Sheila E: All in the family

Sheila E was coming to Minnesota for a wedding this weekend so she decided to bring her family band along -- not to play at her godson's reception but to do a rare club engagement.

"We are gigging a lot lately," she said of the E Family, which features her father, Latin jazz legend Pete Escovedo, 72, and her two brothers, Juan and Peter Michael.

"It's almost like coming into our living room," Sheila, 49, said recently from her Los Angeles office. "We don't rehearse because we just play by ear. That's what's so cool, because it's very spontaneous."

Saturday and Sunday at the Dakota Jazz Club, the E Family will play tunes from its forthcoming debut album, "Love's All Around," which features such special guests as Joss Stone, Gloria Estefan, Earth, Wind & Fire, Alejandro Escovedo (Sheila's uncle) and Prince, of course.

Will people hear Sheila sing "Glamorous Life" and the other hits Prince produced for her?

"They might," she said, "if they yell and scream it out loud enough."

Sheila is well known to Prince fans. She met him in 1978 when he was recording his debut album in Sausalito, Calif. In 1984, she recorded the first of her three albums that he produced, and then she drummed in his band from 1987 to 1989 for the "Sign o' the Times" and "Lovesexy" albums and tours.

"Musically, we have a bond; we understand each other," she said. "There's times we get out of the way and sometimes we get in each other's way. But I think the respect that we have for each other works."

Olympic dreams

Sheila Escovedo grew up with musical instruments all over the house. Latin percussion giant Tito Puente was her godfather, and her dad was a big-time percussionist who played with Santana, Puente, Cal Tjader, Woody Herman and his own band, Azteca.

Three of his four children became percussionists.

"That's Pop's fault," said Sheila with a laugh. She took violin lessons for five years as a child in San Francisco. "We grew up listening to him play around the house. He practiced to records all the time. And if his band wasn't rehearsing, they'd have jam sessions in our living room all the time. So pretty much the percussion instruments -- timbales, congas, bongos, hand toys -- were set out in the house as part of the furniture most of the time."

"It was an overwhelming experience because I'd never been able to express myself in that way," she recalled. "To be onstage with 16 musicians in a band signed to CBS in front of 3,000 people -- for me, it was as if there was an out-of-body experience. If this is what heaven was supposed to feel like, then I wanted to feel like this every day. When I was done, I opened my eyes and the people were roaring and giving a standing ovation. I don't remember the solo. I looked at Pops and he looked at me, and his mouth had just dropped open.

"When we got offstage, he said, 'I can't deny you what you already know. I don't even know how you know all the things you just did tonight.' I said, 'I didn't know either. What happened?'"

Then and there, Sheila knew that she had to accept percussion as her calling.

From Celine to Ringo

Over the years, she has compiled a staggering résumé, having worked with Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, Herbie Hancock, Celine Dion, Poison, Mariah Carey, Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston, LeAnn Rimes, Gloria Estefan and Ringo Starr (she is the only artist to be invited on three of his All-Starr tours). She also was the bandleader on Magic Johnson's talk show in 1998 and a judge last fall on Fox's "The Next Great American Band."

Her website also focuses on some lighter subjects, including Sheila's obsession with shoes. There is a gallery of some favorite high-heels. How can she play drums with those 5-inch heels?

"When my back went out in 1990 -- in Minneapolis, I think it was -- that was it; I had to stop playing in heels as far as the drum set," she said. "Playing timbales in heels, it doesn't bother me. I like to stand tall and play standing up like that."

Tonight, she'll be wearing some fabulous shoes for the wedding of her first godson, Mychael Davison, son of Prince's former manager Gilbert Davison, who owned the Glam Slam (later Quest) nightclub in Minneapolis. Over the years, she has spent lots of time in Minnesota.

She especially enjoyed fishing on Lake Zumbro. But this weekend, with a wedding and four performances, she doesn't think she'll have time to wet a line.