http://www.the-fuze.com/sheilae.html


Sheila E

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Sheila E. has made a name for herself as one of the preeminent percussionists in music today. Her resume cuts a swathe across genres as diverse as Latin jazz, pop, r&b and soul, and includes associations with music giants like Prince, Stevie Wonder, Ringo Starr and Marvin Gaye. And her Grammy-nominated work as a solo artist has yielded chart-topping fare like “The Glamorous Life”, “The Belle of St. Mark”, “A Love Bizarre” and the #1 smash “Hold Me”.

Long before stepping into the spotlight, Sheila Escovedo grew up in Oakland, California, the daughter of famed Latin jazz bandleader Pete Escovedo. By the time she was a teen, she was trekking down to LA for recording sessions. A fortuitous meeting with the young artist Prince in 1978 set into motion a friendship that would anchor them both through the incredible success they achieved over the next decade. By the 1990’s, the music industry had shifted, and with it Sheila’s priorities. Not content to have her career choices dictated to her by Warner Brothers, Sheila rekindled her love of Latin jazz and gospel, and after a number of years away from recording she released several well-received jazz albums for Concord. In addition, her humanitarian concerns came to the fore, and she began using her influence more extensively to help those less fortunate than herself. Closest to her heart is the Lil’ Angel Bunny Foundation, one of several ongoing concerns aimed squarely at children. In the spring of 2004, Vh-1 honored Sheila E as a Diva, along with peers Patti Labelle, Gladys Knight and Cyndi Lauper. With so much going on in, it was a wonder that she had a few minutes available to sit and chat with The Fuze. She made the time, and we made the call. We hope you enjoy this glimpse into Sheila E’s glamorous life.

Hello, Sheila!

Hi Todd, how are you?

Doing well, thank you. Before we start, let me first tell you that you have the distinction of being the first female artist to be interviewed for The Fuze!

Yeah? That’s kind of strange, to be the first. (laughs)

We thought so too! (laughs) Out of all the artists we’ve spoken to, there’s not a female in the bunch.

Well, I’m honored. Thank you so much! (laughs)

And of course another honor that came your way last month - you’re officially a Vh-1 Diva now!

Yeah, kind of – if it’s a good thing, yes. If it’s a bad thing, no.

What’s your definition of a ‘diva’?

I always thought that a lot of women made ‘diva’ really bad. But to me, a true diva in a good sense is someone like Patti Labelle and Gladys Knight. Those are the ones who have paved the way; they’ve been here forever and are still singing and performing like they’re fifteen years old. The most important thing about being a diva is staying humble in the way that you present yourself and the way you talk to people. I’ve seen so many ugly things. I never wanted to be a diva – ever – because I saw, most of the time, divas create such madness. I didn’t want to be a part of that.

I think the Vh-1 program is taking the high road, redefining divas as movers and shakers who pave the way for others.

Yeah, exactly.

I was going to tell you that I think you’re overdue for another album, but frankly I don’t know where you’d find the time, between pounding the pavement for the Lil’ Angel Bunny Foundation and performing with various friends and family. And you just returned from a visit half a world away in Singapore and New Zealand. Is your plate ever too full?

No, uh-uh. Sometimes I feel like it’s not full enough, because there’s so much I want to do. You’re absolutely correct – my record is well overdue. We’re going to do something really soon – really soon, as of yesterday. We’re trying to work on something. Because it is time. It’s been a while. Timing is everything. You can put a record out at the wrong time. I feel it’s the right time now.

I think what might surprise some people who haven’t been keeping score is the diversity of some of your recent projects – from Ringo’s All-Starr Band – Latin jazz, funk and gospel with your friends and family - and your appearances on Prince’s recent live DVD and ‘Musicology’ CD. Have your fans, for the most part, broadened their horizons along the way, and taken that ride with you?

Absolutely, they have, which is very cool. Most of my fans, which I call my friends or my family, have been exposed to a lot of different types of music. And the cool thing about them is they have said “Look, we love you so much because of your talent and your gift that, regardless of what you do or what kind of music you play, we’re going to enjoy what you give to us.” And that is something very, very special and unique. I think that’s what’s kept me around, because I haven’t had a record out since 1991. And that one didn’t do as well, anyway. So it’s really been since like ’86. And I’ve done a couple jazz records and things, but nowhere near the fame and stardom as I had back in the 80’s.

