The full title of this record is The Pointer Sisters in Highlights from Ain't Misbehavin', and it is billed as "the new cast recording." What all of this explains is that it captures a performance by a newly assembled revival cast of the 1970s musical revue based on 1930s music associated with
Fats Waller, a cast consisting of Anita,
June, and Ruth Pointer, Eugene Barry-Hill, and Michael-Leon Wooley. Shortly before the album's recording session on October 8, 1995, the show embarked on a national road tour booked to last through most of 1996 and intended to stop on Broadway eventually. In the meantime, the recording finds the always lively
Waller material performed with zest.
The Pointers started out in the '70s affecting a nostalgic style, and the
Waller songs allow them to indulge a talent for theatrical blues and bawdy singing. If they can dance as well as they sing, this edition of
Ain't Misbehavin' should be a match for earlier ones. ~ William Ruhlmann