Sheila E. to pay tribute to Prince at Chumash Casino concert

Prince was more than a friend to drummer, percussionist and singer Sheila Escovedo — better known by her stage name, Sheila E.

The “Purple Rain” rock star was her musical collaborator, her mentor, her tour mate. Prince co-produced her first two solo albums and released another via his own label, Paisley Park Records. The two were even briefly engaged.

So when she learned of Prince’s death on April 21 due to an accidental prescription drug overdose, Sheila E. immediately sat down with her guitarist, Mychael Gabriel, to create a sweet tribute to The Purple One: “Girl Meets Boy.”

“It was written in about an hour. It was one of those (songs) that just happen,” said Sheila E., who performs Thursday at Chumash Casino Resort in Santa Ynez. (Another act with close ties to Prince, Morris Day and The Time, plays the casino’s Samala Showroom on Sept. 29.)

The daughter of percussionist Pete Escovedo and the goddaughter of Latin jazz legend Tito Puente, Sheila E. grew up in the Bay Area immersed in music. Her uncles include percussionists Coke, Javier and Mario Escovedo, and her brothers, Juan and Peter Michael Escovedo, are also musicians.

Despite her instrumental pedigree, “I wasn’t going to be a musician. I didn’t think it was going to be my choice of a career at all,” Sheila E., 58, said.

In fact, when her father first suggested that she play violin, “I was like ‘Are you kidding me?’” recalled Sheila E., who was 9 at the time. Nonetheless, she took violin lessons for five years, immersing herself in classical music.

Even though she had no formal training in the genres that would shape her personal sound — funk, soul, pop, Latin and R&B — Sheila E. developed her signature drumming style by watching her dad play.

“He’d do something and I’d mimic him,” she explained. “I never really practiced. I just watched. And I kept begging people to let me play.”

On one such occasion, Sheila E. played congas with her father and Azteca, the Latin rock-jazz fusion band he started with his brother and Santana bandmate, Coke Escovedo, before a crowd of 3,000.

“My dad asked me to take a solo,” Sheila E. recalled, and the experience “literally changed my life.”

“It pushed me to go to a place where I had never gone before,” she said. “It was like an out-of-body experience. I just started shaking and crying. I had never felt anything like this before.”

Afterwards, she told her father, also visibly shaken, that she wanted to be a musician. “Two weeks later,” Sheila E. said, “I was going out on tour.”

Asked if she was prepared for the challenges that lay ahead of her, she replied, “Not at all.”

“I knew what my dad went through and how hard it was — the hours and the traveling and all that stuff,” she said, but she didn’t quite grasp how difficult life on the road would be..

Nor was Sheila E., who also plays guitar, ready for the pushback she’d encounter as a female musician in a male-dominated industry.

“Everyone in the Bay Area accepted me. It was the norm,” she said. Outside of Oakland, however, it was a different story.

That didn’t stop Sheila E. from building her reputation as a session musician, playing with the likes of Marvin Gaye, Lionel Richie and Herbie Hancock.

When Sheila E. met Prince in the late 1970s backstage at a San Francisco show, the admiration was mutual. “We traded numbers and became friends,” she told Billboard in April.

The pair initially joined forces for the “Purple Rain” recording sessions. Sheila E. lent her sultry voice to “Erotic City,” the B-side to Prince’s 1984 hit song “Let’s Go Crazy.”

Prince contributed the Grammy Award-nominated title track to Sheila E.’s debut album, 1984’s “The Glamorous Life,” as well as another hit single, “The Belle of St. Mark.” And the percussionist served as the opening act for Prince’s Purple Rain tour.

Prince and Sheila E. teamed up to write and record the chart-topping duet “A Love Bizarre” on her 1985 album, “Romance 1600.” She followed that up with 1987’s “Sheila E.,” featuring the song “Hold Me.”

Although Sheila E. served as Prince’s drummer and musical director for much of the 1980s, she parted ways with his organization in 1989.

“Things were changing, the new music he was writing didn’t feel right for me … and I just didn’t want to be around him,” the drummer told Billboard. “We both took it hard. It was the hardest (breakup) I ever had because I had to break up with my best friend.”

A few years later, the two began performing together once more. According to Sheila E., their relationship remained strong over the decades as she released a handful of solo albums, including 2013’s “Icon,” and worked with artists including Beyoncé, Gloria Estefan and Ringo Starr. She also published a memoir, “The Beat of My Own Drum,” in 2015.

Prince’s passing came at a time when she was already reeling from the death of her aunt. “It was a devastating month for me,” she said.

As she reminisced on a “lifetime” of friendship with Prince, she canceled her plans to release a dance album this spring in favor of creating a double album that would pair those fun dance songs (“Girl”) with some slower funk tunes (“Boy”). The title track of “Girl Meets Boy” was released two months ago; the album is due out later this year.

“When your heart is passionate about something, or a tragedy happens in your life, you have things you want to share,” Sheila E. explained. “As songwriters, we get the opportunity to share those thoughts through music.”

This story was originally published September 13, 2016 at 10:01 AM with the headline "Sheila E. to pay tribute to Prince at Chumash Casino concert."