NEW YORK — As a percussion protégé growing up in the Bay Area, Sheila Escovedo would ask visiting bands if she could sit in. She was often told to beat it.
“They’re looking at me like, well, ‘You’re a girl. Go away.’ They would push their hand like, ‘Get out of here,’” Escovedo recalls. “I was told: “You’re a girl, you can’t and you won’t and you don’t. And there’s no way.”
Escovedo, thankfully, found a way, becoming Sheila E., the Grammy-nominated, gold record-making drummer who collaborated with Prince, performed at the Academy Awards and supplied music for soundtracks, mammoth sporting events and world tours.
She and other women in rock have faced similar disbelief and hostility.
“I think that the common thread for women in general, and especially being in the music business is really staying true to who you are and allowing that to be OK,” she said.