Sheila E talks about the beautiful music she made with Prince and their fierce competitions

THE death of Sheila E’s former fiance Prince broke her heart but the famed percussionist has vowed to keep his music alive however difficult it is.

SHEILA E credits her sporting mother Juanita for her competitive streak. But it was the musical DNA coursing through her veins courtesy of her percussionist father Pete Escovedo which would steer her away from pursuing her Olympics dream.

Prince fans know her musical career has been entwined with his since the late 1970s when they first crossed paths backstage at a gig.

By that time, the young drummer and percussionist had already impressed her musician peers and playing on the stages of Santana, Marvin Gaye, Lionel Richie and Miles Davis.

She had already recorded her debut record, Solo Two with her father and recorded with Michael Jackson on Don’t Stop ‘til You Get Enough.

But it was the years she spent with Prince, both as his collaborator and lover, which continue to captivate fans.

They started out as peers, meeting backstage after a show and hanging out in her bedroom and jamming, long before they fell into a romantic relationship which ultimately led to Prince proposing to her onstage during Purple Rain on the Sign o’ The Times tour of Europe in 1987.

“Prince and I were both competitive and it wasn’t just about music. Basketball, ping pong, pool, who could stay up the longest, playing drums, it was always something,” she says.

“You know he was a great drummer, he could play, no joke. I was a little bit better than him. Just a little bit.”

Sheila E became a pop star in her own right in the mid 1980s, courtesy of the beat-heavy goodness of The Glamorous Life and The Belle of St Mark.

She and Prince hit the charts together with their duet A Love Bizarre.

Since his death in April, it appears as if it has become partly her responsibility to keep the focus on what he did rather than how he died.

“It’s irrelevant,” she says of the speculation about the cause of his death. “Only in my own time will I have closure on this.”

It is a tough gig to juggle the weight of his legacy with her own music and artistic impulses.

In the weeks after his death, she released a new single about him called Girl Meets Boy and as she prepares to return to Australia for the Meredith Music Festival and sideshows, she reveals the music they made together remains firmly entrenched within her set.

It may be a fitting way to celebrate his life but some nights her grief can make it tough to sing those songs.

“Not long after he died and we went into rehearsals, I couldn’t get past the first note; I had to leave the rehearsals,” she says.

“It’s a process. One of the harder things now is singing Girl Meets Boy. That song happened so fast in the studio one night when my guitar player Mychael Gabriel started singing a bit of a melody and we decided to put something down.

“I was trying to get my vocals done at 2.30am and I couldn’t get through it ... all you could hear was me crying.

“Four days later, I came back to listen to it and there’s a certain part of the song where you can hear I am a little stuffy from all the crying.”

Escovedo was a track runner, soccer player and loved throwing herself into sports, training to qualify for Olympics selection when the music bug bit her.

The local bands in the Bay Area surrounding San Francisco where she lived weren’t too enthused about letting a teenage girl sit in and jam with them at first — even though they knew her father’s pedigree — but her talent was undeniable.

Her father eventually took her on the road when she a teenager, with her first big gig in Columbia.

“I didn’t know there weren’t a lot of girls playing drums and percussion so it was a challenge at first,” she says.

As for those incredibly sexy outfits as she emerged as a solo artist and joined Prince’s band, Sheila E says it wasn’t a calculated move but simply the costumes her friends’ mother would create for her.

“Remember I grew up in a house where my mum and dad were always dressing up,” she says. “Bell-bottoms and Afros, performance outfits, they were flashy and looked incredible. They still do.

“So when I was getting out there as a solo artist, I decided to go all out and see what I could get away with. Later on, I had to change it because the reviews became more about what I was wearing — or not wearing, as they said.”

SEE

VICTORIA: Sheila E, Meredith Music Festival, December 9 to 11 SOLD OUT: 170 Russell, December 7, $68+bf, Moshtix.

NSW: Metro Theatre, December 11, $75+bf, Ticketek.

Originally published as Sheila E talks about the beautiful music she made with Prince and their fierce competitions