An overly-eager artist being welcomed into the industry is taken on a bumpy ride as she learns life does not have as many sunny days as she thought. Within the process, she comes to learn that her tour guide is a lot more important to her than she e...
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June 6, 1986 Detroit, Michigan
I was on a high. I was on a high, speeding down a road of fame and success in the most positive direction I could. The money was coming in and the music was going out. I had a rapidly moving transactional relationship with my label and I was beginning to wiggle out of the royal box they questioned putting me in. Besides, Sheila did the job all too well. I wasn't needed to play that role and thankfully, they were easing up quite quickly as many of the benefits remained as a long lasting effect.
You can say I might've been driving down this road a little too fast in a bubble of excitement that may have grown a little too big. When it popped, I was immediately reminded to slow down. I was speeding and the bubble pop needed to catch my attention so God gave me a real big one.
"Cancer causing?" I shouted the phrase for a second time as I repeated the doctor's words back to the man who was sent to deliver me the bad news. I was talking to my uncle, who had on his manager hat. It was nothing more than laryngitis but the mention of it becoming cancer left me spooked to a new degree.
My voice sounded like a busted motor engine struggling to push a car an inch forward. I felt it creeping up on me after doing the first show with Prince and the band earlier in the night. My throat ached as it grew scratchy in through the late ends of the show but luckily I was only a vocal additive to Prince's later end of his set.
The day before, in a separate rehearsal for the tours, I fought tears away as they neared. Prince forced me to stop the moment he heard me in soundcheck. I wasn't budging until he called in my uncle, pointing out the flaws he heard in my vocal performance out of genuine concern. It took a lot to get me to see a doctor but I told them between sets that I'd only go if it was after the show. I still didn't sound too out of my element and that's why I felt finishing the show was in grasp. My thought process spoke in a tone of a simple question: Anything for the music, right?
"Shhh, he said don't talk." My uncle said to me. We're at the venue getting ready to in Detroit but look who's going to be sitting on the sidelines. "He said that's worst case scenario, which you will have to don't follow his directions."
So, according to this doctor my vocal cords were so worn out that they started swelling. Thus, leading to me sounding like I've been smoking since the night I was conceived. I had a bad cough too, it was all just terrible. Prince took me off the line up for a week, the week of his birthday show! We'd already planned to sing HappyBirthday and all of that but look at me now. I had to send home my glam team since I won't even be on stage until July. I'll be sitting in the crowd like everyone else.
After the show and doctor visit, my night was ruined as I made my best attempt at figuring out what to do after a warning was issued to me. If I pushed my voice any more than I already did, I had a chance of cancer developing on my vocal cords. You can't just tell a singer that and move on. I was in disarray for the rest of the night, sitting in my hotel just playing my guitar as if that'd calm me down in any way. Not only could I not sing, I was advised against playing any wind instruments as well. I could've thrown my flute in the dumpster behind the hotel at that point.