What direction will your new music take?

I’m not sure, because you kind of want to focus on a direction the record company can market. But Sheila has to be Sheila. I’m so eclectic in music. I love to dance, and I love Latin jazz, I love classical, country, rock, R&B, funk – you name it, I’ve just about done it. Except for maybe polka. (laughs)

Let me be honest with you – I don’t think anyone’s ready to hear you do that! (laughs) Not quite yet.

(laughs) You never know! But I don’t know what direction. I know it’s going to be commercial, dance-oriented with a lot of percussion.

A lot of percussion? That’s safe bet, I guess.

Yeah, absolutely.

Did you wonder at any point if you were leaving behind a segment of your audience who maybe wouldn’t identify with gospel or smooth jazz?

No, I’m not leaving behind anyone. If anything, I’m always gaining new friends and family. Even if it’s just one person, it’s one more than I had yesterday. And the only way to reach them is not just to do the pop music – I’ve been doing a lot of gospel music lately, and a lot of ministry work, which is a really humbling, wonderful experience. And a lot of people don’t know that I’m a Christian, which is ok because I’m not walking around with a big sign. But people are noticing a lot of positive things. They’re like “Wow, you’re just so different, and you’re so easy to talk to.” Basically it is because of my faith. You know, I’ve changed a lot. I’ve grown a lot, and I think the people that have been with me in my music have done the same. We’ve all taken a journey together.

Do you feel like you’ve compromised at all along the way?

Sometimes you do have to compromise. You have to sacrifice, to do what needs to be done to be out there. In the beginning I didn’t compromise, not at all. When I came out with the first record, I just did it and said “Here it is, put it out.”

And people ate it up.

Yeah, and it was cool. But the music industry changed, and it was based on getting a deal and someone like an A&R person in the record company noticing who you are – and they’d want their name on it as producers. And it’s like “How can you produce my record? You’re not even a musician. You don’t even know about music.” So it was time for me to leave. It was like “I’ll just play behind people.” But that wasn’t a sacrifice for me, because that’s what I love to do – support people. Musicians and artists. That allows me to go out and play with all kinds of artists in different types of music. But then again when you do a jazz record, you want to do a great jazz record. And if you want it played on the radio, you have to sacrifice – you’re either gonna put vocals on it, or not put vocals on it. The majority of what The Wave plays has got to be saxophone or guitar-oriented. There are a lot of little rules. You kind of go “But why? You’re playing jazz music, but at the same time you’re playing all these old Chaka Khan songs and Stevie Wonder songs. And you’re playing it on The Wave, which is supposed to be jazz.” It’s very contradictory. There’s things that we all have to sacrifice, and we have to make decisions about whether or not you’re gonna be comfortable with that. Now, if you make a decision and you’re not comfortable with it, that’s something different. Pretty much every decision I have made, with managers and different people, I think I’ve done the right thing for me.

When did you get to the point in your career where you felt you didn’t need to prove yourself anymore – that your track record spoke for itself?

That’s a Catch-22, because I’m still having to prove myself in certain situations.

I guess that can be a positive or negative thing, depending on the situation. You’re probably never content to simply take what comes.

Exactly. It forces you to go out there and say “I would love to try this.” And I’ve got to prove to them that I can do it. It keeps you motivated for sure.

Ok now, this will probably be about the most worn-out question you’ve been asked over the years, but here it is again - were you intimidated early on by the fact that there were few, if any, female percussionists to emulate?

No, not at all. I’ve never been intimidated by anyone. Ever. I think that’s been instilled in me because of my parents. First of all, I didn’t even know that there was a gender factor placed on playing drums and percussion, because for me it was so natural. As a family, we just gathered together and played. The drums were part of the furniture in the house. It was not a big deal until I started becoming a professional musician at fifteen and flying to Los Angeles from Oakland, California, coming out here to do session work with other musicians. They looked at me like I was crazy. I thought “Why?” and didn’t understand that it was a unique situation. The first couple of women that I noticed, that performed and who I looked up to – one was Karen Carpenter. When I first saw her play on her television show I thought to myself “Oh my God, I could do that! I should be on TV too!” It just inspired me. And there was a percussion player a long time ago, who played with Bob Dylan. Her name was Bobbye Hall. She was the only other [female] percussion player I knew, besides my mom.

