Pointers Meet Axel Foley!

Nostalgia: sometimes it works. Back in the day when the only things we had to worry about were Civil Rights, the Vietnam War and the incipient tear gassing and police bashing, Apartheid, Richard Nixon’s Imperial Presidency, U.S. Hitting Peak Oil, the Cold War, Inflation, Deflation and Jimmy Carter’s Sweater, things seemed so much simpler and hopeful.

So, I decided to take a break from our bleak times and take a little look back at some of the good times and for me that always means music.

In the early 70’s the Pointer Sisters hit the airwaves. They were fabulous in their retro outfits and retro sound. Here is a video of “Yes We Can Can” one of their first songs which shows just how retro and fab they were. They were so young, fresh and hopeful, and weren’t we all.

Shortly after that song came out I move to NYC and had the great pleasure and honor of getting to know another brilliant female stylist, Phyllis Hyman. Phyllis was a Pointers fan as well and she always insisted on playing “I Need a Man,” well you know the rest of the song, on the jukebox at this club she used to sing at and where we often hung out. When Phyllis sang “Body Heat,” WELL! To date no one, and I mean no one, has been able to make you feel the heat like she could. This was back in the day before she got into her trademark “Big Outfits.” She would just stand there at the mic in a simple outfit, so elegant, and just croon her heart and yours out. She was always larger than life and looking for more. I wish she could have found it.

So, back to Axel Foley, I loved the movie and I love that they used the Pointers’ Neutron Dance in that great action scene. So, here for your amusement is the Pointers’ video incorporating the movie. I love it: wreaking havoc with great music. Life seemed so simple in ’84.

This brings me back to the times we live in, nothing is simple and nostalgia can be helpful, but it doesn’t always work. Phyllis is gone by her own hand, and June Pointer was taken recently by the hand of fate.

To all those out there who want to take us back to the good-old-days, remember maybe they were more comforting to you, but not to everyone. Today we have terrorists that the U.S. believes it can torture, remember lynching? On September 11, 2001 supposedly the world changed. Well, no, it didn’t change. Terrorism in this country isn’t new, in 1995 the Murrah building was destroyed and much of the surrounding area by a white supremist. And if you were black in the good-old-days terrorism was just part of your life: KKK, Birmingham circa 1963, etc.

When was the last time we admitted to torturing a White Supremist because he was a terrorist or enemy combatant? Not in the good-old-days!

So nostalgia tells me there is no such thing as wreaking havoc with great music, and there never has been. Maybe in the movies you see it, but in real life not so much. And back in the good-old-days, never.

But it certainly feels like we are currently doing the Neutron Dance?