I found this interview while searching for some info for my other thread about Sheila touring with Lionel Richie and I thought some people here might find it fun to read. (The picture is from a different interview; I just added it here to give the thread some visual flava.)
By JONATHAN TAKIFF, Daily News Staff Writer
Posted: January 30, 1987
Sheila E. must be some sly card player. Why, she hardly even shows her hand in an interview, prompted by the artist's appearances tonight through Sunday at the Sands in Atlantic City.
"Now, you'll hold this to 10 minutes, won't you?," suggests her publicist, before putting the 29-year-old Miss E. (nee Escovedo) on the line to talk about life in libido pop land.
Oh, things are moving hot and heavy, we learn in our 20-minute chat. (So I lied a little.) Her single of the moment, "Hold Me" - a mellow ballad change of pace after erotic hip-grinders like "Glamorous Life" and "A Love Bizarre" - is doing "better than anyone expected besides me," says Ms. Eeeeee.
Her recently concluded six-month run as opening act for Lionel Richie - a performer for whom Sheila used to toil as a mere backline percussionist - likewise expanded her reach. "I was a little nervous, 'cause it introduced me to a whole 'nother audience - older and, um, mellower - than came to see me when I was touring with Prince on the 'Purple Rain' show. But it came off great, and I didn't even have to change my material. That's why I'm ready now to face the Atlantic City audiences. Working with Lionel built up my confidence."
No, this hot tamale won't reveal whether those rumors (initiated by her dad) of her imminent marriage to Prince are true. Sheila E. does confirm, however, that (a) she's moving to his hometown of Minneapolis, (b) "playing and working every day in the studio" with His Royal Badness, (c) "may" join Prince's next band, (d) considers Prince her "best friend" - why, they even share suits. And (e) she is planning to wed soon, but "to whom" is a (Minnesota) state secret.
"I'd love to tell you what's going on in my love life, but gosh, it looks like we're out of time," she says with a cute laugh. "Besides, you'll know soon enough." Click.
Oh, so much to do and so little time! Didja know that besides writing, singing, playing on and producing her own records, Sheila E. rules a mini- business empire, steering a staff of 22 people: tour bookers, musicians, stage hands, wardrobe people . . .
Plus, she's keeping an eye on the Oakland, Calif. nightclub (Escovedeo's) that she financed for her dad, Pete Escovedo, the Mexican/American conga player who won recognition working in the Santana band.
"People thought I grew up rich, but dad spent most of his life struggling as a band leader in the Latin music scene," she says. And when he wasn't working, he was waving his calloused, work-roughened hands in front of Sheila, trying to convince his musically inclined daughter to do something else for a living besides play percussion for five to seven hours a night.
"He bought me a violin when I was five," she recalls. "I hated it." Sheila much preferred watching what dad did in rehearsals, and would take to the timbales to mimic his moves when the band would go on break.
She never took a formal lesson on the drums, but by the time she was 15 Sheila was good enough to get paying gigs with jazz notables like Herbie Hancock and George Duke. Those prestige dates led, in turn, to less demanding but better paying pop work with the likes of Lionel Richie, Jeffrey Osbourne, Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye and Al Jarreau.
It was backstage after one Jarreau concert that she met Prince - then making his first recording. Soon afterward, she went to watch him work, found his stage attire (underwear and leg-warmers) kinky, but dug the sounds. He asked her to join the band. She told him her nightly fee. He confessed he couldn't afford her.
Years later, Prince invited her to the studio to help him record "Erotic City." Afterward, he asked her, "Why don't you do your own record?" He booked the studio time and split town. Taking up the challenge, Sheila spent just five days making an album, which Prince then sold to Warner Brothers.
The rest should be history, but Sheila E. points out that "people wrongly assume I've gotten where I have because of Prince. They think he 'made me,' just like he's made other female artists." (Vanity and Apollonia, for instance.) "I don't deny that Prince hasn't helped me. But I'm much more my own creation. Maybe 90 percent.
"Don't forget I was a musician long before I ever met Prince," Sheila E. cautions. "That's a big difference between me and those other women he's worked with. We operate on the same plane, as equals. That's why we get along so well, why we're best friends."