm looking at uh a miniature book the size of a CD booklet of all their how were you able to preserve?
And in her garage?
Those?
But there there were for.
They're in their Bob Mackie the first designer, and then Bob Long from Australia.
Like with your designer seeking you guys out will you might.
Be Long designed for all the New York plays and things and he's really great and we are gonna it's going to be digital, so you can go on, we'll go the music, will send it out to the museums we went and looked at today. Can get the password to enter the book online so we can let them see what we have clothes in the museum and you know, yes.
Actually yeah, we have a Are you guys aware of the well I keep called the Black Son That's what I call it.
It is the Black in d C.
Yes, you went there, We're in there and there there Okay, we want.
More in there? Do you want someone there that we can get us some stuff.
We have a hook up for you.
VM you hear it.
I know blank in there, I know the banks.
How many children is it? Did you guys have like the for the next generation.
The next Uh? Well, Fritz has four.
I'm barren.
I have one my daughters. Sorry to say, my daughter died in two thousand and three and that kind of killed me. That's why I slowly just had to stop. You had to stop going on the road and singing.
And her only child child.
So it's not getting.
It's very hard. I don't on anyone. It's the worst thing ever. I'll never get over it. It's just terrible.
Now, let's go and move on to happier.
Yeahs. And our older brother Aaron.
Has four three four four three or four four.
Barbarice and you have Barb I have four and two sons. Yeah, here's four.
You have off.
You know, we've never had a family reunion.
What never?
We have enough we have we're going to change.
When we were kids in Oakland and our im we're coming over and barbecue and all the family would be there. That'd be like our family reunion. And that was all the time we lived together. The green T shirts, the lives we lived up there exactly.
Y'all know that family has expanded and folks don't know each other. We are at that point in our family now where it's like, okay, let's travel to see family.
Make up the West.
Coast half of the people and there are.
People want people related.
And they go something pointer, and I go, what that's your family? Who are they right?
The majority of the majority of the family in Oakland still or are you guys.
Spread Oh, we're spread out now.
To Oakland.
My brother's Tacoma. My brother is, he's been there for twenty five thirty years.
Kids they want to do music as well? Or are they working on music?
I have a son who studying building a studio into music. My son is yeah, but that's the only one that we know of right now.
There are different aspects of My granddaughter.
Roxy does music. Yes, that's my granddaughter, and she does music. He's got hundreds of incredible tracks. And I'm telling her, my chop liver, can I sing yourself? She says, she's working on this, the right thing she wants me to do.
It's a gam for your grandma.
I will go bust the room and join them all over they've been working on some great stuff.
Alan Alvin is a rapper and he is I love his rapping, don't you love it?
I love it?
And something doing some great stuff. I'm proud of this.
There's one proud of there's one I forgot. What was it like being a part of USA for Africa?
We are the world? Night?
Oh god, what tonight. We had just come from the I think the am A Awards and went to the studio and I was in awe. Everybody top secret like the famous people.
Found out about it, and was the top secret like we found out like.
The day before because they sent us sheet music and a cassette and having the frame.
Princey's house and he has the lead sheet framed on it.
I got a lead with everybody. I went around that night and made everybody designed my music and I got my frame.
D of intimidated by anybody that was.
In the room or you guys, like everybody everybody was like you, oh my god, Oh my god.
Michael Jackson, you want to Linel Richie, Yes, wonderful, Yeah, bet Middler.
Else was there? Uh no, well, chi LEI was there.
I think that's Oakland too, r that's Oakland.
And LaToya Jackson was like, right beside me, Turner, Turner, that was a wonderful, wonderful night. I mean we got out of there. The sun was coming up there all night.
Did you have any experiences with Aretha while she was alive?
No, Well, Ruth, Ruth had some competition with area Dennis Edwards. In fact, in fact, her daughter.
Edwards.
Wow, there singing with her. Her daughter who singing with her is product of Ruth and Dennis.
Edwards, and she and Maria were dating. Dennis like, oh yeah the same time.
Wow.
Wow, I'm so frozen. I don't even do myself. I'm doing my sound right now.
Too much information, baby.
Well you know I have to say that enough, can I? This is a pleasant, pleasant surprise. Again, Bonnie is such a fan in the my viewers for the longest. So I'm glad to finally met you. I never thought I wouldn't you ever. Thank you the same for you your whole family. And again, yes, rock and roll Hall of Fame, I.
Gotta be.
We've got a star on the Hollywood and welcome fan Arkansas, Black Hall of Fame.
Everything, it don't matter, yes, it doesn't matter.
I just want to say that something I said earlier today. You guys were in my childhood.
And every time I listen to your music, I'm just taking back to such a wonderful place and time in my life. Wonder just to be sitting across from you guys like beside my.
Kicking out here.
We see we talked you well. I see that T shirt you have on. You got a lot of good information from the morning.
One question before before we break Mays was she an influence lord?
Yeah, we were listening to a song we were doing We did Respect Yourself, Yes, in Vegas, and Fritz brought up a CD and played it. We played it last night with us singing in Vegas at Caesar's Palace singing Respect Yourself. Maybe we were on the road, but yeah. And Prince was very good friends with May Staples and we had some fun fun times together.
Yeah.
And I was also the friends with with Purpose.
He was a differend of mine. He would go to those night.
Clubs and you go in there. Oh my god, this is a gun sitting right there on the desk.
Where we have sound check.
Wow, okay, I just got one of the silhouettes from that.
You know that is that's a tattoo. I look on the back and the tattoos.
You gotta be like a SoundCloud rapper. Put it on your face. Yes, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you for coming on the show today.
Much.
I love it.
Team Supreme and the Porn Sisters and brother Fritz. Like every English professor, I had.
What you said? What was what you said? It was? It was? What was the words you used?
She had got some words.
You can't English as well as African American studies.
You know you gotta peop. He got the sky and he got on the grip. He got on the grill and sandals, yes like you cancuse you on the grill?
What frist was about?
Show me a little necklace, some tattoo. Tattoo point Nicholas, get.
You got one.
On the free.
Had you got to get a hat sometimes.
Like your brass bangle toih.
That's from the towering people in West.
How do you like my bangle? What does it say?
I could just see them glasses.
It says fall risk a risk.
This is What's Love Supreme only on Pandora. We will see you next go around.
Thank you.
What's Love Supreme is a production of My Heart Radio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
