Sheila E

Sheila E. was born on 12th December, 1957 in Oakland, California, as the daughter of Pete Escovedo and Juanita Gardere.

She has a rich musical background with famous musician  Alejandro Escovedo as her uncle, Tito Puente as her godfather, while being the neice of Javier Escovedo, founder of seminal San Diego punk act The Zeros, Coke Escovedo, who was in Santana and formed the band Azteca and Mario Escovedo, who fronted long-running indie rockers The Dragons.

Her father Pete Escovedo, who was a famed percussionist as well, passed on his legacy to his daughter. She was briefly engaged with Prince in the ‘80s.

At the age of 19, Sheila E. debuted with jazz bassist Alphonso Johnson in the album “Yesterday’s dream”.  Only at the age of 20, she had already performed with famous musicians and artists such as Diana Ross, Lionel Ritchie, Marvin Gaye and George Duke.

After joining The George Duke Band, she made her appearance on several of Duke’s albums. After that, she joined Marvin Gaye as his percussionist.

Her own debut album “The Glamorous Life”, released in 1984, is certainly one to remember. The album had reached the 7th rank in the top 100 hottest songs and the video to this song brought three MTV Award Nominations. She also received two Grammy Awards.

Working together with writer Demetrius Ross, she released another album, The Sex Cymbal, in 1991. Unfortunately, she was unable to promote and tour for this album as she was semi paralyzed by playing drums for longer periods of time due to which the album faced low sales.

Through the ‘90s, she played with many artists including Japanese pop singer Namie Amuro and even Phil Collins. Since then she has appeared in Beyonce’s video “Work it out” and played drums for many hit albums. Sheila E. began recording her seventh album, Icon, in 2013 and released it in UK.

She provided the percussions for the orchestral soundtrack of the superhero movies “Superman – Man of Steel” and “Superman Vs Batman: Dawn of Justice”.

Sheila E. has announced that there will not be any hologram of Prince during the Sunday’s Super Bowl performance. Justin Timberlake, who was setting up the late superstar’s hologram for his halftime show performance in the super bowl, reached out to Sheila after her announcement.

According to Sheila, the hologram of Prince was not allowed for religious reasons. “And then Justin’s Manager reached out to me and we had a long conversation” she stated. Timberlake’s reason for setting up the hologram was that he admired the late star.

It isn’t uncommon for A listed celebrities to be presented as holograms but Sting stated that he didn’t want his likeness to be presented in such a way.