Cinny said:

Ooh this morning I saw this article that bashraka and SoulAlive posted. I placed my pre-order on the spot!!

That's a gotta have read!

purplethunder3121 said:

Cinny said:

Ooh this morning I saw this article that bashraka and SoulAlive posted. I placed my pre-order on the spot!!

That's a gotta have read!

Indeed!

So, for those who have read the book -- Can you recommend? Is it truly revealing? Any unseen pics inside? Thanks.

Ugh! So disappointed in Amazon! I pre-ordered a few weeks ago. They shipped on August 30 with guaranteed delivery today. Guess what? It didn't show. Just got done chatting with them. They're giving me a month free extension of my Prime and say the book won't be here till the 4th now. I was so looking forward to reading this today. It rained all day. A perfect day for reading!

Picked up a copy yesterday and I'm almost finished. The pre-release spoilers made it seem like the book was going to be juicier than it is -- if you read them here, you've read most of the candid parts. A little surprised she skipped over We Are The World or her breakthrough performance at the American Music Awards. Also, there doesn't seem to be a single mention of any historical or shared cultural moment from the past 50 years which suggests Sheila's bubble has been as confining as Prince's. Interesting read nonetheless.

[Edited 9/3/14 7:28am]

I am so pissed off that I couldn't go to the book signing in NYC yesterday.

You're not alone;I'm bummed that I can't make the LA book signing on the 10th.

Identity said:

You're not alone;I'm bummed that I can't make the LA book signing on the 10th.

ArtOfficial said:

So, for those who have read the book -- Can you recommend? Is it truly revealing? Any unseen pics inside? Thanks.

There are not a lot of pictures in the book, sadly. There are only a few I haven't seen before from Sheila's early days of touring with bands in the 70s. Only one of her and Prince which is a widely circulated picture from some concert they both performed at a few years ago. Some of the pictures of her when she was a child were also shown in her country video for Glorious Train.

Besides that, the book is really good. It is well written. Sheila keeps things classy. She does speak very openly about her sexual assault as a little girl and the feelings she was going through for a long time after. She does speak about her two main loves, Carlos Santana and Prince. What she doesn't do though, is turn the book into some juicy tell-all. You got to respect her for that. Others had speculated that Prince was probably mad at her for writing a book. I don't see how that could be. She really doesn't say anything too bad about him or give too many intimate details about their relationship. There are some interesting little nuggets of information about their musical relationship.

Her early life is very interesting. He relationship with her family is so cool--a lot of love and respect there. Sheila proves herself to be tenatious, driven, sincere and a survivor. Honestlty, this book made me love Sheila even more than I ever did before!

She talks about giving her life to the Lord. I'm a Christian anyway, so I enjoyed reading this part. In fact, I wished I could've called her up and talked to her about it!

I came away thinking this about her relationship with Prince...I believe she is the only woman he has worked with that he actually respected and valued (to a point). She had a vast musical background before even meeting him. She turned down his advances for some time. She spoke her mind. It's too bad Prince couldn't be faithful. She says he is her musical soul mate. They would have made a great couple.

SuzyHomemaker said:

thecloud said:

The parts that surprised me was her romantic relationship with Carlos Santana in the 70's & when her grandmother died during the "Lovesexy Tour" she was told No by Prince himself that she could not attend the funeral due to the tour in progress. After that she refused to accept pay for the remainder of the tour although management continued to issue checks at which she began ripping them up right in front them.

On one hand I can see his point. She was a major part of the tour and replacing her would have been hard. But to not rearrange things even a little bit for her to go home for a day or two was cruel and selfish of him.

I was trying to remember timelines upon reading this. Like when did she disappear from his albums and touring. I remember reading in an old thread about the Uptown Dames that one of them (Artpal, I think), said that she remembers Sheila walking into to one of their rehearsals one time. When was that? It's not really a big deal, but I was curious as to when Sheila atually left the Prince camp all together.

ArtOfficial said:

Any unseen pics inside? Thanks.

With the relationship between them being soured right now, I can't see P's camp giving her publisher the rights to any good images.

SuzyHomemaker said:

ArtOfficial said:

So, for those who have read the book -- Can you recommend? Is it truly revealing? Any unseen pics inside? Thanks.