You’d already had experience recording and touring with your father Pete Escovedo, and with George Duke, several years before ‘The Glamorous Life’ came out. What were you doing when Prince entered the picture?

Well, I met him in 1978. Around that time, I was out on tour with George Duke. I went to see him at one of his concerts and I was so excited because I’d been hearing about him. My dad was with Santana then, and the whole Santana band was bragging about this guy – this young kid – who was producing and recording by himself, playing all the instruments and writing the songs. There was a big buzz in the Bay Area about that. So I couldn’t wait to meet him. I went to his concert, and was walking up to him to introduce myself. I was still Sheila Escovedo at that time. He turned around and put his hand out and said “Wow, it’s a pleasure to meet you!” I thought “Ok…I was just getting ready to introduce myself.” He just kind of threw me off, and he told me he had been following my career for a long time. He had been watching George Duke and saw me playing drums, and him and Andre Simone were arguing about who was gonna marry me. (laughs)

Did you handle the sudden success well, when ‘The Glamorous Life’ hit big?

I tried my best. It really happened so quickly. It was overwhelming. You almost want to say “I wish I would have known then, what I know now.” I would have dealt with some things differently – with people, especially. I see how you get caught in being a celebrity. Fame can destroy you. It got to be very difficult. I basically couldn’t go anywhere. I couldn’t even go to the mall. They’d have to close me in one of the stores because there’d be two thousand kids screaming, trying to get my autograph. I think the strange thing about it, too, was when we put the record out I immediately went to Europe and did press and toured out there for a month or two before we came back here. I had no idea the song was being played like it was. I had no idea how much things had changed in two months.

What a surprise to come back to.

Oh, absolutely!

Do you get a chance to watch Vh-1 Classic now and then?

Yes I do.

I’d think you still get a kick out of seeing the video in rotation.

When you look at it, it’s such a part of my life. I just remember it as if it was this morning. Really. Not even yesterday. I can tell you what we were doing. The whole thing – the excitement! I look at it and go “God, that was my first record”, and I’m just excited about it. And that’s basically how I live every day. “Oh my God, this is going to be fun.” You know, you have to really enjoy yourself. And learn by the mistakes, of course, but it’s been a wonderful journey.

It certainly didn’t hurt to have Prince in your corner when you kicked off your solo career, but did his influence ever become smothering?

No, uh-uh. What attracted us to each other was the music. At the time I met him, he started coming and hanging around with my family because I was playing with my dad off and on, and he was like “Wow.” He had never seen anything like that, or heard anything like that. To see the family playing together is a dream-come- true for a lot of people, a lot of artists. It was something that we had that was very special and unique. He was attracted to that, he was attracted to the different types of music that I grew up listening to, and our lives are worlds apart. We were never smothered by each other, him by me or me by him. If anything, we’ve learned a lot, shared a lot and given to each other.

How is it that, twenty years on, you’re just about the only one who still maintains a working relationship with Prince?

I don’t know. We were friends first, and I’ve been with him almost from the beginning, I guess, pretty much throughout his career. There were a couple of years we didn’t see each other, and then in ’83, when I was with Lionel [Richie] and Marvin [Gaye], we got together again and started working. It was just great. Again, it’s really the music that brought us together. The fun part about being his friend was I think he hadn’t met anyone who was as competitive as he was. And being a woman, he was like “Oh, I have to beat her!” It was that kind of thing. Growing up in a family that was very competitive - my mom and all her brothers and sisters were very athletic – I was very athletic, and so was Prince. We’d play basketball, we’d play ping pong, we’d play pool – we did everything besides recording music. And so I was able to hang with him as a buddy, almost - as a friend.

