The Pointer Sisters

To the Point

Music pulled Ruth Pointer Sayles of The Pointer Sisters through some of the toughest times in her life, and she will share that legacy at the Steve Chase Humanitarian Awards.

Greg Archer Arts & Entertainment

The Pointer Sisters
Ruth Pointer (center) is joined by her daughter, Issa (left) and granddaughter Sadako on stage to form a new version of The Pointer Sisters.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE POINTER SISTERS & RUTH POINTER

At the height of the group’s extraordinary success in the 1980s, The Pointer Sisters gave birth to a slate of hit singles like Fire, Slow Hand, Neutron Dance, Jump, and I’m So Excited. The Oakland-born R&B singers collected three Grammy Awards during their ascent. At the same time, however, something else was on the rise: the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

It’s something Ruth Pointer Sayles never loses sight of, and it’s one of the reasons the singer — who joined her three sisters, Bonnie, June, and Anita, to make the original singing group a quartet back in 1972 — is eager to headline the 23rd annual Steve Chase Humanitarian Awards gala Feb. 11 at the Palm Springs Convention Center.

Considered one of the valley’s most revered annual events, with more than 1,500 sharply dressed attendees, the lavish soiree benefits Desert AIDS Project. This year’s honorees are Barbara Keller (former gala co-chair and DAP board member) and Eisenhower Medical Center executives G. Aubrey Serfling and Martin J. Massiello. Elizabeth Taylor will be honored posthumously with the Partners for Life Award.

For Pointer Sayles, returning to the Coachella Valley for the event (she admits she’ll never tire of a desert sunset) gives her an opportunity to give back. And she’s doing just that with a relatively new incarnation of The Pointer Sisters. After June’s passing in 2006 and Anita’s health concerns several years ago, the group revamped itself and is now a multigenerational trifecta — mother (Ruth), daughter (Issa Pointer), and granddaughter (Sadako Johnson). The famous sister muses with Palm Springs Life about her career and other matters of the heart.

PSL: The Steve Chase Humanitarian Awards gala generates millions of dollars for Desert Arts Project annually. Why is it important to you to be involved?

Ruth Pointer Sayles: I feel like our audience is everywhere — all different walks of life. And so, when I can, it’s great to give back. There are so many things that can be done better in our world, and if I can be a part of that, I’m happy to do that.

Ruth Pointer released an autobiography, Still So Excited, with author Marshall Terrill.

PSL: You and your sisters were at your peak when HIV/AIDS came into the fold.

RPS: Yes, and we had lost so many friends. Even now, we have compassion and love for people who are threatened with this. I just finished reading Believing in Magic by Cookie Johnson, Magic Johnson’s wife. Do yourself a favor — read it. The way she describes her experience of being with Magic when he had to come out in public and tell the world he was HIV positive is compelling. The more we learn about these issues, the more we can accept and become more compassionate about it, rather than critical.

PSL: What’s helped you move through some of the more challenging times in your own life?

RPS: Above all else, music pulled me through — through four marriages, and this is my fifth marriage, actually, and the other marriages were completely binding with drug addiction. I was using drugs to numb out whatever emotional issues I was going through, having been a single parent most of life. Even though I was in and out of relationships, I just didn’t have a stable at-home situation for my children like I wished I had. My mother was a godsend — raised three of my children most of the time. When I finally decided to clean up my act and married my current husband, who is from New England, and moved back there with him, I think it saved my life. I think putting boundaries around my life and becoming a member a 12-step program — all of the elements I could find, I reached for.

PSL: What do you love most about what you do?

RPS: The music. I learned early in my life that music was my first love. I just could not not have it. I find that, the older I get, it can change my mood. It can change my thinking. It can change my spirit. Once I am onstage, I’m focused. And I love that at this point in our careers, audiences still want to hear the songs we have presented to the world. It’s all about the music.

PSL: So, what Pointer Sisters’ song best defines you?

RPS: Wow. Well, I’m So Excited. That would have to be it. Those are lyrics we wrote and we kind of live by. ‘I’m so excited. I just can’t hide it …’ When we’re excited, we show it. You ‘lose a little control … and I think I like it.’ And … that’s okay.

The Steve Chase Humanitarian Awards, 6 p.m. Feb. 11, Palm Springs Convention Center, 277 N. Avenida Caballeros, Palm Springs, 760-992-0445; www.desertaidsproject.org/events