One of the greatest legacies of the late\/great Prince is his ability to spot and nurture talent. Amongst his accomplishments was building a galaxy of stars from his collaborators and backup performers. Instrumentalists who have had the honour of performing on his records often were rewarded with solo success on their own, with the help of His Royal Badness. <\/p>\n
One of the brightest and most enduring figures of his stable of protegees is Sheila E. (born Sheila Escovedo), a drummer and vocalist who played on some of his most iconic hits. Daughter of legendary percussionist Pete Escovedo, Sheila E. was a bright star in Prince\u2019s band. Gorgeous and prodigiously talented, her success as a solo pop star seemed inevitable. <\/p>\n
Her debut album The Glamorous Life<\/i> is a swirling, contradicting, messy record that feels both of its time and timeless. It sports an interesting sound that straddles post-disco dance-pop, funk, and R&B. Though Sheila E. is an important figure and talent in her own right, Prince\u2019s musical fingerprints are all over the place: from the tight, swinging funk of the instrumental \u201cStrawberry Shortcake\u201d to the smeary, sexy ballad \u201cNoon Rendezvous\u201d and especially in the eccentric, prancing \u201cOliver\u2019s House\u201d his influence is obvious. He also penned the lyrics to the entrancing, funky title tune (which would end up being Sheila E.\u2019s biggest solo hit). <\/p>\n
But even if Prince is all over the album, it would be a mistake to discredit Sheila E. as a cipher. As a drummer, she\u2019s one of the most sought-after musicians in the business and her genius skills on the skins are on display on the album \u2013 most notably in the solo on \u201cThe Glamorous Life\u201d or on the Prince-penned opener \u201cThe Belle Of St. Mark\u201d (predictably, the best songs on the album were written by Prince) Though her vocals aren\u2019t necessarily the strongest, she has loads of charisma. <\/p>\n
The Glamorous Life<\/i> is a cult-classic of the 1980s that introduces a fantastic talent and is an important album to emerge from the burgeoning Minneapolis sound that pioneering New Wave and disco-influenced funk and pop\/rock during this time. The Glamorous Life<\/i> predicted and acted as a seeming blueprint for Janet Jackson\u2019s Control<\/i> (another record to be born out of the fruitful Minneapolis sound and Prince\u2019s expansive musical empire) and is a brilliant spin-off of Prince\u2019s brilliant discography.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":34230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[10604],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-46063","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-sheila-e","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/93"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46063"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46063"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}