Shifting gears here, earlier we mentioned the Lil’ Angel Bunny Foundation, and I’d like to give you a chance to plug the organization, and its cause.

Ok. The Lil’ Angel Bunny Foundation is something that Lynn Mabry, my manager, and I started around three years ago. It’s a foundation for abused and abandoned children. Mainly, foster care. What we’re trying to do is to build a center called the Compassion Care Center, which will be a recreational facility. We’re not going to house the children. We’re basically gonna use it as a recreational facility, and use music and arts as therapy to help the children and whomever may be their caregiver, guardian or whomever. We want to help them through music and the arts. It’s a facility that’s going to take a lot of money and a lot of planning. We’ve done a lot of research and there is not a facility like the one we’re building in the United States. We’re gonna need a lot of funding, a lot of sponsors – corporations like Sharper Image, Coca-Cola…whomever they may be – to be able to help us in any way. We’re doing everything we can to raise money – basketball tournaments with celebrities, Evening with Angels, and we did a Family Jam – whatever we can do to put the word out there that abuse, and what it has done to our kids, is horrible, especially in the LA/Orange County area. If they’re our future, we really have to get to them early on.

By all means. We want to promote the web site, and that’s www.lilangelbunny.org. Can people make donations through the site?

Yes, absolutely.

Children are obviously important to you, as evidenced by both the Lil’ Angel Bunny Foundation and your line of drums for kids. What do you hope your influence will bring out in the kids?

Really, I’m just trying to give them hope, confidence and some kind of stability. You know, these times for kids are very difficult. I thought I had it hard when I was young, being in the community that we grew up in, being forced to join gangs and things like that. I understand it. I was part of it. But we weren’t carrying guns. And society’s changed, as far as having two parents – a lot of these kids have one parent, some of them don’t have any. A lot of these kids are on their own, by themselves, on the streets. It’s really important to let them know just because they were in that situation doesn’t mean they have to stay there. There’s hope for them to get out of there and be somebody, and be able to do something in this world.

We spoke with Alex Ligertwood last year – who played with your father in Santana in the 80’s – and he works with a group called Angels on Earth, who promote healing through music.

We’re just glad there are other organizations trying to do the same thing. The more, the merrier. There are hundreds of thousands of kids who need our help.

No matter how much help you’re able to give, there’s always someone else who needs it.

Absolutely.

Ok, the web site to check out for the latest information is www.sheilae.com.

And we have a new studio, Blue 52 Studios. It’s www.blue52studios.com.

Well, we like to wrap up with a non-musical signature question, and this time it will relate to some recipes I saw on your site. Let’s say you’ve invited Fuze readers to your home for dinner. The menu will consist of Sheila E’s very own fried chicken, brussel sprouts, corn on the cob, candied yams and sweet apple pie…

(laughing)

What’s the hostess’ drink of choice?

Wow. Well, right now it’s just been water and tea.

How exciting!

I know! I’m doing a cleansing, and that is my choice – water and tea.

And if you weren’t doing a cleansing?

Probably a glass of Veuve Clicquot champagne. Rose. 1995. (laughs) Is that better?

It’s your call, you’re the hostess! Alright, well Sheila, thanks for your time this afternoon. It was a pleasure chatting with you.

Thank you, and by the way they were great questions.

We like to keep it fresh.

It was very refreshing.

She's awesome.

sbacon1999 said:

Co-sign

gooeythehamster said:

i concur.

so down to earth and friendly.

Yeah, Y Prince didn't marry her?! (retorical question)

she's too old for him...
likes em young, boy!
lol

You gotta' love Sheila E. for her positive energy.

It sounds like she and Prince had a platonic brother and sister type of relationship. She seems to be implying that they did not have a romantic relationship. Did anyone else read it that way?

keir482 said:

Sheila E. is such a class act, a true lady, and a professional...we shouldn't expect
her to speak of their relationship in any other manner other than described!!
GGD

I always thought she was gay! (flame-attracter)

wasitgood4u said:

I can't see that!!! Tell me more on your
theory!!!!
GGD

wasitgood4u said:

That's a been a common rumor around L.A. for years. But I don't think it's true.

