Sheila E.: 5 songs that changed my life

Sheila Escovedo was training to become an Olympic track-and-field runner in high school when her trajectory changed drastically. 

Her father, veteran percussionist Pete Escovedo and co-founder of Latin rock band Azteca, needed a drummer last minute after his percussion player called in sick. Sheila E., her stage name for more than 40 years now, stepped in, having grown up playing percussion with (and listening to) her dad her whole childhood.

She was 15 years old.

"That's all that I cared about was sports," says Escovedo, over the phone from her office in L.A. "I loved music, but I didn't feel that that was my career choice. Up until that one show playing with my dad. And he knew it, too. After we had played, he just said, 'You know, I can't deny what you already know. I had no idea.' And I said, 'I didn't either.' I said, 'Daddy I want to go out on tour with you' … I never stopped and never really went back to school."

Growing up in the Bay Area with a father who played with Santana and whose band backed Stevie Wonder, Sheila E. emerged out of fertile musical ground. That fateful concert day at 15 years old soon led her to tour with the likes of George Duke, Herbie Hancock, Lionel Richie and Marvin Gaye. Her best-known partnership was with Prince, with Sheila E. providing backing vocals on "Erotic City" for their first collaboration. Prince wrote the title track for her debut album, The Glamorous Life. The two worked on each other's projects for years, with a brief engagement in the late '80s. They remained friends until Prince's death in 2016.

But just because all these names fall easily from her history, doesn't mean Sheila E.'s rise was easy. She was a female drummer without precedent, working without any known contemporaries.

"There wasn't a gender attached to [me and my siblings] until later on," says Sheila E., whose two brothers also play. "[It wasn't until] I became a professional musician did I realize that it was rare to see other women. Actually, there were none."

She was a singer and percussionist who played timbales, and labels didn't know how to categorize her.

"And that was the problem with me doing my album when I signed to Warner Brothers because they didn't understand what I wanted to do," she remembers. "I was going to front my own band playing timbales and incorporating my percussion into the music. And they're like, 'What are timbales?' So we ended up doing a small little showcase at Warner Brothers to show them what I did."

We caught up with the now Grammy-nominated multi-hyphenate in the middle of her summer tour, just before her stop at the Halifax Jazz Festival, to ask about five songs that have changed her life.

"If it wasn't for these artists, and what I went through or was able to experience, it wouldn't have made me me," she says. 

'I Got You (I Feel Good),' James Brown (1965)

"Let's see, if I was in the second grade, it was 1965 probably … someone was playing ['I Feel Good'], I was outside playing [laughs] ... and immediately —  what cut through, the first thing, were the drums. I was amazed by how the drums sounded, and the horns, and I didn't know who it was. I was like, 'Oh my God, those drums sound amazing. I want to play drums,' you know? I don't know what it was. I just remember hearing it from our neighbour's window. 

"And then we heard it on the radio as well … I mean, we didn't have a drum set, my dad didn't play drums. But that song just hit me with the drums [laughs]. I mean, that caught my attention … and I didn't even know basically what it was called. But it was a snare drum. And the kick drum, that was what I could hear from the street. And I just thought, God that sounds so cool. And I just thought, it'd be nice to play drums."

The Sounds of '66 (entire album), Sammy Davis Jr. and the Buddy Rich Big Band (1966)

"Again, early on, this was one of my favourites: Sammy Davis Jr. and Buddy Rich, The Sounds of '66 album. And my dad brought that home. And I ended up learning the whole album. Sammy Davis Jr. started with this long monologue because it was live in Las Vegas. And this monologue, I learned from the beginning. And probably by the end of the week, I learned every single song on that album. I think I was only nine when that happened. Which is crazy, because that's early to be interested in an artist like that, Sammy Davis Jr. But again, my dad brought all kinds of music into the house.

"That moment wasn't because of the drums. It was Sammy Davis Jr. and then the arrangements of the music. Every song had horns ... I didn't know who Buddy Rich was ... I didn't know he tap-danced and he played all kinds of instruments."

'Whatcha Gonna Do,' Azteca (her father and uncle's band) (1973)

"Since we're talking about my dad, it would probably be the Azteca: Pyramid of the Moon album, because my dad then was signed with Clive Davis and he was touring with Stevie Wonder and Earth, Wind & Fire and Temptations. And [Azteca] was very famous. That was the band I ended up sitting in with because his other percussion player got sick and I was playing congas ... and I would say the song 'Whatcha Gonna Do' because that was a song that he had me take a solo on. And that's, again, what changed my life. 

"And my dad had no idea that I knew as much as I did — neither did I —  because the band was so powerful, musicianship-wise, you know? I rose to that occasion, or else I would have failed. I had never played with 18 professionals onstage like that in an atmosphere like that. So that album, that song and that opportunity [laughs]."

'In Time,' Sly and the Family Stone (1973)

"This was hard, because there's a lot of great music in the Bay Area that I grew up listening to, but I would say Sly Stone, any of the Sly Stone albums, but the one that I love because of the syncopated rhythms was a song called 'In Time.' It sounded like it started off with a drum machine. And then it sounded like all of a sudden, the drums are playing on top of that ... and then the rhythm guitar player starts playing the accents with the drummer, and the bass player. And then Larry [Graham] starts playing this funky guitar bassline. It was ridiculous. It's like, to me, just how they started this whole funk thing. Sly was just amazing at doing that. So I had never really heard funk music like that.

"All the people growing up that I listened to, that my dad listened to, from Miles Davis to Mongo Santamaria, Tito Puente, my dad's band. And then we grew up listening to nothing but Motown music on the radio, and then growing up in the Bay we had Sly, we had Santana, Grateful Dead. Tower of Power — I mean, it's endless. Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, Creedence Clearwater. We got to hear all that music and sometimes, we would go to their rehearsals, which was, you know, totally awesome at a young age to be able to just kind of hang out and see these bands play."

'Congo Bongo,' Fania All-Stars (1976)

"I was thinking in the Latin department and salsa again, Tito Puente was an inspiration and my godfather, and Mongo Santamaria, those albums my dad brought early on, seriously when I was five and I remember my dad playing and practising to them all the time. Instead of saying all of those artists separately, once they put together a band called the Fania All-Stars. It mixed all of my favourite Latin artists together. It was an all-star band and most of them were all on Fania Records. And from Tito Puente to Mongo Santamaria to Ray Barretto. Celia Cruz, Johnny Pacheco, I mean the list goes on. Willie Colón. Rubén Blades, they are all in that band. 

"And it was ... from 18- to 25-piece because we had horns and two, three percussion players. Sometimes two conga players, a bongo player, timbale player, three singers, you know, then the special guest. It was just incredible. So the Fania All-Stars but it's hard to pick one album from them, I actually had to look it up. And I remember the Live at Yankee Stadium. It was a song called 'Congo Bongo,' which featured Ray Barretto and Mongo Santamaria.

"I think that was in the '80s, because I was out on tour with my solo [album] out, with 'The Glamorous Life.' So I think it was around that time that I heard it. I mean I was definitely influenced by all of them early on, but I was trying to think of something later on. Because, again, all the music I was influenced by was early on in my years. And it really made me the musician, artist that I am. And that changed my life, really."