Sheila E. carves unique path to music stardom

There can’t be too many better ways to ring in, or rather drum in, the New Year than with Sheila E. at Blue Note Hawaii.

The “queen of percussion” has been on a (drum) roll through pop music for four decades, starting with those heady days of the San Francisco Bay Area rock scene of the 1960s and 1970s, several more years of an exhilarating and fruitful partnership with Prince, and more recently with a revival and recognition of her career and talent.

She’ll be at the Waikiki nightclub for a series of shows today through Monday, New Year’s Eve.

“It’s a rollercoaster, but wow, what a great ride,” she said in a phone call from Minneapolis, one of three places she considers her base along with Los Angeles and her original hometown, Oakland. “I just turned 61 a couple days ago, and I feel like I’m on the next journey of my life, and it’s starting out incredible and I’m having a great time.”

IT ALL started back in the 1960s, when the daughter of percussionist Pete Escovedo would sit in on the informal jam sessions that would spring up in their Oakland, Ca., home. As a toddler, she would imitate music she heard on television and mimic the motions of her father, who performed with the likes of Santana, Herbie Hancock, Woody Herman, Tito Puente and countless others in addition to his own Azteca band.

Pete Escovedo, who will join her for her Blue Note Hawaii performances, knew the hardships of a pop musician’s life. Despite his success, he tried to steer her towards classical music with violin lessons, in the process unveiling a quick study and an innate musicianship.

“I actually played violin for five years, and I was offered scholarships and everything,” Sheila E. said. “I went from just playing violin to first-chair violin, and I did all this without reading music, which was not good. But my ear was very quick, and if you played something once I could immediately play exactly what you played.

”I thought it was a blessing that my dad said go do it, initially, but when you’re a kid, you think, ‘Who’s going to want a carry a violin? It’s not cool to carry a violin.’ But I really loved it, and it opened things up. My dad brought up so much diversity musically to the house, like, ‘Now I’m learning classical music, it’s pretty awesome.’”

Her music career was also helped by living in the Bay Area, then a focal point of popular music. The list of local influences reads like a “who’s who” list: “Carlos Santana, Grateful Dead, Sly Stone, Tower of Power, Poynter Sisters. … And then our radio was diverse as well. Listening to Motown, James Brown, Stevie (Wonder), and then you have Jefferson Airplane, Chicago. It was amazing.”

Sheila E. would get her first break on stage as a 15-year-old, going on tour with her father’s band after his conga player got sick. Fans went crazy over her energy, artistry and sultry beauty.

BY THE time Sheila E. was in her 20s, she was playing with some of the greats of Motown, also one of her musical passions. She appeared on stage with Lionel Richie, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross and others, and eventually formed her own band.

Her association with Prince began well after she had an established career. They met at a club in San Francisco, where he had gone to record his first album out of respect for artists like Sly Stone and Carlos Santana, and soon they were fast friends and soulmates.

“He would fly in and I would show him around, and of course I introduced him to the family,” she said. “The first time he saw our family play together, he just freaked out, like, ‘I just don’t know where you guys came from!’ And he was so proud, because he wanted to do the same thing with his dad, who was a musician too.”

That story would later underpin Prince’s Academy-Award winning film “Purple Rain.” Sheila E. would tour the accompanying album with Prince, often taking the spotlight with her virtuoso solos on timbales. Offstage, they bonded as well, not only romantically but musically in the studio, with Sheila E. becoming, in effect, an in-house, on-the-spot studio producer for him.

“He trusted me to be in the studio with him because I grew up trying to figure out how to be a studio engineer,” she said. “I started buying my own equipment early on. Every time I got money, that was what I invested in – the stereo system, the microphones, the two-track, the eight-track. Anything I could get to learn how to record.”

Prince was also influenced by her fearless, never-say-never attitude, which she attributes to her upbringing.

“He thought I was crazy, which I am, and I thought he was crazy too, so we got along well,” she said. “My parents raised me in a place where ‘no’ means opportunity. And so all the ‘nos’ I got growing up, that was like, ‘If you’re not going to let me in the front door, I’m going to get through the back door.’

“It was that aggressiveness to survive and thrive, and it was that survival (mentality) that he was attracted to.”

Her drive, along with a strong belief in God, has carried Sheila E. through some tough times. In recent years, she revealed that she was abused as a child, starting at age 5.

During her career, she had to deal with a collapsed lung, and a paralyzing condition traced to playing drums on stiletto heels.

Still she remains relentlessly positive.

“People think failure is a bad thing, but failure is not, it’s how you learn how to do the right thing,” she said. “Failing ‘forward’ is a good thing.”

FOR HER appearances here, she is especially excited to play with her father, a late addition to the band. Pete Escovedo is 83 and still going strong, with an album “Back to the Bay” recently nominated for a Grammy.

“He surpassed me on one of his videos, so it’s like, ‘You’re never too old,’” she said.

Also, expect classics like her signature “The Glamorous Life,” and “Sister Fate,” with their dancey Latin beat. While some might want the full catalogue of Prince hits that they collaborated on, she can’t promise that, saying his death two years is “still surreal for me.”

“I try not to think that he’s gone,” she said. “There are some things that I can’t look at or listen to. I just try to heal in a different way. … There are a lot of great memories, good and bad.”

Her recent work has taken on a political, socially conscious awareness, which also has its roots in her childhood, when she was thrown out of middle school for “starting a riot.”

“For me it was something I stood for, which was Martin Luther King’s birthday,” she said.

Sheila E. has performed for three presidents – Carter, Ford and Obama, producing a Latin music special during the Obama presidency that was nominated for an Emmy.

Visiting the Obama White House was a particularly emotional moment for her – she is part Creole, she said, and has African-American heritage – and caused her to sob with joy.

Her most recent album “Iconic: Message 4 America,” consists of protest-era, but uplifting songs: “Everyday People,” “What the World Needs Now is Love,” and a sweetly gentle version of the Beatles’ “Blackbird.” The album was prompted by Donald Trump’s derogatory comments about Hispanics.

“There was a lot I wanted to say,” she said. “No one’s ever heard me say the kind of things I really want to say; like not just peace and love, but what’s on my mind and what’s in my heart.”