TedW said:

I've heard rumors too...no details! Sheila has always come across as such a wonderful
person, I would hope that no one would hold it against her!!!
GGD

*sigh* I lurve Sheila E. Always have. Even watched that whack-ass "Magic Johnson" show just to watch her do her thing on the drums.

wasitgood4u said:

I have also heard the rumors for years about her being gay and that she only had a platonic relationship with Prince. In the interview she kind of cofirms that. I do not know if she is gay are not. I think that she may be trying to set the record straight about her relationship with Prince. I also think that she wants people to know that she is where she is because of her god given talent not because she may or may not have slept with Prince. Obviously when she was younger it did not bother her that people thought that she was helped by Prince because she was his girlfriend. Now that she is older she wants people to know that they worked together out of a mutual respect for one another. Gay or straight I still love her music.

keir482 said:

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In another interview that was posted to this boad she came out and admitted they had a relationship and it is in that biography "Possesed".

wasitgood4u said:

LOL...why won't this rumor ever die?

GGDeVille said:

It's mainly from the lyrics on Romance 1600, actually. That, and the nature of her relationship with P. "Sister Fate" to me is about the speculation of the media as to her and P's relationship and all the innuendo, and then she says "If they knew the truth they'd probably die". Then there's "toy box", "Yellow" etc. But then, she and P may have thought of putting in those ambiguous hints to create an enigmatic female sexuality to mirror the "Am I str8 or gay?" image P had concocted for himself, so who knows?

GGDeVille said:

It's mainly from lyrics from Romance 1600, actually. That, and her relatinship with P. I always read "Sister Fate" as being about media innuendo and speculation of their relationship, and then she says "If they knew the truth they'd probably die", plus there's "toy Box", "yellow" etc. But then again P and Sheila may have wanted to play the ambiguous sexuality thing again and create an image for her that mirrored the "Am I str8 or gay?" one that P had concocted for himself. So, who knows...

GGDeVille said:

It's mainly from lyrics from Romance 1600, actually. That, and her relatinship with P. I always read "Sister Fate" as being about media innuendo and speculation of their relationship, and then she says "If they knew the truth they'd probably die", plus there's "toy Box", "yellow" etc. But then again P and Sheila may have wanted to play the ambiguous sexuality thing again and create an image for her that mirrored the "Am I str8 or gay?" one that P had concocted for himself. So, who knows...

GGDeVille said:

It's mainly from lyrics from Romance 1600, actually. That, and her relatinship with P. I always read "Sister Fate" as being about media innuendo and speculation of their relationship, and then she says "If they knew the truth they'd probably die", plus there's "toy Box", "yellow" etc. But then again P and Sheila may have wanted to play the ambiguous sexuality thing again and create an image for her that mirrored the "Am I str8 or gay?" one that P had concocted for himself. So, who knows...

GGDeVille said:

It's mainly from lyrics from Romance 1600, actually. That, and her relatinship with P. I always read "Sister Fate" as being about media innuendo and speculation of their relationship, and then she says "If they knew the truth they'd probably die", plus there's "toy Box", "yellow" etc. But then again P and Sheila may have wanted to play the ambiguous sexuality thing again and create an image for her that mirrored the "Am I str8 or gay?" one that P had concocted for himself. So, who knows...

I did not see that post, do you know when it was posted? The biography Possesed is it still availalble? Is it a biography on Sheila E or Prince?

laurarichardson said:

GGDeVille said:

Setting aside whether she is gay or not (it's pretty much none of our bees-wax) Please tell me you are not implying that a person can't be both gay and a wonderful person.

I'm sure you didn't mean to be, but I can you, that comment was damn close to being very homophobic!

misty2k said:

Misty, my statement wasn't intended to be homophobic at all--quite the opposite!!
I apologize to anyone who interpeted it as such or wmay have been offended!!!!
Chalk it up to the limitatons of the written word!!! Now let's get back to enjoying
each other's company!!
GGD-

GGDeVille said:

Cool. So long as there was no intent that's fine. As you say, it's sometimes hard to convey what you mean in a forum where there isn't the chance to add nuance and inflection to what you "say".

Peace.


D