Sheila E. talks about Paisley Park dust-up and her two new albums
After nearly five decades in the music industry, Sheila E. has done something this year she's never done before — dropped two new albums at once, each with a curious twist.
1) She's delivered her first salsa album even though she doesn't speak Spanish.
2) She's selling a new R&B album, "Hella Fonke," exclusively at concerts because, she figures, streaming doesn't pay.
The salsa album, "Bailar," has been in the works for five years. She's enlisted some A-list collaborators, including Gloria Estefan, Ruben Blades and Gilberto Santa Rosa.
"It's probably one of the best records I've done in a very long time," said E., who returns to the Dakota in Minneapolis for three nights this week. "To do a record of salsa for the first time in my life was very challenging. It was a project. I don't speak Spanish and so singing in Spanish is challenging."
Moreover, E. (it's short for Escovedo) was concerned about the precise rhythms because salsa "is totally different than Latin jazz," said the lifelong salsa dancer. Yet, she wanted to make it authentic with a bit of her own Oakland R&B/Latin jazz flavor.
"Bailar" actually started as an R&B album. She had 10 to 15 songs that she shared with co-producer Tony Succar and "we flipped them to salsa" with new arrangements. She also covered three salsa classics as tributes to Tito Puente, Celia Cruz and the Fania All Stars.
"I actually played drums on the second half of the Celia Cruz song," she pointed out. "No one plays a full kit on a salsa record. And I wanted to take a drum solo and that's never been done, either. Again bringing those elements of who I am."
"Hella Fonke" is her new R&B album with her group the E Train, which will accompany her at the Dakota. She's selling CDs only at her concerts. The music is not available on her website or any streaming services.
"I don't like streaming. It's horrible. It's really something that has destroyed the music industry," said the 66-year-old, who has released 10 solo albums, the last four on her own Stiletto Flats imprint. "As far as people getting paid, 1 million streams is something like $3,500. When there's six of us writing the song, we have to split it six ways. The numbers don't add up and make sense."
At the Dakota, she will showcase "Hella Fonke," maybe a couple of salsa songs and, of course, such 1980s favorites she recorded with Prince as "The Glamorous Life" and "A Love Bizarre." The set list will not include "Girl Meets Boy," her 2016 posthumous salute to Prince.
"That's a hard song to sing," she said. "It's too emotional."
Paisley Park dust-up
E. was in the news when on Prince's birthday on June 7 she showed up unannounced at Paisley Park and wanted to film herself in Studio B. Security staffers said she could shoot footage only in the soundstage or merchandise area.
"As far as any of us, especially me, I'm part of that legacy, as well. Studio B was my studio," she told the Star Tribune. "I walked the ground when [Paisley] was dirt, Prince and I hand in hand, in heels, stepping over dirt — 'Here's Studio B and here's the kitchen' — until that place was built. You have people there [now], some of them weren't even born when Paisley was built. All of it is ridiculous."
So E. "spoke the truth" on Instagram back in June.
Paisley Park responded to her post: "We love and respect you, and we did offer for you to come in and film in the soundstage or other areas, but we couldn't allow filming in the studios without prior knowledge and planning, especially with tours going on at the time. We hope to have you back to Paisley Park in the future — just give us a heads-up!"
Londell McMillan of Prince Legacy LLC said this week Prince had a very express policy not to record in Studio B. "It doesn't do anyone any good to have hard feelings or disputes in public posts when we can communicate and resolve any misunderstandings," he said. "We respect the relationship that Sheila had with Prince through the years."
Sheila was still upset when recounting the incident more than a month later.
"I've been in that place from the beginning to just about the end. I've recorded so much music there. I lived there off and on. I slept there. My clothes were made there. My percussion and drums are in there. I want to get my gear back. I've got tapes, they say 'Escovedo' on it; not even Sheila E. There's no excuse. I have hundreds of songs in the vault."
Would she have handled the situation any differently?
"Absolutely not," she said. "I should have a key to the back door. Are you kidding me? I know you're going to print that in big letters. It's ridiculous."
Long Prince history
Sheila Escovedo's connections with Prince run deep. They met in 1977 when she was playing with George Duke and promised to work together someday. She not only recorded her debut, "The Glamorous Life," with him in 1984 but she was the main performer at the post-"Purple Rain" movie premiere in Hollywood in July that year and the opening act for his Purple Rain Tour.
E. was overwhelmed at the movie post-premiere party, with too many celebrities and MTV cameras making the first-time singer nervous.
"I remember having a malfunction in my outfit, so it was making me more nervous," she said. "
She had a similar unnerving experience at the beginning of the Purple Rain Tour. After getting sick rehearsing at Met Center in Bloomington, she headed for the opener in the Motor City.
"The first night in Detroit I lost my voice," E. said. "The second night we played there, all the sound system went out during my performance. So, I just grabbed the bass player's bass and started playing through the amp. There were 20,000 people booing."
Prince waved the band offstage. It took 20 minutes or so to fix the sound system and Prince told Sheila that she didn't have to perform but she insisted. "Went out there," she said, "and got a standing ovation."
Something she did back in 1985 gained notice this year in a Netflix documentary, "The Greatest Night in Pop," about the all-star recording of "We Are the World" to raise money to fight hunger in Africa. Producers invited her, a relative neophyte, to sing on the session with superstars like Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson and Tina Turner because, unbeknownst to her at the time, they wanted her to help lure a reluctant Prince to sing a line.
At the time, E., when she wasn't on tour, was living with Lionel and Brenda Richie in Beverly Hills. Brenda convinced Sheila that she had to go to the recording studio after the "American Music Awards."
"I felt like I wasn't that star that I needed to be in the room. It was my first time being a solo artist," she said. "The biggest thing to me that night was playing the 'American Music Awards' and talking to Dick Clark and the producers making sure they could turn the lights off for my [illuminated] drumsticks. They didn't want to do it."
In retrospect, after finding out her "We Are the World" mission was to try to convince Prince to show up, E. felt betrayed. "It was very hurtful. Because those are my friends and they used you for that. That's not cool. That's showbiz."
E. played drums with Prince, on the "Sign o' the Times" and "Lovesexy" albums and tours in '87 and '88, on three more albums in the '00s and at his three concerts in Minneapolis on July 7, 2007.
Over the years, she's amassed a stellar resume including playing with Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, Ringo Starr, Beyoncé, Cyndi Lauper and others. She appeared in the movies "Krush Groove" and "The Adventures of Ford Fairlane." In 2020, she served as music director for the CBS special "Let's Go Crazy: The Grammy Salute to Prince" concert.
All her work earned her a lifetime achievement award at the Latin Grammys on the same night her father, percussionist Pete Escovedo, received the same recognition, in 2021.
"My dad and I made history — the first ever father and daughter to receive it. For a very long time, we felt the Latin community didn't welcome us. At the first Latin Grammys, we walked down the red carpet and no one would speak with us because we didn't speak Spanish. That was heartbreaking to get rejected when you get ready for the first ever Latin Grammys. I was so happy for him. I cried like a baby."
Sheila E.
When: 6:30 and 9 p.m. Thu., Fri. and Sat.
Where: The Dakota, 1010 Nicollet Mall, Mpls.
Tickets: $65 to $75, dakotacooks.com.