There are not a lot of pictures in the book, sadly. There are only a few I haven't seen before from Sheila's early days of touring with bands in the 70s. Only one of her and Prince which is a widely circulated picture from some concert they both performed at a few years ago. Some of the pictures of her when she was a child were also shown in her country video for Glorious Train.

Besides that, the book is really good. It is well written. Sheila keeps things classy. She does speak very openly about her sexual assault as a little girl and the feelings she was going through for a long time after. She does speak about her two main loves, Carlos Santana and Prince. What she doesn't do though, is turn the book into some juicy tell-all. You got to respect her for that. Others had speculated that Prince was probably mad at her for writing a book. I don't see how that could be. She really doesn't say anything too bad about him or give too many intimate details about their relationship. There are some interesting little nuggets of information about their musical relationship.

Her early life is very interesting. He relationship with her family is so cool--a lot of love and respect there. Sheila proves herself to be tenatious, driven, sincere and a survivor. Honestlty, this book made me love Sheila even more than I ever did before!

She talks about giving her life to the Lord. I'm a Christian anyway, so I enjoyed reading this part. In fact, I wished I could've called her up and talked to her about it!

I came away thinking this about her relationship with Prince...I believe she is the only woman he has worked with that he actually respected and valued (to a point). She had a vast musical background before even meeting him. She turned down his advances for some time. She spoke her mind. It's too bad Prince couldn't be faithful. She says he is her musical soul mate. They would have made a great couple.

exactly my feeling... he respected her as a musician and they are musical soul mates. I am now curious about his love interest time line.. there are definate cross overs, it would be so intresting to see that in a chart of somesort. I respect Sheila E

and I hope to make it to the LA book singing!

PurpleJedi said:

ArtOfficial said:

Any unseen pics inside? Thanks.

With the relationship between them being soured right now, I can't see P's camp giving her publisher the rights to any good images.

Just curious - Why exactly is it soured now? Although she mentioned they havent spoken in years, she appeared in one of his performances like 3 years ago in Oakland (from what youtube shows) so what soured it recently???

Beautiful01 said:

PurpleJedi said:

With the relationship between them being soured right now, I can't see P's camp giving her publisher the rights to any good images.

Just curious - Why exactly is it soured now? Although she mentioned they havent spoken in years, she appeared in one of his performances like 3 years ago in Oakland (from what youtube shows) so what soured it recently???

I think that is just fan speculation. It's been speculated so much so that people treat it as fact now. The only thing that was publicly said was back when Sheila was appearing at lots of Prince shows, she abruptly stopped and sent out a tweet that said, "I will no longer be performing with Prince." That was it. She never said why. None of us really know what happened.

Some people keep saying it was because she and her family were supposed to open for him at some show and he canceled on them and let Larry Graham or somebody do it instead. I find it very hard to believe that Sheila would forgive the man who raped her at 5 years of age and the cousins who molested her, yet let something like a performance cancellation break a lifetime friendship with the man she calls her "musical soul mate."

SuzyHomemaker said:

Beautiful01 said:

Just curious - Why exactly is it soured now? Although she mentioned they havent spoken in years, she appeared in one of his performances like 3 years ago in Oakland (from what youtube shows) so what soured it recently???

I think that is just fan speculation. It's been speculated so much so that people treat it as fact now. The only thing that was publicly said was back when Sheila was appearing at lots of Prince shows, she abruptly stopped and sent out a tweet that said, "I will no longer be performing with Prince." That was it. She never said why. None of us really know what happened.

Some people keep saying it was because she and her family were supposed to open for him at some show and he canceled on them and let Larry Graham or somebody do it instead. I find it very hard to believe that Sheila would forgive the man who raped her at 5 years of age and the cousins who molested her, yet let something like a performance cancellation break a lifetime friendship with the man she calls her "musical soul mate."

It's not speculation...she has publicly stated that they are not on good terms right now.

I can't invest the time to search through all her interviews & such right now, but if you feel so inclined, it's out there.

The Larry Graham thing is probably just a part of it. We'll probably never know the minute details concerning the current "break" - but if she's happy doing her thang sans Prince, then so be it. If & when they reconcile, then we'll relish in the amazing music that those two generate.

...and btw...you can forgive someone but not necessarily want them in your life.